ASSESSMENT 2: JOURNAL REPORT

Introduction

This reflective report will shed light on the learning outcome that I have gained from this semester which is based on the understanding of community work. Along with that, the skills that are needed to work in the communities are also included this semester. 

In this paper, I will reflect on my learning of three modules of the community work topic. There will be a discussion about understanding of communities, Different approaches to work in communities and various skills to work in communities. 

In the reflection of the modules, there will be a discussion on what I have learnt and why I have written in that in the weekly journals. I will find out in this report how the learning have influenced my thinking, emotion and feeling as to how the learning has impacted on me. In addition, there will be a summary at the end which will sum up all the important points of this report. 

Analysis

Module 1: Understanding community

In the first module, we have gathered primary knowledge about the community. In lecture 1, I have come to about community work. Community works are mainly based on the health and human services which aim to develop the situation of the communities (Edgar, 2001). On the other side, social care is also linked with community work as health and wellbeing are also considered in this area (Rogers, 2016). In lecture 2, I have achieved knowledge about the understanding of different components of the community such as place, interest and social system. Community places are based on the geographical location, physical space and others. Community interaction theory depicts that in the structure of the community, building networks and relationships are the kinds of things that work well. However, in lecture 3, I have gained knowledge about Community work from an aboriginal Australian perspective. I assessed my understanding of community and community work in week 3. Lecture 4 was about community capacity. Community capacity is actually the combination of Community resource's capacity which is used in community work. 

I have felt that in order to understand the concept of community in detail, these learnings have helped me a lot. Therefore, it is obvious that they are more than the information as it helped me clear my improper knowledge. I have come to know that community work is related to health and human service. Therefore, community works have the utmost importance in society (Taylor, Wilkinson & Cheers, 2008). In community work, social care is one of the important components which is mainly performed in the community development, family welfare and in other areas. In order to develop a society, community work is important for the countries. That is why the community is considered as a 'social system'. Through this module, I have learnt in detail about working in communities. This learning is important for me as I have gained knowledge about the capacities of working in the community. Different Dimensions of community capacity depicts the components that are needed to work in the community. I have come to know that besides skills and knowledge, commitments, resources and other things are equally needed to implement the community work plan effectively. Hence, it could be stated that these learning has helped me to understand the concept of community precisely rather than gaining only information about the community. In Day & Rombie (2017), the state of a prison person has been observed.  

The learning regarding community has impacted highly on my thinking, emotions and feelings, more sharply in my mind. I had very little knowledge about the community; therefore, this learning has changed my thinking about the community completely. I have felt it is necessary to be involved in community work because, in this way, an individual can develop skills and knowledge by providing service to the people who need it most. The learning about the aboriginal community of Australia has impacted me highly as I have worked on it in this module. Aboriginal teenagers and kids are also not treated properly (Smith, 1991). I felt that before working on them I needed to gather knowledge about the aboriginal community of Australia. Therefore, I came to know that in Australia, aboriginal peoples are those who are inhabited in Australia Britain started to colonize the island. After the detailed investigation about them, the poor quality of life of aboriginal people in Australia has made me emotional. However, this module has made me think that in order to implement a community work plan appropriately, I need to have Resources, social networks, leadership ability and many more things.

Module 2: Approaches to community

Module 2 was based on the topic approaches to community. We have covered this module from week 5 to week 7. In week 5, I have learnt about different approaches to community work. I came to know that there are four approaches such as contributions, instrumental, community development and developmental. The example of the contributions approach is Voluntary donations. On the other side, the instrumental approach is majorly known as 'Top-down' approach. As per this approach, professionals have the power to determine processes (Ma et al. 2018). In the lecture of week 6, I have learnt community frameworks like Interactional community development, participative development, asset-based development and others. Interactional development is a conceptual approach which uses the community interaction theory. This theory emphasizes on the relationships and interactions between the individual community groups. In week 7, I have learnt about the government approaches to working with communities. Community engagement helps to develop and maintain productive relationships among all the communities (Kline et al. 2018). In community service development, government and non-government organizations play an explicit role by working together in delivering community service and programs. I have learnt about community engagement.

