Greater Worcester will be a great place to be born, grow up, learn, live, work, raise a family, grow old, and participate in community life.
To promote shared learning, reflection and broad engagement that will improve community decision-making and quality of life for residents of Greater Worcester.
1) to create shared learning by diverse residents and key institutional stakeholders on vital issues of the day, as identified by indicators
2) to purvey a consensus set of community indicators and benchmarks.
History
The Community Wellness Coalition as well as Pathways to Progress both identified, via independent processes, each including public input, community priorities reflected in the indicators of community well-being put forth in the Pathways to Progress report. Each organization recognized it was working toward Healthy Communities principles, with neither experiencing hoped-for progress. When the two organizations came together in the merger process, representatives on the task force identified a lack of civic engagement as the higher order problem underlying their lack of traction in addressing the identified priorities. Such recognition is consistent with national trends. This new entity addresses the need for a more streamlined, coordinated, diverse and inclusive effort to address the community priorities identified by each original organization.
Activities
Two sets of activities have been designed to make a vital contribution to the region’s civic infrastructure in terms of the goals outlined above.
1. Convening: to promote effective citizen and organizational discourse leading to informed action using an array of civic forums, formats and events; facilitate broad-based resident/organizational representation in identifying a common set of community indicators; proactively assure access to participation in the local democratic process for diverse groups and individuals; build the relationships and connections essential to its role as a catalyst for positive change; produce a platform that is neutral, hosted and facilitated with integrity, and advances/models Healthy Communities principles; and celebrate effective community actors/actions and promote best practices and effective models.
2. Purveying indicators: to serve as a central repository of credible and timely measures of community health and quality of life; present data at the regional, municipal and neighborhood levels (as available) with baselines and benchmarks; make available highly visible, widely shared, easily understood and broadly used markers via hard copy and on the World Wide Web; broaden the resident base of decision makers regarding what data are accessible, gathered and examined; encourage partners to set goals, surface emergent issues, track trends, and communicate implications; facilitate strategic planning, resource allocation and evidence-based decision-making in the community; and support shared responsibility and “performance compacts” with community entities.
The number of communities seeking to develop and use indicators has grown significantly over the past decade, and indicators have become a core tool for hundreds of community improvement processes across the United States (and the world). Projects using sustainability, quality of life, healthy communities, and other frameworks for organizing improvement efforts have all included indicators as a central component of their change strategy.
While some indicator initiatives still approach community indicators primarily as a tool for directly informing particular decisions, participants in these processes are increasingly seeking to create a civic infrastructure that promotes a more informed, inclusive form of evidence-based decision-making. Participants in selected community indicator efforts have been able to:
§ Explore and create a better understanding among participants about the different legitimate ways of viewing or defining the “system” and how the system “works”;
§ Identify and come to agreement on the various and valued outcomes, goals, and visions community members have regarding the system;
§ Engage each other in discussions about what information should be collected and reported;
§ Become more informed about where data/information resides, who collects and why, and how to access, interpret, and disseminate that information;
§ Come together to discuss what that information means for the community;
§ Develop new relationships and networks;
§ Develop new understanding among community members of each other and key issues affecting the community; and
§ Discover new abilities among individual citizens and community organizations.
The learning and capacity-building effect, often viewed as secondary or intangible, can be the most significant and potentially powerful contribution to community change from developing and using indicator systems. From the simultaneous development of shared meaning and stronger networks of caring and trust, action has emerged and been sustained in ways no one in the project would have predicted.
Thus, Common Pathways’ focus on indicators as catalysts for shared learning leading to aligned action is consistent with the specific propositions emerging from practitioners and action research worldwide. It also builds on the capacities of Greater Worcester community residents and organizations to learn and adapt as they engage in efforts to improve community well being. It is this notion of community learning that may provide the most potent (and measurable) opportunity for creating a stronger, healthier and more resilient regional community.
For more information on Common Pathways, contact:
Clara P. Savage, Coordinator, Central Mass. Center for Healthy Communities
Phone: 508-438-0515