Last week’s webinar from de Beaumont gave attendees the tools to foster meaningful connections in rural areas. Drawing from the recently published Community Power in Practice report and their own experiences, speakers highlighted practical lessons, examples from the field, and recommendations for public health practitioners seeking deeper, more durable partnerships through community power-building strategies.
What is Community Power Building and Why Does It Matter?
de Beaumont Program Officer Sarah Bounse began the webinar by defining community power building. She described the practice as “The collective strength in a community,” enabling “residents, nonprofits, and other individuals…to be part of the decision-making process for the things that affect their day-to-day lives.” She explained that community power building is the slow, relationship-based work of helping people gain real influence over the decisions affecting them.
The report at the center of the webinar was anchored in focus group research that used the IAP2’s Spectrum of Public Participation to identify where participants were on their community power-building journey (from inform to consult to involve to collaborate and ultimately, empower) and where they wanted to go. Bounse acknowledged that much of the work in public health focuses on the inform and consult spectrum stages, whereas community power building pushes further along the spectrum.
Key Findings and Recommendations for Rural Health
Community power building is gaining traction, but often in the form of attention and investment in higher-resourced metro areas. However, the unique assets of rural areas, such as close-knit communities and strong relationships, coupled with distinct challenges like large geographic distances and infrastructure barriers, mean that they could most benefit from community power-building strategies. Those features fueled the desire to better understand what community power building looks like in rural communities and what supports it.
Bounse shared key findings from the report:
- Relationship infrastructure is a core public health capacity. It is essential to ensure relationships with community members are being upheld, developed, and maintained in public health departments.
- Community power building enhances resilience. Communities that embed shared decision making into their organizations more easily weather crises, turnover in staff, and political pressure.
- Rurality is a defining feature. The opportunities that exist in rural communities can be leveraged in community power-building efforts. Those features shapes the challenges that exist, but also the opportunities that exist in a rural community.
Based on these findings, key recommendations include:
- Invest in long-term relationship infrastructure. Invest in time, staffing, and flexible funding to develop a consistent presence in communities.
- Intentionally center communities harmed by health disparities. Seek out people whose voices haven’t been heard or respected and build trust with them. Center their experiences in your work.
- Shift the language. Consider the values that communities care about and use language that amplifies those values.
Power Building in the Field
To bring these findings and recommendations to life, panelists Julian Drix, Bridging Program Director at Health in Partnership, and Sarah Derwin, public health educator at the Marquette County Health Department, shared their community power-building experiences.
Derwin highlighted a real-world example of the power of relationships, recounting a suicide-prevention gatekeeper training she helped organized in her home state of Michigan. She discussed how she used connections in her community to find a location for the training, which led to a community organization funding the event. The organization sent their own members to attend the training, significantly broadening its reach using the power of relationships.
Drix shared their perspective on the importance of engaging with the right audiences when it comes to community power building. They underscored the importance of respecting the structural and historical barriers people have faced that could cause them to lack trust or disengage. Drix encouraged public health professionals to think through the networks and people with whom they need to build trust as a critical first step to building connections.
For more information on community power building, watch the full webinar and read the report, “Community Power in Practice: Research Findings and Recommendations for Rural Health.”
