The Power and Potency of Social Capital Al Condeluci, MSW, PhD, Brain Injury Professional magazine Page 1 of 4

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Introduction

The field of Brain Injury Rehabilitation is at a key juncture. If you identify the initiation of this field with the advent of the NHIF in 1980, we are now turning our 30 year corner. Much has occurred and many advances have unfolded in this time. Still, as a discipline, we are hard pressed to say that that the goals, objectives, and wishes of survivors and their families have been realized. Far too many people with disabilities are unemployed, institutionalized, frustrated and socially isolated in their lives (Erickson & Lee., 2008).

This reality challenges us to remove our blinders and look more closely at our programs, services and approaches and consider a reformation of sorts. We know that any viable change is found at the borders of existing paradigms. When we consider new alternatives we must look beyond the status quo.

I am not so bold to suggest that I have the answers, but in my 40 years of advocating and providing services and supports to people with brain injuries I do know what questions to ask. Indeed, Steven Covey suggests that you start any endeavor by beginning with the end in mind (1989). In this spirit, then, I suggest that as we start our 31st year as a discipline we challenge ourselves to do just that. What do the people we serve want for themselves? What is the end they have in mind? I think these questions will reframe our challenge and offer new ideas, directions and possibilities, and in my experience the key answers to these questions are found in the elements of viability in community and the opportunity to build sustaining social capital (relationships).

To fully appreciate how we might change, we need to examine these concepts of community and social capital in a much more deliberate manner.

Primer on Community

Community is a network of people who regularly come together for some common cause or celebration. A community is not necessarily geographic, although geography can define certain communities. To come to an understanding of community is to appreciate that community really is based on the relationships that form, not on the space. In fact, space can be an abstract notion when it comes to understanding community. Think about the global community created by the Internet. These communities are not bound by geography, but are relationships forged in cyberspace.

The term “community” is the blending of the prefix “com,” which means “with,” and the root word, “unity,” which means togetherness and connectedness. The notion of being “with unity” is a good way to think about the concept of community. When people come together for the sake of a unified position or theme, you have community.

The term “culture” is analogous to community, but culture relates more to the behaviors manifested by the community. People bound together around a common cause create a community, but the minute they begin to establish behaviors around their common cause they develop a culture. In this way, culture is the learned and shared way that communities do particular things. Cultures and communities have many features, but one key ingredient is regularity. That is, for a community to be viable it must have some regular points of contact and connection. For a family community, this might be annual reunions or the celebration of holidays together. For a religious community, this would be weekly services and holy days for celebration. For organizations, this would be regular staff meetings or stakeholder gatherings. For clubs, groups or associations, regular meetings or gatherings formalize the group as a community.

The more people come together, the more they find other ways that they are linked. That is, when a person first comes to a community he or she is drawn by the common interest of the community. As she attends again and again she will find other similarities with people in the community and create a deeper sense of bonding.

Other features of community include the notions of consent, creativity and cooperation. Years ago Robert Nisbit (1969) suggested that community thrives on self-help and equal consent. He felt that people do not come together merely to be together, but to do something together that cannot be done in isolation. Others (Sussman, 1959) identified community for its sense of interdependence. McKnight (1988) described community as a collective association driven toward a common goal.

Indeed, if we think about communities that we know, they all work toward some identified goal. From teaching people new skills, to saving souls, to addressing a common problem, or to launching a government, all these ventures capture the power of community, and then, through their behavior, create a culture. The most vibrant and successful of these communities are the ones that have built more social capital.

This basic approach to community and culture blends three key features. One is the fact that community is a network of people. Often these people may have great differences or even distances between them. They can be different in age, background, ethnicity, religion or many other ways, but in spite of their differences, their commonality or common cause pulls them together. The similarity of the common cause or celebration is the second key feature of community and the glue that creates the network. Regardless of who the members of the network are as people, their common cause overrides whatever differences they may have and creates a powerful connection. Finally, as the collection of people continues to meet and celebrate on a regular basis, they begin to frame behaviors and patterns and become a culture, the third key ingredient. These regular meetings bond the community members as they discover other ways that they are similar.

Again, these three key features are:

1. Diversity of membership
2. Commonality of celebration
3. Regularity of gathering

One of the most important facets of community is that it promotes a sense of social capital for the members who belong. Social capital refers to the connections and relationships that develop around community and the value these relationships hold for the members. Like physical capital (the tools used by communities) or human capital (the people power brought to a situation), “social capital” is the value brought on by the relationships.

From Brain Injury Professional, the official publication of the North American Brain Injury Society, Vol. 8, Issue 3. Copyright 2011. Reprinted with permission of NABIS and HDI Publishers. For more information or to subscribe, visit: www.nabis.org.

Brain Injury Professional is the largest professional circulation publication on the subject of brain injury and is the official publication of the North American Brain Injury Society. Brain Injury Professional is published jointly by NABIS and HDI Publishers. Members of NABIS receive a subscription to BIP as a benefit of NABIS membership. Click here to learn more about membership in NABIS.

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