ABSTRACT

This chapter explores the use of community development (CD) by service providers as a means of responding to the concerns, and extending limited or restricted formal service provision through partnerships with communities. It argues that by using a CD approach, service providers can increase the alignment of services with community needs, making services more relevant to children and their families. Service expand service provision capacity by strengthening informal relational resources in the community thereby extending formal service provision, both in terms of prevention and intervention. Various authors highlight the ways in which service providers and the broader public are complicit in endorsing and upholding the impact of neoliberalism on service policy and structure. The chapter identifies community development models aligned with indigenous and holistic social determinants of health, establishing a framework for CD as driven by service providers. It provides community development models aligned with indigenous and holistic social determinants of health.