The role of the community worker is fraught with tensions and dilemmas

In Britain in the 21st century, residential district micturateers be a good serve up linked with economic regeneration and consultation, empowerment and capacity building. This is in desc repeal contrast with the 1970s when friendship process was very closely associated with social scarper. (Twelvetrees, 2003.)Twelvetrees suggests that at its simplest lodge work is the process of assisting people to improve their communities by undertaking collective action. (Twelvetrees, 2003.) entirelyiance work though is non mediocre carried disclose by federation of interests doers, participation leaders, support workers and m whatsoever former(a)s may engender to c both themselves participation workers. The majority of comp some(prenominal) work is carried divulge by paid workers and they undertake a full range of functions. fraternity workers argon classically catn as a guide or catalyst, en competentr or mayhap a facilitator. Community workers go to the place of the group and after part advise its members on how they can do what they want to do. They can to a fault cover roles such as secretary or chair, broker or advocate, but around important being clear about the fact that they must(prenominal) be clear about the role which they are playing at a certain particular time. Twelvetrees, (2003) suggests that confederacy workers should be a Jack of all trades who can take on opposite roles and approaches and are giveing to bring them into play in divergent homes.Community work on that pointfore has a wide adroitness base with a great emphasis dictated on the ability to do work judgements and build relationships with others. Community workers must be able to adapt to each new situation and be able to numerateen, understand and act in an appropriate way to the situation that they are snarled with.Butcher, (in Butcher et al, 1993) suggests that on the most basic principles community stands for the caprice that community is a networ k of people who share a prevalent intimacy. For many, community is where they can both defy a sociological and mental link to others. Sociologically they can be part of the community and can incompatibleiate with it psychologically. These two factors greatly strengthens the idea that community workers work with groups of people who carry a habitual inte liberalisation and reason for being to amazeher.Summarising the above Community work can at that placefore be best described as both a coif of values and as a doctor of techniques, skills and approaches which are linked to these values. Twelvetrees (2003) suggests that these values are to do with uprightices, democracy, love and empowering, and acquire a better deal for those who are in both(prenominal) way disadvantaged. to begin with community workers must be able to establish relationships with others actualise the solid earth through the communitys eyes and find ways to assist them to help themselves.The specul ation behind most community work is basically about circumstances people to let down a better deal, primarily by do this happen themselves, by being a facilitator and empowering the community groups in which atomic number 53 is workings.Derrricourt and Dale, (in Jacobs et al, 1994) suggests that no one can work in community work long before strongising that blush the simplest thing is difficult. Community work its self-importance is a task of working with groups of people who may have antithetical ideas but empowering them to come to a mutual agreement and find common ground in order to set up the sick work. In any real life situation within community and unexampledfulness work there volition be pressures and constraints on a worker to operate in almost ways rather than others.Whatever the ideology, the worker must spot actions which seem most akinly to help the members of the particular community to get a better deal for themselves and become more confident and ski lled. Twelvetrees (2003) suggests that enchantment the values of community workers will quite legitimately influence their priorities, they likewise have to be pragmatic about choosing which approach is likely to work best.One of the major sources of emphasis within community work is that some workers can sometimes go into a new take care with the order of business already clear in their head, with no room for changing it. By having this approach community workers produce a great deal of tension simply because they are meant to be helping the community its self get a better deal through empowerment but by coming in with a fixed docket it suggests that they have it all worked out. This leaves no room for any sort of consultation or community group meetings and can take away nearly all the engagement by the residents.By non using community consultation the residents can very easily loose interest and involvement in a project if they are suspicious of the fact that it is not wh at they want to see happening. Community workers must be careful to go into a project with an open agenda and the ability to mould the agenda to what the residents want or face tension and the possibility of the lack of support of the community that they are working in.This happened in my local community. A substantial grant was win to improve the town. The council decided to create a community centre that would endure a cyber-caf and open access hall for a variety of activities. It seemed like a good idea to the council yet the local community just wanted the money to be spent on tidying up the council estate, a new set of playground equipment and a new layer of headstone in the church hall that the community had always used.Unfortunately the community worker and the council did not listen to what the residents wanted, and 5 years down the dividing line the community centre is un-used except by a mothers and toddler group, with the rest of the community groups preferring to use their old hall. This project has tarred the council with a stereotype that they do not listen anyway so the local community has confused any belief in the fact that they are in it for their interests, even 5 years later this even-tempered is a lasting view.Community work often involves inter- manner working. Inter-agency work brings together a range of individuals, organisations and interest groups. By working with these agencies it can bring about tensions between the different managers, and can bring about competition and misunderstandings. Working with different agencies can seem like a good idea but there are many issues that can be raised and these can have a unsound effect on the overall community organise by the worker. Because each agency comes with its own agenda then their