Above is an early version of a Community Support Coaching Model I’m developing.
The foundation came from consulting on infrastructure and organization development with a skilled nursing facility (Nursing Home). The CEO and I talked about senior citizens and understood ‘How people are better off‘ from the facilities’ services. She shared some research on how having a strong community and support structure keeps seniors out of hospitals and in their homes longer. This idea stuck.
At the same time, I was enrolled in the University at Buffalo Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership CORE class. As a student, I recognized this Community Support model for the entrepreneur community and myself. The closer the community and the support offered through the class, the more others and I were able to learn and grow together.
Some working definitions for Community Support – your feedback is welcomed
Community: a group interacting in the same place for a common reason. A community is bound together by the network of influences people have on one another. Inherent in this view is the notion that whatever affects one person also affects many others. What affects the group also affects the individual — the concept of people creating complex-adaptive-systems. We build an understanding of community by examining the two-way and multi-way interactions involving those bounded by the community. – idea varied from ‘Ecological Communities‘
Support: having access at the needed time to materials, people, and concepts that will be useful in achieving a goal. Support is a utilitarian concept; when support is needed, the individual has access from the community to find or share what is needed.
In the model is Low/High Community and Low/High Support. This combination is being used to make sense of which quadrant a person is currently in and if they desire, or what an external force (manager, teacher, partner, stakeholder, community organizer, etc..) can try /experiment with to support the person to use the community and how the community can help the person to learn.
I will share progress as it happens.