Empowerment

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attaching responsibility for
a social problem to the person experiencing the difficulty. The social
conditions which have contributed to this situation are ignored or
minimized. Prevention programs have also been normatively driven, even
though the rhetoric of prevention models claims an interest in cultural
appropriateness, the appreciation of differences, and ecological influences.


Empowerment has been suggested as an alternative practice paradigm to the
older prevention oriented practice models. Family theorists involved in
clarification of this concept have come up with the following definition:

"an intentional, ongoing process centered in the local community, involving
mutual respect, critical reflection, caring and group participation,
through which people lacking an equal share of valued resources gain
greater control over those resources" (Allen, Barr, Cochran, Dean, & Greene,
1989, p. 2).

Rappaport (1987) emphasizes the processual dimensions of the concept of
empowerment ...

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