Overview
in your discussion this week, you will be exploring two issues of community outreach that many sociologists engage with that pose significant challenges. The first issue concerns the type of outreach to groups whose experiences differ from the outreach worker in terms of social identity and personal experience. The second relates to engaging various types of organizations a community outreach project will need to liaise with for funding.
In both situations, you will need to exercise a sociological perspective and have a critical awareness of the difference you bring to the situation; there will be benefits and challenges, and your job as a sociological outreach worker will be to exercise emotional intelligence to understand the needs and culture of the community you are engaging with. You will need to understand stakeholders’ investments (cultural, social, and financial) and know the organizations and their impact on a community outreach project.
In short, you will need to think through the experiences of race, ethnicity, and gender and how intersections of these identities (and multiple identities) can pose challenges and create benefits relative to inequality and discrimination. Make use of your Needs-Based Assessments and Community Outreach discussion from Week 2 when you discussed needs-based assessments, and use what you learned there to shape this week’s discussion.
You can use the community and issue you selected from the Week 2 discussion on needs-based assessments or use one of your colleagues’ selections in this discussion. Then, with your selection in mind, respond to the following prompts:
- How might your social identity benefit community outreach?
- How might your social identity challenge community outreach?
- How did the article Engaging the Community to Effectively Plan and Implement Community-Based Mental Health ProgramsLinks to an external site. deal with challenges to serving its targeted population?
- Where did you note benefits to social identity with its targeted population in the article Transformational Community Engagement in Urban Infrastructure Public–Private Partnerships: A Governmentality Approach to Create Social ValueLinks to an external site.? Focus specifically on how it created social value.
- If you were to create a project to serve your targeted population, what challenges might you face with a private funding source, a nonprofit funder, or a government agency? Which type of agency do you think would be the most beneficial to your target population? Choose one category of organization to use in this answer, and be explicit in your response.
- Networking: How might you best network with your colleagues in class and with your instructor to best engage your target population for a successful community outreach project?
Your initial post should be 250–500 words in length. Overall, engage critically and avoid an editorial stance. Demonstrate your understanding of the week’s material and include your sources from the course material or elsewhere if you do any outside research.