How did communities in North West England respond to the COVID-19 lockdown? Findings from a diary study (original) (raw)
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Covid-19 and community development
Community Development Journal
This is a brief response to Rosie Meade's editorial in the Community Development Journal (55, 3), which identifies challenges to community development presented by the Covid-19 pandemic. As Rosie comments, while the implications of the pandemic are unpredictable, the crisis is infiltrating every aspect our lives. As I write this at the beginning of May, 2020, we are still living in a context of fear and panic. In this short piece I want to reflect further on some of the implications of the pandemic for community development, focussing on the Global North. I will begin with the community responses to the pandemic. There have been several contradictory responses. What has happened in the era of Covid-19 is that in regard to macro strategies, bottom-up decision-making per se has been jettisoned, as governments, medical experts and public health officials construct policies and apply them without the participation of the citizenry at large. In general, citizens have been prepared to relinquish power to the state to regulate social interactions, given that there is evidence that the draconian policies of social isolation and social distancing have been effective in stemming the proliferation of the virus. At the same time as ceding power at the macro-level, communities have been taking responsibility for their own well-being at the micro level. There are different ways in which they do this. In initiatives that are consistent with community development, communities are involved in spontaneous efforts to shore up social connectedness. The use of social media to check on isolated friends, the practice of dropping provisions at neighbours' doors, and
2021
Summary The current COVID-19 pandemic confines people to their homes, disrupting the fragile social fabric of deprived neighbourhoods and citizen’s participation options. In deprived neighbourhoods, community engagement is central in building community resilience, an important resource for health and a prerequisite for effective health promotion programmes. It provides access to vulnerable groups and helps understand experiences, assets, needs and problems of citizens. Most importantly, community activities, including social support, primary care or improving urban space, enhance health through empowerment, strengthened social networks, mutual respect and providing a sense of purpose and meaning. In the context of inequalities associated with COVID-19, these aspects are crucial for citizens of deprived neighbourhoods who often feel their needs and priorities are ignored. In this perspectives paper, illustrated by a varied overview of community actions in the UK and The Netherlands, ...
People in a pandemic: Rethinking the role of 'Community' in community resilience practices
Geoforum, 2023
How has the idea of community featured in attempts to build resilience to emergencies? The paper explores this question by presenting evidence from interviews with emergency responders across the world in the midst of the early and uncertain phases of the Covid-19 pandemic. Although reflecting different contexts, we discern two ways in which the notion of community featured in authorities' narrations of their efforts to respond to the pandemic. Firstly, we demonstrate how community was deployed as a discursive mechanism that offered a particular framing of the vulnerabilities the pandemic instigated. Departing from accounts that reduce people's identities to demographic categories, the deployment of community stressed that the pandemic's effects should be understood by the different, yet coexistent, vulnerabilities it brought to the surface for people. Such renditions of vulnerability paved the way for styles of governance that prioritised adapting to the pandemic's uncertain and indeterminate unfolding in the absence of prepared plans. Secondly, addressing a register of collective social life between individuals and the state, an emphasis on community engendered the decentralised arrangement of emergency governance with which resilience has become synonymous. Here, community proved pivotal in temporarily expanding resources to deal with an emergency whose effects threatened to exceed governments' pre-existing capabilities. We substantiate this claim through examining how allusions to community worked to enrol non-state based efforts at response into a broader public security apparatus. Enveloped within the broader politics of emergency resilience, community shaped how the pandemic's effects were understood whilst also ensuring adequate provisions for its governance.