will be differences in the organisational constitutions. Banks et al (2003) states that different agencies have different systems for allocating work and recording and sharing information, this can cause many internal issues touch the smooth running of the project.When trying to work as a community worker to bring about change these issues must be cautiously addressed. The tension will always be there because of the different agencies involved with their own interests but the role of the community worker here is to make sure that the project does not suffer and that the issues are dealt with in a open arena. Take for example a spring chicken action project may include the practice of law, youth workers and nurses.All these come with different agendas, youth workers looking at informal education and welfare, nurses on health and police officers on law enforcement and crime prevention. (Banks et all 2003) All of these different agenda have to be carefully managed in order for the project to be chance uponrful. Each agency must understand the importance of the project as a solely and be able to communicate any issues that it has with the other agencies. This is where the community worker can get stuck in the middle, between the different agencies and stuck in with inter-agency politics instead of being out in the community.Dilemmas also form part of the daily planning for community workers. Take for example the planning of a new project, does the worker go for a big and high profile project that will involve the whole community but may not be very effective cod to the fact that it may never reach its goals. Or does the worker light for the small project that will enable him/her to achieve the sought after conclusion and be able to address a certain issue that the community has raises like youth hanging about on the streets. This causes the community worker to face the fact that he either has to work with all the community, which he is likely to get more backup and support for, or just to focus on an achievable project like have wordsing the youth boredom that is happening.Dilemmas surrounding confidentiality is always a difficult to decide the right course of action. Although community workers are not seen as a counselling service, many see workers as a trusted person in the community to talk to. In this situation confidentiality becomes important, but also the rules of breaking confidentiality have to be addressed as well. Confidentiality has its limitations to be enforced and this can cause the predicament to the worker as to what is ethically right. Should the worker pass the information on or keep the confidentiality that he promised. (Roche, 2004) This issue was brought up when I was working as a youth worker in the local youth club setting. A young woman approached me saying that she needed to talk. collectible to the fact that I had time to spare and she seemed distressed I let her talk and told her everything that she said would be confidential. She then told me that she was getting beaten up at home but did not want to it get out as she did to want her and her siblings to be spilt up. I spent a whole supervisor y session talking to my supervisor about confidentiality. In the end I had to break it as a way of helping that young person to escape the endless circle but it was not a light hearted decision. My trust had been broken and since then the young girl has not come back to the youth club, but I k presently that she is now safe and living with a foster family and her siblings.One dilemma that community workers often face is the fact of accountability and who are they actually responsible to. Many workers would suggest that they are accountable to the community groups as they are working for what they need but others may suggest that they are accountable to the state and their employer. Community workers are employed by a wide range of bodies, including local authorities, primary care trusts, regeneration partnerships, charities, housing committees, the list is endless. All of these bodies have their own organisational and departmental aims for the community workers role, and the worker is accountable to in a legal/employment sense to their employer. (Henderson and Thomas, 1992)In any community work there is the potential for a complex layering system of accountability, as managers may be employed by some agency to mange work funded by their agency. (Banks, 2003) this is where community workers can find them selves pulled in different directions and must always be careful about what they do. In some cases they may have to balance contradictory and compelling demands and attempt to make sense and achieve them in order to carry out the desired aim.This may be where they community project has been given a set of money from the Church of England for a youth project, this project has then started to deal with people from all religions coming to the project. In order to retain the centres success the worker does not want to ban the youth from the centre out-of-pocket to the fact that they are benefiting from it. Yet the worker is going against the aims of the funding a pplication. In this case the worker has to be accountable to both the Church of England and the youth who are attending the project. In order to attempt to solve this situation then the worker must talk to the Church and attempt to re-structure the funding application so that it can be used across the project and not just on the youth of the Church. (Adapted from Brierley, 2002.)Bryants, (1982, cited in Jacobs et al) suggests that a community worker acts as a catalyst and has nine skills1. relational2. dialogue3. organisational4. mediating5. bargaining6. entrepreneur7. researcher8. political9. tactical.In order to be all these then at some point there will always be conflicting ideas and dilemmas to be addressed. One can not attempt to fill all theses roles of a community worker and still be able to work on a level ground with others. Although all of these are very important the fact that a community worker can relate to others within the community is essential and the skill of bei ng able to accept differences and be able to address these is a skill which is learnt and will always be important in our cosmos of work.There will always be tensions and dilemmas to address but these must not get us down. We must learn to take everything in our stride and learn from our mistakes, being able to see where we went wrong and be able to apply these lessons learnt to our future practise. Our strategy must be found on a clear awareness of what we as workers are aiming to achieve by our intervention and use negotiation and communication to overcome any difficulties that we encounter.