This paper describes the work of a citizen initiative in British Columbia designed to make communities more welcoming to people with developmental disabilities. It is a personalized account of the author’s participation in guiding the enterprise through its first two years. The paper provides insights into the principles and guidelines that are fundamental to successful citizen efforts to make communities more inclusive and welcoming for all people.

This website contains a wealth of information and resources on community development and capacity building approaches to community work. Also contains a number of links to other helpful websites.

Conceived to help diverse groups work together to accomplish more than they could by working alone, this workbook describes what collaboration is, when it is the best strategy for accomplishing goals, and how to collaborate successfully. The book provides instruction, case studies and worksheets to guide users through each stage of the process of developing and sustaining collaborative partnerships.

This book offers new perspectives that address key challenges facing communities: how to deal with complex issues, engage citizens, and generate civic will to break legislative and bureaucratic deadlock. The book is written to help leaders bring together diverse community members in efforts that lead to real, measurable change. It provides advice, guidance and insight, examines the conditions that make leadership difficult and provides a framework for initiating, designing and implementing collaborative efforts.

This book provides a review of the factors influencing the success of community building initiatives. It synthesizes the findings of community building studies into an easy-to-use reference. The book also contains a glossary of community building terms, a list of resources, technical support for community builders and an extensive bibliography.

This book provides a theoretical examination of how community development can be achieved in social, economic, political, cultural, environmental and personal/spiritual terms. It also demonstrates how these principles can be practically and sensitively applied by those interested in improving their communities.

This chapter provides a good introduction to the concepts of capacity building and collaborative partnerships. It presents a model of the community change process that is referred to throughout the Community Tool Box.

This chapter provides an overview of different factors involved in bringing a diverse group of people, organizations and institutions together to take action on a community issue.

This paper traces changes in the way that the role of culture has been analyzed in relation to community health issues and in particular with respect to ‘community participation’.

This book guides professionals and citizens to mobilize communities to improve their health. It brings together principles and practice of community organization and change. Topics include community change theory and practice; community analysis and activation; intervention strategies; program evaluation, maintenance and diffusion; specific applications to a minority community, smoking and the elderly.

This book presents an approach to health promotion which is first and foremost people-oriented. It discusses the basic elements of a people-centred approach which includes empowerment, organizational and community development, participation, life quality and evaluation, and presents the application of such an approach in practice as illustrated by a series of real-life projects. It concludes with a vision of a society based on people-centred health promotion principles.

Intended for health promoters, this book is a self-teaching guide and a source of ideas for group teaching. It has been updated to reflect recent changes in health care research and policies, and has sections that cover basic ideas and issues of health promotion; moving from theory to practice; and developing competence in health promotion.

Stop, Look and Listen is a self-directed, interactive program in CD-ROM format which can assist community workers to better understand participatory community assessment, planning and development. It takes the user on a journey, using childhood pedestrian injury as an example, to facilitate community action. Community assessment includes identifying the community’s capacities and issues, reviewing community decision-making, planning, intervention and evaluation.