Using community development for prevention in Appalachia

Abstract

The long-standing commitment of field instructors, and students to adapt West Virginia University's School of the strategy of community develop Social Work to the Appalachian region ment to prevention in this region. The and its problems provides the context authors acknowledge the limitations of for efforts by faculty, agency-based this method as a means of achieving fundamental change in the political Robert A. Porter, Ph.D., is Professor; and economic life of a community.1 John A. Peters, MSW, is Assistant Nevertheless, the strategy of commu Professor; and Hilda R. Heady, MSW, nity development provides a viable is Instructor, School of Social Work, framework for achieving major goals in West Virginia University, Morgana community's level of health. Current town, West Virginia. The authors wish theory and research in community to thank Gary L. Theilen, Associate health emphasize altering lifestyles, Professor, Beatrice Hunter, Robert inducing the management of organi Musick, and Scott Moyer Field Inzations t0 reduce stress in the work. structors; and Douglas Mead and Roger Couglan, graduate students, for place> and clT^ fcial structures as their contributions to this article. A ways of enhancing both physical and version of this article was presented at mental health.2 the Annual Program Meeting of the The experience of the School of So Council on Social Work Education, cial Work indicates that many of the Los Angeles, California, March 1980. limitations of community develop ment—such as its emphasis on con sensus and avoidance of conflict—are not inherent in the method but lie in the constraints that organizational auspices impose on developmental ac tivity. Moderate conflict seems to be a normal dynamic of community life that may serve an integrative function to be nurtured rather than avoided.3 Conflict can be debilitating if ignored or strengthening if used as the focus for problem-solving efforts. Moreover, although many community problems are local extensions of structural de