Promoting Strengths, Prevention, Empowerment and Community Change (SPEC) principles in community based practice. A presentation prepared for community practitioners and students at Barry University.

1. Promoting Strengths,
Prevention, Empowerment and
Community Change (SPEC)
principles in community based
practice
Scot Evans
Associate Professor, Department of Educational & Psychological
Studies
Director, Undergraduate Program in Human and Social Development
!
s.evans4@miami.edu @evanssd

2. the human service organization becomes an
arena in which different moral values
compete for dominance
Hasenfeld, 2010

3. 3
community-based human service organizations
often lack frameworks to help guide their
thinking and action (Delpeche et. al., 2003).
Praxis

4. S! P! E! C
Critical practice can be framed by four principles:!
Strengths-based - Acknowledging and appreciating individual and
community strengths helps people thrive, but focusing on deficits diminishes their
dignity.!
Prevention - Preventing ill health and social and psychological problems is
better than curing people who already suffer.!
Empowerment - Well-being requires power, control, voice and choice.!
Community Change - We cannot eliminate problems one person at
a time.We must change conditions that lead to problems in the first place.
Prilleltensky, I. (2005), Evans, Hanlin, & Prilleltensky, (2007)
www.specway.org

5. Changing
how we
work
Deficits
Reactive
Alienating
Individuals
Strengths
Proactive
Empowering
Communities
& Systems

6. strengthsSPEC's strength-
based orientation
identifies and builds
upon individual
and community
assets, resilience, and
ability to thrive in
difficult situations.

7. preventiona lesson from Alaska
We don’t prevent oil spills by scrubbing rocks!

8. As it turns out,
the bridge leading
across the river
upstream has a
hole through
which people are
falling.
www.thinkupstream.net/

9. empowerment
to increase the
power of
individuals,
groups, and
entire
communities
Muhammad Yunus - Grameen Bank

10. Over time, their skills needed to achieve autonomy
have atrophied due to years of exclusion, marginalization
and neglect.
Evans, S.D. (2012). Community leadership. Global Journal of Community Psychology Practice, 3(3), 1-6.!
Murphy, J.W. (2010). Leadership in community- based development. Unpublished manuscript, University of Miami, Miami, FL.
Communities have been conditioned to look to outsiders
and experts for help.
Unfortunately, this belief can get propagated throughout
communities so that residents become unable to see
their own assets and power.
This is exacerbated by the fact that in many current forms
of community development, leadership is thought to best
originate "from above" because a belief that local citizens
lack the necessary talents or ambition.

11. powerem ment

12. power
creating the conditions and opportunities for
community members to see their strengths, build
capabilities, and experience power

13. community change
“No mass disorder,
afflicting humankind,
has ever been
eliminated, or brought
under control, by
treating the affected
individual”!

14. “social service agencies should also engage in
social justice organizing or must be
accountable to social movements if they
are to further, rather than impede, social justice.”
(Smith, 2007)

15. Action Research

16. People and organizations benefit from a reflective process
that creates the learning context through which members
negotiate their different values, attitudes and perceptions.
Suárez-Herrera, Springett, & Kagan (2009).

18. SPEC Check Example:))Early)Educa/on)Pre3school)Program

19. “SPEC-iness”
68%
62%
38%
17%
D
R
A
I
(N)

20. References
Delpeche, H., Jabbar-Bey, R., Sherif, B.,Taliafero, J., & Wilder, M. (2003). Community Development and
Family Support: Forging a practical nexus to strengthen families and communities. Newark, DE: Center
for Community Research and Services.!
Evans, S.D. (2012). Community leadership. Global Journal of Community Psychology Practice, 3(3), 1-6.!
Evans, S. D., Prilleltensky, O., McKenzie,A., Prilleltensky, I., & Nogueras, D, Huggins, C. & Mescia, N. (2011).
Promoting Strengths, Prevention, Empowerment, and Community Change Through Organizational
Development: Lessons for Research,Theory and Practice. Journal of Prevention and Intervention in the
Community, 39(1), 50-64. !
Evans, S. D., Hanlin, C. E., & Prilleltensky, I. (2007). Blending ameliorative and transformative approaches in
human service organizations:A case study. Journal of Community Psychology, 35(3), 329-346.!
Hasenfeld,Y. (2010).“The Attributes of Human Service Organizations”, Ch. 2, pp. 9-32 inY. Hasenfeld (Ed.).
Human Services As Complex Organizations. Sage Publications: Thousand Oaks California. !
Murphy, J.W. (2010). Leadership in community- based development. Unpublished manuscript, University of
Miami, Miami, FL.!
Prilleltensky, I. (2005). Promoting well-being:Time for a paradigm shift in health and human services.
Scandanavian Journal of Public Health, 1-8.!
Smith,A. (2007). Introduction:The Revolution will not be Funded. In INCITE! Women of Color Against
Violence,The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex (pp. 1–18).
Cambridge, MA: South End Press.!
Suárez-Herrera, J. C., Springett, J., & Kagan, C. (2009). Critical connections between participatory
evaluation, organizational learning and intentional change in pluralistic organizations. Evaluation, 15 (3),
321 -342.!