1. PHASES OF COMMUNITY
ORGANISATION
Anjana Peter
MSW 1ST Year (2019-2021)
Dept. of social work
Vimala college,Thrissur

2. Phases of community organisation
 Community organisation is a scientific method to
works with communities.
 It aims to provide help to the members of the
community to identify different dimensions of their
needs, resources in their environment, building
capacity and meeting the needs through organised
efforts.
 Here, community is treated as the client and identify
and fulfil its developmental needs on a priority basis.
 In actual practice some of them may overlap or occur
simultaneously depending on the nature of the problem
and community characteristics.

3. Community organization process moves through
certain distinct phases.
 STUDY
 ANALYSIS
 ASSESSMENT
 ORGANISATION
 ACTION
 EVALUATION
 MODIFICATION AND CONTINUATION

4. 1.STUDY
Study is the most important aspect of fact-finding.
The community organizer or the agency takes steps to
understand the community, its needs and problems
comprehensively.
 A study means simply a specific systematic inquiry or
investigation in respect to social welfare phenomena
with the purpose of applying the results to social
welfare practice.
The community organizer use different types of study
methods, such as:

5. A. Pilot study: Pilot study is a brief and exploratory study. That
determine whether a larger study should be made or what would
be involved in such a larger study.
B. Descriptive study: The community organiser studies the problem
in a descriptive manner.
C. Analytical or evaluative study: This study not only describe, it
also analyses and interprets the data. It also evaluates
performance and appraises an agency’s program, standards,
operation or administration.
D. Path finder study: The path finder study is usually made in a
smaller community. It is a form of analytical study.

6. OUTLINE TO IDENTIFY THE MAJOR CHARACTERISTICS OF
A COMMUNITY
IDENTIFICATION:
 Name of the community.
 In what block, district, tehsil, or municipal area is the community located.
 What is the population? Number of houses, families, castes.
 Does the community correspond identically or approximately with a
governmental unit: City, state, etc.? If so, give name and type of unit.
 Classification: type of community, for example – tribal, rural, urban, etc.
 What are the major geographical characteristics of the community?
 When the community was first established?
 Note any significant figures about birth or death rate in the community.
 What is the main occupation of the members of the community?

7. RESOURCES:
 Note any special features of interest in regard to the following types of
community resources.
 Economic
 Educational
 Health and medical
 Recreational and leisure time activities
 Welfare and civic
 Religious
 Housing and community facilities-public water hydrants, street-lights,
post-office, dispensary, transportation, other utilities, etc.

8. PROBLEMS:
 Are there problems in the community (as seen by the workers/ as
felt and mentioned by the community)?
 Are there special problems concerned with any minority groups?
 Are there significant conflicts or tension situations in the
community

9. 2.ANALYSIS:
Analysis lies between fact-finding and planning.
It is the breaking up of a problem, situation or collection
of data and the explanting of the content and examining
and setting forth of various aspects and relationships
involved.
The purpose is to gain insight and understanding,
particularly, to understand the content better, by
dividing it up on some logical basis and to understand
the relationships involved in the content.
 Analysis is one of the typical methods of dealing with a
problem in a community.

10.  The following suggestions indicate the possible ways of applying
analysis:
I. What is the problem -Describe the problem situation. How long
has it existed? Its setting & back ground – historical, socio
psychological.
II. Who are the persons or groups involved or concerned with the
problem. What personality factor, attitudes, beliefs, prejudices
etc. are significant.
III. When is the problem? Immediate? Or in the future? Temporary
or long range? Is there a time limit for a achieving a proposed
solution?
IV. Why this problem? What would happen if nothing is done about
it?

11.  Another ways of doing analysis:
1) Classification
2) Comparison.
3) Chronological analysis.
4) Organisational analysis.
5) Financial and statistical analysis.

12. 3.ASSESSMENT:
During assessment the community organiser assess the
nature, causes and magnitude of the problem and how
many number of people are affect by this problem.
 It is the stage in which the situation in the community is
appraised of. We make evaluations of the conditions in
the community.
 The problem’s identity, its location and its magnitude is
expressed. Analysis of the causes- economic factors,
political pressures, institutionalized values, and attitudes
that contribute to the problem.
Another integral part of assessment is resource
assessment. This involves cataloguing all actual and
potential resources for dealing with the problem.

