Chapter 18: Developing a Community
1. Principles of Community Development, 3
Stages:
A. The beginnings of gathering together
B. Developing an infrastructure:

Period of Expansion

Stabilization
C. Activism
2. Starting a Community:
A. Start with where you live:
1. Do you have a group of people who interact regularly and often?
2. Is there a core of very active members surrounded by others less involved
more peripheral to the activity and politics?
B. Members of the core usually take leadership roles:
1. Some leaders will focus on practical matters
2. Other leaders will be more focused on social, affective matters
C. Community Growth:

1. Natural evolution of smaller, minicommunities
2. The circles overlap and are connected by networks
D. Rules of a Community:
1. If there is a community, there will always be a social system with social
rules (formal and informal)
2. A Deaf Blind community has different set of rules from the Deaf community a. Social life of Deaf-Blind people is held together by community
events. b. If there are no regular events, no leaders, no manners, there will be
no community!
3. Without a communal social life there may be an aggregate of people, there
may even be a network but there is no community.
4. Seattle, Pittsburgh, Boston, and the
Washington, D.C. metro area have
some of the largest metropolitan community of Deaf-Blind people.

5. The Cajun Triangle area of Louisiana is a unique example of a rural community.
6. Each community has its own style, its own flavor.
E. A Community is a System:
1. There must be a critical mass of people
2. People with common lives, goals, and values which draw them together
3. A community is a social network: a. There must be love as well as work b. recreation as well as labor
4. A community must have both a social network and a way to sustain itself economically
5. Must have a system to support the flow: a. ways for people to be connected to one another b. communication and transportation networks c. interpreters, SSPs, buses, vans, accessible phones, pagers and computers

6. A way for the community to collectively or individually make a living, a way to support themselves
and to provide for their health and safety.
7. Jobs, employment and support services: a good SSP system.
3. Seattle Community has all these essentials:
A critical mass of Deaf-Blind people including Deaf-Blind leaders
B. interpreters and SSPs,
C. a moderately good transportation system,
D. technological expertise, and
E. limited employment opportunities
Together these key elements form a lifesustaining system
4. Without These Key Elements:
A. If there is no critical mass of DB people, individuals will not be able to find friends, peers and leaders
B. Without a ready pool of SSPs and interpreters, the community cannot function
C. Communication without work is long hours of idleness and no money to go anywhere

D. Relationships may become stale
E. Employment without good communication is dehumanizing
F. Employment and communication without transportation is dependency
All these are in turn very crucial and complex.
5. The Network of Services:
A. SSPs are essential: If there are only interpreters (whose work is expensive)
Deaf-Blind people will only get communication services when it is
“important”.
B. Independence will depend on (strain) family resources.
C. Interpreters must know how to interpret for Deaf-Blind people specifically so that communication is
effective, regular and complex so that the
Deaf-Blind community is connected to the wider, mainstream
community.

D. SSP and interpreting services coupled with a solid social network of friends with whom to laugh, cry, share
plans and tasks, all these comprise a community.
E. Employment means more than a place to go and a paycheck, it also means a social experience:
1. We communicate with our coworkers, supervisors and clients
2. It means involvement not only in the operations of the agency, company or shop where we work but
also opportunities for learning and advancement.
3. All of this presupposes communication which in the case of
Deaf-Blind people presupposes a
commitment on the part of the employer to pay for regular interpreting service.
4. It means that work must be more than minimum wage, assembly type job.

5. Employment should be a place to employ one’s mind as well as one’s body.
6. This means training, promotion and of course interpreting services must be in place.
F. Transportation means more than a way to get to work and a way to get around town:
1. It means a good bus system
2. It means Orientation and Mobility-
O&M services to learn how to use the system
3. People and shops move; buildings go up; routes change
4. O&M services and negotiations with transportation systems require communication support.
5. The support system feeds back and supports itself.
G. Support System feeds back and supports itself
1. It is the payment of interpreters, SSPs and O&M teachers by employers that fosters careers
working with Deaf-Blind people.

2. Careers promote the formation of training programs, classes and curricula with these special skills.
3. It is this pool of interpreters and SSPs from which come the volunteers and friends who fill out the
community.
F. Focus Shift: From supporting Deaf-
Blind people to supporting the “System”:
1. Industry of non-Deaf-Blind people that builds up around the community.
2. Our own needs can insidiously creep into and strangle the life and development of the
community for which our career was created.
3. Agencies that serve the needs of
Deaf-Blind people can become a
“disability industry”.
4. “Disability industry” left unchecked becomes subtly toxic.
5. How can we keep ourselves honest?
6. How to Establish a Community: Seattle as a
Model

Stage 1: Getting Started
The beginning should:
1. have a social focus- be fun;
2. be small, informal; and
3. be directed by the preferences and wishes of the Deaf-Blind people.
B. The point is to get together, to have fun and to communicate.
C. Formality and order will come later.
D. Don’t let the activities become too routine
E. Biggest challenge may be transportation
F. A common language will evolve
G. Take a cue from the Deaf community and foster clarity and mutual respect
H. Broaden your own communication skills, and support the learning of others
I. Go to AADB and WSDBC and learn from the Deaf-Blind people there.
J. Organizational Issues:
1. Necessary to recruit more volunteers to help with rides and with communication
2. Harder to arrange for places big enough to accommodate so many people

3. Second phase: call a meeting to see what ideas people have, to chart your future direction
7. Transition:
A. Two important things:
1 ST : when a group moves to a new phase: a new level of organization or formality, it is an
“opportunity” for Hearing/sighted people to take over. DON’T DO IT!
Hearing/sighted people can do things more quicker, more efficiently and have much more world experience. This naturally evolves into a position of management.
MANAGEMENT is easily confused with LEADERSHIP.
Leadership should be in the hearts, minds and hands of Deaf-Blind people

2 nd : Deaf-Blind people will need information and time to process that information. Eventually goals will be clear. Learning how to present information, how to promote full understanding is a skill. Once the information is clear, often the best kind of helping from professionals is BEING
QUIET. This may take practice. a. People learning to be assertive need role models of assertive behavior, but they also need “space” to
practice saying what they think. b. People who have had their feelings and ideas ignored for so long have gotten into the habit of ignoring
these feelings and ideas themselves. c. Perhaps they don’t have the language yet to express them. d. Leaders obviously have more skills but they too have self doubts. e. People who are new to leadership roles will need not only information, and time but mentorship and

support. f. Mentorship is not just telling someone what to do but validating their feelings, challenging their patterns of behavior that get them in trouble (for example submissiveness, explosiveness, or doing things alone) and mentorship means help.
Seattle as a Model: Stage II:
Developing an Infrastructure p. 193
The need to become more infrastructure, more direction and planning
First and foremost is to become incorporated as a non-profit
Set up first three committees:
1. Clubhouse-housing committee
2. Transportation van committee
3. Incorporation committee
Seattle as a Model: Stage III
Maturation: the Continuing Challenge
Authority, Power and Control Chapter 19