The new roles of the community practitioner in promoting community governance: the emergence-based approach practice

Community governance is the right of residents to have a say in their lives and the belief that they can do so. Based on a literature review and professional field experience, this article focuses on the roles of community practitioners who use an emergence-based approach to support community governance and introduce an innovative approach to community practice in the 21^st Century. The article begins by explaining the key changes that inspired this approach. While the traditional outcomes-based approach (OBA) focuses on community analysis and planning, the emergence-based approach (EBA) recognises that communities are complex systems with limited capacity to analyse and plan their future. To implement the EBA, three roles are presented: probing, engaging and “Doula”. These roles together constitute the “community flywheel”, which enables the growth of community governance initiatives through all community stakeholders. A combined model of the OBA and EBA is suggested to promote community governance processes effectively.