241311 From building capacity to building power: Lessons for public health pedagogy

Tuesday, November 1, 2011: 8:55 AM

Makani Themba Nixon , The Praxis Project, Washington, DC
Cheryl Grills, PhD , Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA
The very idea of capacity building, though often necessary and important, is a bit presumptuous. We work with people, with communities to draw out their assets and expand upon them – if we do it well – in order to help them gain greater power and agency over the institutions and systems that affect their lives. This session explores a model developed through the work of Communities Creating Healthy Environments (CCHE), a capacity building initiative that supports community organizing and policy advocacy to address childhood obesity in 22 communities and indigenous nations nationwide. It's unique, community-led policy development process; focus on grassroots organizing; and culturally competent capacity building is part of a shift in practice from focusing on organizational development and support toward a more expansive orientation toward movement building. This session will explore emerging lessons from this multi level collaboration that, from application process to evaluation, has sought to forge a collaborative “action space” where everyone is both teacher and learner accountable to each other as agents of change.

Learning Areas:
Advocacy for health and health education
Assessment of individual and community needs for health education
Conduct evaluation related to programs, research, and other areas of practice
Diversity and culture
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Public health or related public policy

Learning Objectives:
1. Compare traditional public health capacity building methods to movement building frameworks 2. Analyze the deficit model underlying most capacity building and its colonial roots 3. Define social justice capacity building from a movement building framework 4. Describe the intersecting impacts of privilege, race, gender, class, culture and long term marginalization on the field of capacity building

Keywords: Community Building, Social Justice

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have been publishing and teaching in this area for more than 20 years. I have been serving as Evaluator for the initiative featured.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.