The understanding of the approaches to the community is also an important learning session which is more than the information. There are mainly four types of community approach. I realized from my learning that community approaches are highly dependable on the community needs, government directives and capacities. All four type approaches are important for my learning because they all are different and their policy, service, outcomes and other things, all are separate. Therefore, I have gained vast knowledge about community approaches in this module. I came to know about a number of Community frameworks in this module which are important to understand the concept of the community more sharply. Participatory development in decision making of this module has enabled me to understand the process and importance of participative development in community work. I was not aware of the benefit of participative Decision making, this learning has helped me in this case to understand the importance of participative decision making. Eversole (2015), provided his view about the importance of partnership in community development. In community work, the government plays a vital role in development. However, I have observed that in order to link with the close community, non-governmental organizations are more successful. However, in Pride, (2014), was based on Gay activities which are another aspect of the community. 

Like module 1, module 2 has impacted equally in my thinking, feeling emotions. I have realized in the contribution approach; participative decision making is very low. Instrumental is another community approach which depicts that professionals have the power to determine the process of community work. However, this detailed Knowledge about community approach has helped me to think and understand the community approaches precisely. The learning about the community framework has made me understand the process of development of social care programs with the help of community work. I have realized the needs of social care programs through this module. I have felt that in the context of Australian society, social care programs are needed highly in order to develop the society. According to Maton et al. (2003), in order to develop a society, it is to invest in the communities. Along with that, community engagement is equally needed in the proper implementation of community work plans. I feel that community engagement will enable me to develop my skills and knowledge by working across the community. The learning of this module has helped me to understand the community approaches. I have felt in order to develop the Community by a proper work plan; both governmental and non-governmental organizations need to take initiatives. Weir (1991), it has been found that Brutal realities of the Second World War affected the Australian soldier. Community development is needed in that area also. According to Ife, (2016), community development is highly in the modern world. 

Module 3: Working with community

In module 3, I have achieved knowledge about working with communities. In week 8, I learned about participative decision making. Regarding this, Bouwmans et al. (2017), stated that it is to an extent which encourages people to participate in the decision-making process of the organizations. In the community, participative decision making has been seen in the community advisory group, board of management and in other areas. Week 9 was based on community partnerships. In simple words, the partnership is the collaboration of the organizations in the community to maintain the community works more properly. There are two types of Partnership such as internal to the community and external to the community. Groups within the same sector belong to internal communities such as school, principal, teacher or hospital, nurse, ambulance. On the other side, different community groups such as government agencies, developmental organizations and others belong to external communities. However, in week 10, I have understood the concept of community leadership. According to the view of Martiskainen (2017), community leadership, a leader represents a whole community and resolves all the issues of the people of the community. On the other side, relational leadership is based on the multi-directional influence where followers are more active and they are much more active than the Leaders.

The learning of module 3 is important for me as I have achieved knowledge about community leadership, Skills that are needed to work in the community plan and so on. I was not aware of the community leaders and their skills. I have gained knowledge about the key aspect of community leadership. I came to know about the roles of community leaders. Weeks et al. (2003) stated that community practices are very important in Australia. A community leader needs to identify a common purpose, needs to focus on the people and the person needs to have the capability to bring people together for the particular purpose. That is why I have realized that this module has provided me with not only information but a detailed understanding of community leadership. However, I have learnt about group decision making in this module. The structure of Group decision making in a community is different like a community Advisory group, board of management and others. In these groups, decision making, meetings and other things are generated in different ways. In this way, I have gained detailed knowledge about this topic which is not only information but a broad concept.  

Through this module, I have learnt about the skills and competencies that are needed to work in the community plan effectively. Therefore, this module has made me think about the deficiency of my skills and competencies that I need to improve to do the community work properly. This module has impacted my thinking about a partnership as I have realized that in community work partnership is very important. There are some community projects where the partnership of the organizations is beneficial to achieve the goal easily (Januarti et al., 2019). Apart from this, I felt that community leaders play an important role in community work. Community leadership can be categorized as shared leadership and gender leadership which I came to know from this module. However, Kenny (2006) stated that better future, community development is needed. I have found out that there are few challenges too in the community leadership that needs to be addressed in order to implement the community work plan properly.

Conclusion

This reflective report is based on my learning about community work topics. I have achieved vast knowledge about this topic through three modules. In this report, I have reflected on my weekly learning about the concept of community work. I have realized that I gained not only information through this learning, but detailed knowledge which will help me in my future work. This learning has impacted highly on my mind. I came to know about the aboriginal community of Australia and I felt that community work is necessary for the development of the societies in Australia. The overall learning has helped me to gather knowledge about different components of community work.