How to Build Community
Wellbeing in a community context is relevant to our work, due to it’s inherant nature as hub for intersectionality. It is here that we are able to observe, learn, and connect the dots between mental health services and processes or individuals and organizations. We triangulate our framework through people, places, and things. Another way to say this, is that we use systems of value for individual, community, and mental health that include measurements on the state of wellbeing. Scales for quality of life, wellbeing, wellness, positive mental health, placemaking, crime prevention through environmental design - all of these relate to the questions of, “are we okay?” and “how do we recognize/know that we’re okay?”
With that in mind, intentially developing and building community can become more consistent an experience and effectively built upon. Another level of intentional design is the understanding of and planning for particular cognitive bias or hueristics. For example, the “peak-end rule is a psychological heuristic that changes the way we recall past events. We remember a memory or judge an experience based on how they felt at the peak moments, as well as how they felt at the end.” (source) How can you design your processes to reflect this? A potential consideration for businesses might be organizational culture gatherings with a space for milestone celebrations. For a family group, it’s the chat around the meal table or in the car on the ride home. This strategy mitigates the bias because “after developing an awareness for the peak-end rule, it can be further avoided by reframing memories and focusing on positive moments instead of negatives one’s from an event.” (source)
Scales for quality of life, wellbeing, wellness, positive mental health, placemaking, crime prevention through environmental design - all of these relate to the questions of, “are we okay?” and “how do we recognize/know that we’re okay?”
Another consideration is found within the art of public speaking. We can go as far back as the first century with Aristotle’s Rhetoric and the 3 Means of Persuasion, which state that “Persuasion comes about either through the character (êthos) of the speaker, the emotional state (pathos) of the hearer, or the argument (logos) itself.” (source) By designing systems that can maintain a safe ideological space for character to emerge and be activated, acknowledge the truth emotions in the moment, and understand the argument - we can make a strong, consistent impact with our message. When applying this to community development, it can be integrated into your meetings, discovery sessions, and analysis reporting. Make room for roundtable updates (with a time limit), create space for people to step up, and reinforce clear communication processes. Recognize multiple learning modalities and communication styles. Decision making takes time, and breaking down the backstory into manageable chunks ensures that your decision-making group can make informed choices.
Hopefully this helps inspire you to be intentional with your planning and a reminder that community development consists of individual stories. Research, observation, and fact-checking can allow you to pivot quickly and meaningfully during a demanding project. Here’s to supporting your community as it grows into it’s next evolution!
