Unearth Hidden Assets through Community Co-design and Co-production

互联社区计划背后的推动力之一是帮助社区变得更强大、更有弹性和更自力更生，以便他们能够适应和发展，即使在经济衰退等困难时期。最近的研究表明，在社区主导的发展中良好地利用共同设计和共同生产可以支持社区建设，因为参与性方法鼓励自助和积极的行为改变，并在社区内建立新的网络并加强现有的网络。在社区主导的开发中有效地使用共同设计和共同制作可能会使参与的群体难以获得创造性和实用的解决方案。然而，在社区主导的开发中成功地使用共同设计和共同制作仍然很少见。在大多数情况下，人们并没有真正被视为共同决策者或共同开发者。在社区主导的发展项目中，大多数参与仅限于咨询实践。专家指出，参与活动不应侧重于确定需求、问题和不足，因为这可能使人们以消极的眼光看待他们的社区。更有用的做法是集中于一个社区拥有的资产（例如自助团体），并探索如何动员它们创造新的机会。因此，我们对“基于资产的社区发展：ABCD”概念感兴趣，该概念从发现隐藏资产的自我映射练习开始。对我们来说，这些积极的原则将支撑我们共同设计和共同生产的方法，因为它专注于与社区合作以实现持久的变化。虽然最初的ABCD概念旨在识别资产以创造新的经济机会，但我们对如何发现隐藏资产特别感兴趣-目前大多数社区成员未承认的资产（例如边缘化成员的声音）。我们想知道为什么一些社区参与活动包括/排除某些社区成员。什么条件能促进/阻碍社区参与？重要的是要探索实际和情感上的障碍，例如可能导致偏见和耻辱的种族/文化差异。尽管先前的研究表明，期望社区所有成员的参与程度相同是不现实的，但有必要确保社区参与活动的设计方式能够让活跃的成员发光发热，而不会让不太活跃的成员感到被冷落。探索如何切实增强社区主导建设的包容性。我们还对探索资产映射练习如何帮助我们理解社区的组成感兴趣。我们的想法是了解一个运作良好的社区的构成，并以此为榜样，激励其他社区发挥其潜力，帮助他们朝着运作良好的方向发展。我们的提案的主要贡献和创新元素是使无形的（人员，资产和社区组成）可见，以便它们可以以包容的方式为社区创造新的机会。因此，该项目的目标是“通过共同设计和共同生产，找出如何实现包容性的基于资产的社区发展。”在第一阶段，我们将尝试不同的共创技术（例如社区电影制作和社区主导设计），以找出哪些共创活动包括或排除哪些群体，以及哪些活动可能识别哪些类型的资产（例如经济、社会或文化资产）。我们将与社区合作，从以前的ABCD项目中学习，反思我们以前的社区参与经验，确定潜在的障碍，并探索如何解决这些障碍。我们从试点不同的共同创作活动中学到的东西将有助于我们制定第二阶段的议程和方法，并规划包容性的共同创作活动。

One of the driving forces behind the Connected Communities scheme is to help communities become stronger, more resilient and self-reliant so that they can adapt and thrive even in difficult times like the economic downturn. Recent research showed that good use of co-design and co-production in community-led developments could support community building, since the participatory approach encourages self-help and positive behaviour changes, as well as create new networks within the community and strengthen existing ones. Effective use of co-design and co-production in community-led developments could get hard to reach groups involved and come up with creative and practical solutions. However, successful use of co-design and co-production in community-led developments is still rare. In most cases, people are not truly treated as co-decision makers or co-developers. The majority of engagements in community-led development projects are confined to consultation practices. Experts observed that engagement activities should not focus on identifying needs, problems and deficiencies, as it could make people look at their communities with negative lenses. It would be more useful to concentrate on assets that a community possesses (e.g. self-help groups) and explore how to mobilise them to create new opportunities. As a result, we are interested in the 'Asset-Based Community Development: ABCD' concept, which begins with the self-mapping exercise to uncover hidden assets. For us, these positive principles will underpin our approach to co-design and co-production, since it concentrates on working with communities to achieve lasting changes. While the original ABCD concept aims to identify assets to create new economic opportunities, we are particularly interested in how to uncover hidden assets - the assets that are currently unrecognised by most community members (e.g. voices of marginalised members). We would like to find out why some community engagement activities include/exclude certain members of the community. What are conditions that enable/hinder community engagement? It is important to explore both practical and emotional barriers, e.g. ethnic/cultural differences that could lead to prejudices and stigmas. Although previous studies suggested that it is unrealistic to expect the same level of participation from all members of a community, there is a need to ensure that community engagement activities are designed in ways that allows active members to shine without making less-active members feel left out. We will explore how to practically make community-led developments more inclusive. We are also interested in exploring how the asset-mapping exercise might help us understand the makeup of a community. The idea is to understand the makeup of a well-functioning community and use it as an example to inspire other communities to realise their potential and help them move towards becoming well-functioning. Our main contribution and innovative element of our proposal is making the invisible (people, assets and the makeup of a community) visible so that they can be utilised to create new opportunities for communities in an inclusive manner. Hence, the aim of the project is 'to find out how to achieve inclusive asset-based community developments through co-design and co-production.' In Phase 1, we will try out different co-creation techniques (e.g. community film making and community-led design) to find out which co-creation activities include or exclude which groups and which activities are likely to identify which types of assets (e.g. economic, social or cultural assets). We will work with communities to learn from previous ABCD projects, reflect on our former community engagement experiences, identify potential barriers and explore how to address them. What we learn from piloting different co-creation activities will help us shape up the agendas and methodology for Phase 2, and plan inclusive co-production activities.