Centre for Social Action

What Is Social Action

Social action is made up of two essential and inseparable elements - the principles and the process. These do not stand alone, but are completely dependent upon each other. Combined, they form an effective approach for working with people and a powerful force for change.

The Social Action Principles

• Social action workers are committed to social justice. We strive to challenge inequality and oppression in relation to race, gender, sexuality, age, religion, class, disability or any other form of social differentiation.
  Social action is about fighting for fairness, equality and justice and this needs to be stated clearly. We recognise that injustice, discrimination and oppression exist and take a stance against it, in all our work.
• We believe all people have skills, experience and understanding that they can draw on to tackle the problems they face. Social action workers understand that people are experts in their own lives and we use this as a starting point for our work.
  Our job is to help uncover what is already there, to encourage people to use the insights and knowledge they possess to bring about changes in their own lives.
• All people have rights, including the right to be heard, the right to define the issues facing them and the right to take action on their own behalf. People also have the right to define themselves and not have negative labels imposed upon them.
  Ordinary people's right to be involved in the changes that affect them, to have a voice and a stake in the society they live in, is fundamental to social action work. The right to 'name their world', to define themselves and the world around them is something we insist on. Too often people have to contend with labels imposed upon themselves, or the places they live, for the ease of policy-makers and professionals.
• Injustice and oppression are complex issues rooted in social policy, the environment and the economy. Social action workers understand people may experience problems as individuals but these difficulties can be translated into common concerns.
  We recognise that there are many different problems in individuals' lives.  They may feel overwhelmed and daunted by these, they may even feel blamed for them. Social action gives people the opportunity to break free from this negative view, understand their individual problems in a wider, political context and to do something about organising to overcome them.
• We understand that people working collectively can be powerful. People who lack the power and influence to challenge injustice and oppression as individuals can gain it through working with other people in a similar position.
  Oppression is maintained through isolation and division, though it is experienced by the majority. Our job is to bring people together so that they can share their experiences and pool their resources and skills to fight injustice. Finding common cause may give individuals the will and power to tackle more complex issues than they might have dared on their own.
• Social action workers are not leaders, but facilitators. Our job is to enable people to make decisions for themselves and take ownership of whatever outcome ensues. Everybody’s contribution to this process is equally valued and it is vital that our job is not accorded privilege.
  Social action workers value all skills and knowledge equally, making no distinction between experience and formal qualifications. Our job is to work alongside the group, resisting the temptation either to become a group member or a group leader. 

The Social Action Process

As already mentioned, the principles and the process of social action are inseparable.

The role of the social action worker is to facilitate the group through a five-stage process. The intention is to change the traditional relationship between service users and the professionals employed to work with them. A social action worker is a facilitator, not a provider. In this process service users are not just consumers, they are active agents for change.

Working alongside community members in this way requires the ability to plan and prepare well, to be creative, to listen actively, to be patient, to be disciplined and to be interested in people’s lives. It is also essential to maintain a consistent and realistic level of optimism and enthusiasm that will fire the group.

The five stages are as follows:

What

This is all about discovery, finding out what is happening in people’s lives. What are their issues, problems and concerns? What makes them angry, frightened, happy, and frustrated? What occupies their thoughts? The social action worker designs ways in which the community members can express all this, creating as comprehensive a picture as possible of what is going on in their lives at present, without interpretation and without at this stage having to worry about what to do with the material. This is often the longest stage of the social action process. Video, role-play, photography, drawing and discussion will all be used during this exploration of life in the community.

Why

Once the issues have been agreed it is important to identify the reasons why they exist so that any solutions devised will attack root causes and not just symptoms. Asking 'why?' helps people examine their private troubles in the wider context. It provides them with a deeper understanding of their causes. This is necessary if community members and service users are to go on to create and own positive social change. This stage of the process allows the community members to engage in analysis and to present their understanding of the problems facing them. It also helps to discover the most effective point of intervention; the place at which it is possible to make changes that will affect the final outcomes. This analysis is accepted by the social action worker, without interpretation once again, reinforcing one of our basic beliefs: people are experts in their own lives.

How

So what do we do with this understanding? How can the community members change things in a meaningful way themselves?

Here the role of the social action worker changes. The responsibility now is to create safe spaces where the group can test out their ideas for change before putting them into practice. It is vital that the community members are not set up to fail and that their ideas undergo a rigorous examination before taking them to the world outside the group. The decision on which ideas will be taken forward lies in the hands of the group, but the social action worker must question their viability without crushing enthusiasm.

Action

The group then put their idea(s) for change into effect. They should by now have a realistic sense of the possible outcomes, whether it will solve their problem or simply be the first stage in a longer struggle. Even if the action disappoints, as sometimes happens, the legacy of the work is that the group members now have an understanding and practical experience of the tools needed for dealing with problems that they will face in the future.

Reflection

The fifth stage is for the social action worker to bring the group together and ask: 'what happened? Now that we have carried out our action, are the issues, problems and concerns the same?' This critical reflection enables the community members to learn from their experience and to plan future actions for change. The What, Why, How process begins again. 

Los Principios de la Acción Social (The Social Action Principles)   - document in Spanish