Building Virtual Age-Friendly Communities in Minecraft

A key theme of Age-Friendly Honolulu’s initiative is intergenerational exchange. The initiative believes that youth need to be aware of aging issues, demographic change, and think critically about the potential impact on their lives. The goal of the Age-Friendly Honolulu Youth Engagement Initiative is to teach youth about the role of the built environment and community features in promoting active aging and engagement among older adults. This article describes a new program in the field that teaches youth and older adults to assess the built environment and then use design thinking and Minecraft (a popular video game in which players use 3-D blocks to create virtual lands) to develop and envision ideas to improve the livability of their neighborhood.     

Quality of Life Enhancement Research Program: Lessons Learned

The attempted Quality of Life Enhancement program appeared to be a novel method for creating a symbiotic and sustainable relationship between a large Southeastern university and local nursing home and assisted living facilities (ALF), through which ALF residents would attend university arts and sporting events. During implementation, it was discovered that this project was unsustainable, undesired, unneeded by many care centers, difficult to implement, and required a dedicated and specialized staff. After attempting to enroll 14 local care facilities, only 2 were interested in becoming involved and produced 5 eligible participants. During the program itself, coordination with facilities and residents was difficult to maintain and unique transportation and accommodation needs were challenging to overcome. Finally, data collection was time consuming and generally unfruitful. Ultimately the project was discontinued after a year of attempted recruitment and implementation of inclusive changes to protocol. While creating an ongoing relationship with local care facilities and local universities may enhance opportunities for residents and research into important areas, such relationships take time, effort, and specialized staff to maintain.     

Participatory shaping of community futures in e‐waste processing hubs: Complexity,conflict and stewarded convergence in a Palestinian context

This article describes an unconventional participatory development approach carried out in an informal e‐waste hub in South‐West Hebron, an area that has collected and processed the bulk of Israeli e‐waste for over a decade. Our approach contributes to the critique and recovery of community representation in participatory development and the search for ways to facilitate representative community engagement. Specifically, we describe our use of a novel Delphi‐like method that allowed us to facilitate a broadly endorsed development trajectory within a heterogeneous and conflicted community. We show how the results yielded by this approach diverged from those that were likely to emerge from more facile forms of participation in ways that are important for other similar e‐waste hubs internationally, which face a destructive status quo on the one hand, or the economically ruinous international policies that ban e‐waste trade from “developed” to “developing” countries on the other. Despite real tensions and cleavages within the affected communities, the process described facilitated a shift from deadlocked environmental versus livelihood positions towards building capacity and regulating existing informal e‐waste trades to preserve livelihoods dependent on these.     

论和谐社会构建中的和谐社区建设——对合肥市社区建设的调查

和谐社区建设是在构建社会主义和谐社会的背景下提出的重要课题,也是其重要切人点.文章主要从和谐社区与和谐社会的密切关系出发,阐述建设和谐社区的重要性和必要性,并且针对合肥市和谐社区建设中存在的问题,从政府、社区、居民三个方面提出了建议性对策.     

从“群众参与”到“公民参与”——转型期我国城市社区参与模式的“革命性”转变

＂群众参与＂模式是建立在国家与社会高度统一、国家对资源的高度控制和垄断基础上。＂群众参与＂往往是出于国家政权建设的需要或者更准确地说是社会整合和社会控制的需要。而在社会转型期,国家与社会逐步分离、市场经济唤醒了民众的利益意识和权利意识、＂单位人＂开始向＂社区人＂转化。在实行社区自治,建设基层民主的背景下,政治、社会、经济的诸多变化要求社区参与模式的＂革命性＂变革,即从＂群众参与＂走向＂公民参与＂。     

城市社区治理架构研究

随着政治、经济体制改革的深入,城市社区的功能、治理主体、利益主体、居民需求等呈现出多元趋势,导致原有的社会城市基层管理架构减效或失灵。在分析城市单一权力主体治理弊端的基础上,提出建立政府、市场和社会三维框架下的多中心治理模式,完善社区治理的分权机制,推行街道体制向社区体制转化,组建和完善社区治理的自治机制。     

建立中国特色的社区综合养老社会服务体系

支持老人就地养老是当前老年社会服务的一个核心实践。它不仅能够让老人在熟悉的社区环境里度过晚年,维系对身心健康具有重要意义的社会网络和社会支持,而且与机构照顾相比,能够显著降低社会成本。分析我国当前社区养老服务的有利条件和不利因素,总结梳理国际上的养老服务经验,提出在我国城市和农村建立社区综合养老社会服务体系的框架。这一框架试图将当前参与养老社会服务的多元主体纳入其中,包括社区养老服务、机构养老服务、居家养老服务、家庭(类似家庭或模拟家庭)养老、结伴(老年公寓)养老等方面。最后就政府的宏观战略规划、完善社会服务支持体系和构建良好的养老环境提出了政策建议,以期对社区综合养老服务体系的建立和完善提供必要支持。     

家庭状况对残疾人服务模式选择的影响

利用2009年北京市残疾人服务需求状况调查数据,以1 198名残疾人为研究对象,采用Logistic Regression模型进行逐步回归,研究了残疾人的家庭状况对其服务模式选择的影响。研究发现,家庭特征、照料资源、家庭及社区环境等因素对残疾人的服务模式选择有重要影响:残疾人多乐于选择居家服务;由子女/孙子女和配偶照料的残疾人选择机构托养服务的较少;社区服务设施状况越好,残疾人越乐于利用社区服务。     

城市社区建设与管理创新研究

社区建设与管理创新,应着力推动政府转型,开创经济社会和谐发展的新局面;探索建立层级简明、职能清晰、运行高效的城市管理服务最基层组织运行新体制;创新建设民主自治特点鲜明的新社区等方面破题,最终建立起与社会主义市场经济体制相适应的,政府主导、社会协同、居民参与的社区治理结构新体制。     

社区思想政治工作的有益探索--洛阳市瀍河回族区社区思想政治工作调查

洛阳市瀍河回族区近年来抓思想政治工作促社区建设,社区建设成效显著,被授予全省"社区建设示范区"的称号.他们坚持"两手抓,两手都要硬"的方针,把社区思想政治工作作为社区建设的"生命线",把社区思想政治工作与民族团结工作有机地结合起来,把解决群众的思想问题与解决实际问题结合起来,把开展群众性的精神文明建设活动和社区文化活动结合起来,有力地推进了经济发展和社会进步,为开展社区思想政治工作提供了新鲜经验,进行了有益探索.