When I started in my first job as a community development practitioner, I assumed that community development was in its infancy, a completely new way of working. I was consumed by what was happening at the time, primarily what funding was available for the next project we had up our sleeve. Theory did not really figure in my work and in many ways we discovered for ourselves through trial and many errors, what others had already learnt a long time ago. We rolled up our sleeves, got stuck in and placed an emphasis on learning from those we worked with.

It was not until the project I worked within recruited an older worker with a community development background that it began to dawn on me that while our work was proving successful, it was not necessarily ground-breaking and perhaps we could be achieving much more. In her gentle and understated way, not to offend my sense of self-importance, this worker showed me how much of what we were doing had been done by her and many others back in the 1960s and 1970s. What obstacles had they faced? What paths did they take and what did they learn? Slowly a light turned on and I became intrigued at the thought of learning from those who had been working within communities for many years and relating this to my current practice.

There is no learning like learning from your own mistakes but what a wonderful resource there is in those who have been practising for many years.

Thus began the idea of interviewing experienced community development practitioners to extract their learning, experiences and insights and to relate these to present-day practice and contexts. What light, if any, could these reflections shed on current opportunities, dilemmas and tensions within community development?

What follows is an account of the key changes to the context and practice of community development since the 1970s, told through the experiences and insights of a group of highly experienced practitioners. The book is intended for those practising and interested in practising community development today, and is aimed at encouraging practitioners to think and reflect on their work. Ideally, it will contribute and in some cases kick-start debate within the field of community development. The book is not a history of community development, nor is it an attempt to analyse community development theory.