13.  Dimensions of assessment:
The nature of problems.
The coping capacities of those involved.
The relevant systems involved.
The available and needed resources.
The motivation to resolve problems.

14. Forms of community assessment:
• Community assessment is the process of identifying the
strengths, assets, needs and challenges of a community.
According to Spradley the various forms of community
assessment methods are:
Comprehensive Assessments
Assessments of a familiarisation nature
Problem- oriented assessments
Subsystem assessments

15. Comprehensive Assessments:
• Encompassing the entire community
• Methodologically thorough generating original data
Problem- oriented assessment:
• Involve entire community but centre one problem-
child abuse, drug use among youth.
• Analysis of the political environment, an assessment
of the community’s readiness to deal with the problem
and a measure of resources the community has to deal
with the problem.

16.  Assessments of a familiarisation nature:
A cursory examination of the entire community, with the goal of
achieving a general understanding.
Subsystem assessment:
Examining a single facet of community life, such as agricultural
sector, business sector, service agencies, and migrant labourers.
Resource assessments:
Power, expertise, funding and service.
Social workers need to look for informal and formal resources-
services.
Preparing resource inventories, directories.

17.  Methods of assessment:
Surveys
Focus groups
One-on one interviews
Walkabouts
Public meetings

18. 4.Organisation:
 The community organiser must relate the person and facilities in an
organised manner.
 The roles and responsibilities of the community members must be clearly
defined.
 Organisation is defined as the establishment and allocation of functions
and relationship and the integration of effort for the achievement for a
central purpose.
 According to Dunham: “Organisation means orderly arrangement of the
group effort to provide unity of action in the pursuit of a common
purpose”.
 Organization as two aspects which are complimentary –
1) Breaking up the work, and
2) seeing that the parts thus established operate in unity to achieve the
common purpose.
 Organisation implies the conscious integration of human efforts. Formal
or informal organization can be done.
 Organisation should be done so as to facilitate people’s participation.

19. 5.Action:
 Thinking of various possible courses of action.
 Analysis of the course of action in terms of cost, efforts,
consequences, effectiveness, acceptability.
 Selecting the best possible course of action.
 Analysis of the problem solving structure and process.

20. 6.Evaluation:
 The effectiveness and the achievement of the goal is evaluated at
the evaluation phase.
 It helps to locate the shortcomings and the failures of the
programme.
 Evaluation can be internal or external. The internal evaluation is
conducted by the community organiser and the external evaluation
is conducted by the experts.
 The major purposes of evaluation are:
a)To measure whether goals and objectives could be achieved.
b) To understand the mistakes which have occurred.
c)To learn about the hurdles and obstacles encountered.
d)To draw lessons for future interventions.

21. e) To see what strategies and techniques were successful and
which were not.
f) To develop guidelines for the continuation or modification of
the programme.
 Evaluation should be completely objective and based on the
objectives of the activity/intervention.
 Apart from the achievement of physical targets the
improvements in cooperative and collaborative attitudes,
skills and increased capacities and confidence also should
be assessed.

22. 7.Modification and continuation:
 After evaluation, we can make some modifications and changes in the
implemented programmes.
 We can mobilize the resources or can change the present programmes
for attending the issues.
 Usually community problems are not easy to solve at one attempt. If
partial achievements are made or if some of the objectives have been
achieved and others not achieved, evaluation would help the worker and
the community to make changes in the current strategies.
 Based on the findings of evaluation, changes/improvements can be
made in the plan of action to ensure the achievement of objectives in the
next attempt.
 Again based on the evaluation, the community can decide whether to
continue or terminate the process. Community organization process
needs to be continued if the achievements have not been complete or
some other dimensions of the problems need to be tackled. On the other
hand, the process can be terminated if the community feels that
whatever has been intended has been achieved.

23. Conclusion:
 Community organisation is an important method of social
work. The social workers use community organisation
method to work with the communities. This can solve the
problems of many people in the community through their
collective effort. Through various phases of community
organisation, the community organiser understands the felt
needs of community and helps the people to meet their
needs.

24. References:
 Arthur Dunham: Community welfare organization: Principles
and practice, Thomas Crowell Company, New York,1958.

25. THANK YOU