Author: dsoulgen
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🌱 The Problem With Empowerment – And What To Do Instead
Why “giving people power” often backfires, and what agency-centred practice offers instead The word empowerment is everywhere.We talk about empowering young people, empowering communities, empowering staff, empowering “the vulnerable.” Empower everyone. But if we look closely, empowerment often carries an unintended message:that we hold all the power,and they have none until we decide to hand…
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🌿 Appreciative Inquiry: Asking What’s Strong to Inspire What’s Possible
In youth and community development work, the questions we ask shape the worlds we create. Developed at Case Western Reserve University, Appreciative Inquiry (AI) offers a strength-based alternative to traditional problem-solving approaches.Instead of asking “What’s wrong, and how do we fix it?” AI begins with “What’s working, what gives life, and what could be?” It’s…
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Rethinking How We Work: Why Complex Times Call for Place-Based, Asset-Driven Collaboration
Across Australia, councils are being called to respond to an era of overlapping and interconnected crises – or what some now call meta-crises: housing affordability, domestic and family violence, climate stress, youth disengagement, social isolation, and the fraying threads of social cohesion amid growing polarisation. These aren’t isolated challenges; they are systemic – stretching across…
Soulgen 