Quality Starts With ... Community Life®

An important ingredient in realizing a true sense of community is “social capital,” defined simply as social ties and trust in others. Research consistently demonstrates that social ties with others – families, friends, co-workers, neighbors and social groups – enhance the quality of peoples’ lives. Increased social contacts correlate with improved mental and physical health, lower rates of social problems, and greater access to economic security. With social ties, we have reciprocity – we can ask others for favors, knowing they will return favors to us. Social ties and reciprocity build trust.

In our Community Life® section of the Quality Measures 2005®, CQL first established standards for assessing an organization’s success in building social capital and integrating individuals into the community. The Community Life® measures marked a new approach to supporting people with disabilities and people with mental illness – one that placed greater emphasis on creating social capital by fostering involvement in the community.

This reflects the understandings that:

• Person-based quality is grounded in community. People and organizations are connected to other people and other organizations.
• Organizations connect individuals and their communities.
• Organizations can optimize the person-focused quality within the realities and possibilities of Community Life®.
• The community connections, resources and relationships of Community Life®, support personal quality of life.

 

Getting Started

To help organizations engage in the Community Life® approach, CQL has developed the Community Life® LENS – Learning, Exploring & Experiencing, Networking, and Strategizing & Sharing. The experiential workshop leads participants through the skills to explore the resources of the community, identify ways to build partnerships within the community, and actualize the Community Life® measures.