A Community-Based Organization

Abstract

This chapter addresses the broad question of what is a community-based organization. Here John W. Murphy explains how the focus of community-based work is local knowledge and community control of health projects. To deliver services in accordance with these principles, community-based organizations must be instituted. What these organizations require, separate from the past, is a different management style and unique division of labor. Most organizations that are employed to provide health services in a community-based manner, however, have a traditional structure and thus have difficulty fulfilling their aims. A new organization must be created that is consistent with the philosophy that underpins community-based work. Such an organization, for example, would be less hierarchical and not focused on a specific division of labor as in the past.