I find it far too easy to become swept up doing things without taking enough time to step back and reflect.
As someone who struggles with imposter syndrome, one thing I find most challenging and exciting about community work is its potential. There are constantly new ideas, opportunities, and ways to engage with people. But when you’re busy doing one thing, you can feel like you’re neglecting several others (probably because you are).
In that context, being part of an organisation with shared values and a clear vision to guide your work, alongside space to reflect individually and collectively, is essential in order to approach each day and prioritise.
At Kingsway Community Connections, our work is underpinned by Personal Growth & Wellness (PG&W), a community-led approach focused on creating opportunities for people to build confidence, resilience, and a sense of purpose and meaning through connection and participation over time.
This influences how I think about our activities and groups. I often see activity programmes in community organisations and think they look really fun, interesting and engaging. But I also wonder how they come about; whether ideas come directly from participants, emerge through conversations or projects, or arise through unexpected opportunities.
As Programme & Development Coordinator, my role involves working with community members to shape and develop our activity programme. In practice, this rarely starts from direct requests. It’s more common for ideas to emerge through conversations, relationships, and by seeing what’s possible. People might want to get involved but not immediately know what form that could take.
After three years here, as my understanding of PG&W has developed, I see the impact of this approach in developing an activity programme that can evolve over time in order to better reflect the needs and interests of the community.
One example that really helped me understand this was the development of the Sudanese Women’s Group. It started with a community member. When Amna first came into the Centre, she was looking for support after arriving in Scotland. She had a complex asylum case, a small social network, and little knowledge of the local area. But she was really keen to get involved. She joined a litter pick that day, and from there became part of a community mapping project, volunteering, events, the conversation café, and eventually the Board of Directors.
As she became more and more engaged, Amna suggested developing a Sudanese Women’s Group after noticing that many women from a similar cultural background were coming in for welfare support or a cup of coffee but were not always engaging in activities. With support she helped create a space where women could build connections, confidence, and take part in meaningful activities (both as a group and with the wider community).
From my perspective, this involved working alongside the group to understand their interests and priorities, connecting with partners and other groups to seek out opportunities, and supporting members who want to take on more active roles within the Centre, including contributing to activities and events such as our 25th anniversary celebrations and joint women’s group lunch.
This wasn’t planned in advance. It developed through relationships, trust, participation, and opportunity. For me, this is what PG&W looks like in practice. My role is not to create an activity programme from scratch, but to notice strengths, help create opportunities, and support ideas to develop. (I should also note that many ideas do not develop as desired or intended.)
If you look at our activity timetable and wonder why certain groups or activities exist and others don’t, the answer is often found in those opportunities that emerge from putting PG&W into practice.
In my next blog, I want to show some other examples of PG&W in practice by looking at a week of activity at KCC.
About the Author
Joe McShannon is Programme & Development Coordinator at Kingsway Community Connections (KCC), where he leads programme development and helps ensure the organisation’s Personal Growth & Wellness (PG&W) model remains at the heart of its work. Joining KCC in 2023 after completing a Master’s degree in Community Development, Adult Education and Youth Work, Joe coordinates a diverse programme of community activities while contributing to organisational development, partnership working and community engagement. Drawing on a background in community education and advocacy, he brings creativity, critical reflection and a strong commitment to connecting everyday community experiences with wider learning, development and social change.
