A Study On The Capacity Enhancement Of Community Self-Organisation Cadres Based On Empowerment Theory

With the modernisation of China’s social governance system and governance capacity,the centre of gravity of social governance has gradually shifted downwards.The report of the 20 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China stresses that we should "improve the governance system of urban and rural communities,and promptly resolve conflicts and disputes at the grassroots level and in the bud.We should accelerate the modernisation of municipal social governance and improve its capacity".As a platform for members of the community to participate in the modernisation of municipal social governance,community self-organisations are playing an increasingly important role in providing community services,expanding residents’ participation and promoting community harmony.However,in reality,some community self-organisations do not have a high level of competence and are unable to fully play their active role in serving community residents and promoting community development,making grassroots social governance ineffective.In order to solve this problem,the Ministry of Civil Affairs points out that it should further integrate resources,do a good job of training relevant talents,strengthen the capacity of community self-organisation backbones,provide more professional community services for community residents and improve the level of grassroots social governance.This study takes the S community in Wuhu City as the research field and selects eight self-organised cadres in the community as the research subjects.Through participant observation and in-depth interviews,we explore the current situation of the capacity of the self-organised cadres in the S community and analyse the reasons for their lack of capacity.On this basis,the group work method of social work was used to develop a programme of group activities based on empowerment theory and social learning theory,and a total of six group activities were designed.Specifically,the group activities included helping the self-organised community leaders to understand the difference between one-way and two-way communication,to master appropriate expression and listening skills,and to improve their communication skills;to understand their own personalities and those of others,and to flexibly use the skills of transposition and co-operation to improve their conflict coordination skills;to establish a management system for the self-organised community,to master the skills of organising and planning activities,and to improve their organisational skills;to learn to identify and explore community resources They also learn to identify and explore community resources to enhance their ability to integrate resources.The post-group evaluation found that the group work method,guided by the enrichment theory and social learning theory,was effective in improving the capacity of the S community self-organisers.