Marnie Harris serves as the Peer Support Program Coordinator for the EXCEL (Expanding Career, Education, and Leadership Opportunities) Program at Georgia Tech.  A 2014 graduate of Tech, Marnie served on the original student advisory board that helped found Excel.  In her current role, she recruits and trains peer supports to assist Excel students in developing healthy lifestyles through community engagement, nutrition and fitness habits, and academic achievement.

It is Spring of 2015. I sit down at the Liam’s Legacy Symposium, an event designed to celebrate the life and legacy of Liam Rattray. The event features a panel of speakers discussing “What it means to take an asset-based community engagement approach to sustainability."  I hear language that revolves around focusing on the strengths of a community rather than its problems. I hear about empowering of individuals rather than over-programming “I’ll do it for you" initiatives. I hear strategies to engage the members of a community rather than tell them what they need.  I am being exposed to Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) for the first time, and I am floored. I could not ignore the parallels between ABCD and my “ideal” of a support program for students with intellectual disabilities, who were coming to Georgia Tech through the EXCEL program.

What would it look like to capitalize on the strategies that ABCD highlighted to create a strengths-based approach to supporting EXCEL students to independence?

Fast forward to August 2016, at a training for the 60+ members of the EXCEL Peer Support Network, a network of GT students that had developed to support EXCEL students. I wanted to answer a question - Do outcomes actually change when you develop strategies based on identified needs vs. identified assets?

We conducted an activity where students were split up into two groups. Group A was given information about the deficits of the “Parkway Community”. Group B was given information about the assets within the same community. Both groups were tasked with giving recommendations to develop program activities to make a long standing difference in Parkway.

30 minutes later, the groups presented their strategies.

Can you see the difference?

When asked about the differences between the suggestions, students raised two important points:

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• It seemed like Group A viewed a community with much larger and more serious problems than Group B
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• Group B had utilized some of the strengths in the community whereas Group A seemed only to focus on how to fix the problems

The students had perfectly highlighted the glaring differences that result when strategies are formed from a needs approach vs. an assets approach.

In their book, “Building Communities from the Inside Out”, Kretzmann & McKnight point out:

In a needs approach, we focus on deficits. In an assets approach, we focus on assets.

In a needs approach, we respond to problems. In an assets approach, we identify opportunity.

In a needs approach, we are dependent on the help from others. In an assets based approach, we utilize our own strengths first.

In a needs based approach, we are focused on fixing people. In an assets approach, we are focused on developing potential*.

If this is true about community development, how does it parallel to the development of a person?

Acknowledging the strengths of an individual FIRST is a new way of thinking that drives new strategies and produces new outcomes.  Highlighting the deficits of an individual and identifying all of the things that the person CAN’T do only leads us down rabbit holes of hopelessness.

In a strength based support model, we develop self-determination strategies rather than learned helplessness.

This is the foundation of the EXCEL Peer Support Network, and is something we hope to continue to grow as we learn more from ABCD strategies. We ask ourselves questions such as:

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• How can we shift our mentality from starting with identifying needs to starting with identifying strengths?
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• How can our strategies change from working on a person to engaging with a person?
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• “How can I help you with that”? becomes “What are you already good at and how can we work together to build on that?”

Ultimately, it seems like a dichotomy. Support is traditionally looked at as making up for weakness. In EXCEL, we are being challenged to design a system based on a thinking that capitalizes on people’s strengths.

If there has been proven success in developing communities based on their assets, can we not use the same principles to build up individuals based on their strengths?  How can we, as a Georgia Tech community, begin to focus on the strengths that individuals bring to the table rather than the ways that they need to be fixed?

More information about EXCEL:

Excel at Georgia Tech is a four-year program for students with mild intellectual and developmental disabilities leading to two separate certificates focusing on personal, academic, and professional development. Students come to Georgia Tech and are fully immersed in student life by taking courses, living on campus, and joining clubs and organizations. More information at www.excel.gatech.edu.

The Peer Support Network and two EXCEL courses are SLS-affiliated courses, where ABCD principles are utilized to build collaborative learning environments. Georgia Tech students who are interested in joining these learning environments can contact Marnie Harris (marnie.harris@scheller.gatech.edu).

 Your thoughts, questions opinions are always welcome.

*Kretzmann J., and McKnight, J. (1993), Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community’s Assets