Community Organising in the Social Distancing Era of Pandemic
International journal of social work, 2023
Community organisation is one of the social work methods striving towards creating a self-reliant community built on community action promoting a collaborative and cooperative attitude facilitated by collective consciousness. COVID-19 pandemic created constraints on social work practice, especially community organisation. The pandemic affected the world irrespective of class, creed, race, and sex, and the possible remedy suggested is social distancing and social isolation. Social isolation prevents an infected person from accessing community services and communication. Social distancing is a measure that promotes community members to physical distancing and later restricts all interaction with the assistance of virtual platforms. This challenges the practice of community organisation that promotes sustainable development incorporating balanced growth of four capitals that have interplay among economy, society and environment. The practice of social distancing nurtured a distancing consciousness against the human nature of communitarian living, which demands addressing issues related to mental health, public health, economic life, and a safe environment. These challenges pave the way for community organisation's creative and constructive practice, forming a virtual community rooted in volunteerism built on an existential approach. It thus facilitates meeting the needs of individuals and communities in the distanced era, and resource mobilisation both internally and externally, and networking serves as the best tool for the same. However, this requires revisiting and re-reading the current philosophy, principles and values of community organisation and adapting new strategies where the community organiser is challenged to opt right approach that blends micro, meso and macro, which aims at collective consciousness enhancement. The key to this positioning of individuals and community is to focus on its strength, i.e., a strength-based approach, but without ignoring that the situation is the determinant of the approach.
Community participation for COVID-19 pandemic preparedness and response: A systematic review
Research Square (Research Square), 2022
Community engagement is an integral part of any preparedness and response to an emergency. Therefore, community center approaches must be developed during public health emergency preparedness and response. The main objectives of this systematic review were to identify existing evidence of community engagement and participation in relation to COVID-19 pandemic and to better prepare for potential future outbreaks in the local context. Methods Databases searched included PubMed, CINAHL, and CABI. Grey literature sources included greylit.org, opengrey.eu, worldcat.org, and evidenceaid.org. Individual international organization, national government and non-governmental organization (NGO) websites were also searched, both directly and using the Google site search. Results The results of this review indicated that community engagement is very essential for the COVID-19 pandemic preparedness and response. By involving communities in COVID-19 preparation and response, the health sector can avoid the emergence of cases that would worsen the pandemic. Engaging communities should play a central role in COVID-19 pandemic preparedness responses by building trust and allowing the community to enter in the system starting from the designing and planning of emergency preparedness and response. Conclusion Community engagement is very crucial for effective community response and preparedness. Concerned bodies should immediately set up speci c community engagement taskforces to ensure for effective pandemic response and preparedness. It is very crucial build the capacities of local stakeholders in supporting communities to respond to different health challenges and threats. The results indicate that new approach for large-scale community engagement in future epidemics and other health emergencies.
Social infrastructures for the post-Covid recovery in the UK
Department of Anthropology, London School of Economics and Political Science, 2021
The central conflict facing policymakers, the voluntary sector, and communities during the Covid-19 pandemic has been how to keep safe from a virus that is transmitted by social contact while also providing vital support to those in need. This report shows the innovative ways people and organisations have responded to this challenge. They have adapted and built new networks of kinship and care within and between families, friends, and communities. We call these "social infrastructures" and this report shows that economic life and pandemic recovery relies on the strength of these foundational relations. It presents the findings from 12 months of ethnographic, participatory, and quantitative research. In the UK, local and rapid response initiatives saved lives as voluntary sector, religious organisations, and Community Champions built on these relations of care to provide mental health advice, sign-posting to services and vaccine uptake. These innovative social projects also helped people to grieve and recover from losses of life and livelihoods. We argue that both short-and long-term investment in these interlinked social infrastructures is crucial for post-Covid recovery in the UK.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Community engagement, such as participating in arts, nature or leisurely activities, is positively associated with psychological and physiological wellbeing. Community-based engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic facilitated informal and local mutual aid between individuals. This rapid evidence review assesses the emergence of community-based arts, nature, music, theatre and other types of cultural engagement amongst UK communities in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, we focus on all community engagement with a sub-focus on provisions accessed by and targeted towards vulnerable groups. Two hundred and fifty-six resources were included that had been created between February 2020 and January 2021. Resources were identified through Google Scholar, PubMed, Web of Science, MedRXic, PsycharXiv and searches for grey literature and items in the public domain. The majority reported services that had been adapted to become online, telephone-based or delivered at a distance from doorst...