Over the past twenty years the Centre for Social Action has developed as a partnership among users, practitioners and academics . In the course of its activities in fieldwork , training and research , a distinctive model o f empowerment known a s Social Action has evolved and over time has been articulated. The approach has been recognised as distinctive (Williamson 1 995), as offering "a clear view of empowerment theory" (Payne 1 99 7 , 280) , as effective in a wide range of human services and to have "advanced our knowledge of practice developments and their conceptualisation" (Brown 1 99 6 , 92) . It is also seen to have wide international currency Qakobsson 1 995 ; Treu et al. 1 99 3 ; Lee 1 994; Breton 1 994) .
Social Action is rooted in notions of empowerment which in the UK has become the 'catch-word of the 1 990s. Adams ( 1 99 6 , 33) believes the term represents a fundamental 'paradigm shift' taking the practice of social work away decisively from the medical/pathological model. It directly challenges the focus on self-blame created by the ideological repackaging of public ills as private troubles (Wright Mills 1 9 70) by right wing conservative govern
ments in America , Australasia and the UK. Empowerment, although it starts with individual concerns , moves the spotlight to an analysis of the structures in which they exist. Drawing from the Dictionary of Social Work (Thomas and Pierson 1 995) empowerment is concerned with how people gain a collective control over their lives to achieve their interests and is the method by which social workers seek to enhance the power of people who lack it. It represents a change of focus from social work on people to social work with people .
Staples ( 1 99 0 , 30) identifies key themes in empowerment as: 'participa
tion of people in their own empowerment' , 'the importance of recognising existing competencies' and 'building on individual and collective strengths' . Empowerment i s the process b y which power i s developed o r gained b y the powerless themselves . Empowerment practice also seeks to offer people the chance to try out and experience new ways of influencing their life chances through transforming power relationships, looking to share power between workers and service users and to challenge the both to use it non-oppres
sively (Mullender and Ward 1 9 9 1 ) :
In the face of more and more severe problems, the normal and understandable reaction of caring and dedicated professionals is to become more and more expert, and develop better and better technologies . . . . if empowerment is the goal that reaction is exactly the one professionals should not have. What social workers need to adopt in empowerment work are 'bottom-up' strategies whereby they learn from the oppressed, from whose who , more or less effectively, deal first hand with the problems of racism, poverty, sexism, ageism etc . ; then bringing the best of social work knowledge and expertise, collaborate with the oppressed to build more just societies . (Breton 1 994, 35).
There is a dialectic here , some would say contradiction (Barry 1 996) , between the inherent power of workers undertaking this facilitating process (Ward and Mullender 1 9 9 1 ) and the requisite that people cannot be given power but must gain it for themselves (Braye and Preston-Shoot 1 995) . In social theory terms , to see this as a contradiction implies a 'duality' (Layder 1 994) or 'zero sum' concept of power (Lukes 1 9 74) which, it has been argued, does not reflect the realities of social life (Foucault 1 980; Lukes 1 9 7 4; Giddens 1 984) . More prosaically, the process of change has to start somewhere (Batsleer and Humphries 2000) . If workers skills are employed through a 'dialogue' rather than a 'banking' process (Freire 1 9 72) , potentially they have the skills to promote the gaining of power and, concurrently, within the process , to transform the nature of power relationships.
What this means for service users is the opportunity to break "the internal bridles and perceived powerlessness which underpin their sense of self and guide their actions in the world" (Young 1 99 9 , 88) . Especially where affili
ated to groupwork, empowerment can be tremendously powerful in moving people towards more humane and emancipatory relationships (Mistry 1 989) . Social Action has three central characteristics . First, the model was spe
cifically designed to distance from the 'deficit' and 'blaming the victim' ap
proaches which we perceived to be dominating thinking around social wel
fare work. Models of individual pathology were viewed as no substitute for serious consideration of the collective or social condition of service users.
(Williamson 1 99 5 , 1 1 ) . Thus Social Action is based on a commitment to people having the right to be heard , to define the issues facing them, to set the agenda for action and, importantly, to take action on their own behalf.
We noted that in much existing community development and social educa
tion practice , once an issue is raised, the workers make the assumptions about how it should be addressed or even define the issues without previous discussions with the community Between the what? and the how? the cru
cial question of why? is usually left out.
Therefore , secondly, Social Action advocates that only through the careful
understanding of the reasons 'why' , can the question of 'how' be tackled. In asking the question 'why' , people participate in consideration of underlying causes and through this process they can gain greater understanding of their circumstances and hence , empower themselves.
Asking the question why is the key that unlocks the process . We encour
age people to pursue the question why until the root causes of a problem have been identified. Leaving out this stage and this way of looking at prob
lems confines explanations and responsibilities and the scope of the solu
tions to the private world around people and within their existing knowl
edge and experience . These have been fashioned by their position on the social ladder and by the processes of social control, education and socialisation, which keep this in place .
Through the process of asking the question why people have the opportu
nity to widen their horizons of what is possible , to break out of the demoral
ising and self-perpetuating narrowness of vision, introspection and 'victim blaming' induced through poverty, lack of opportunity and exclusion. It ena
bles them to conceive of new explanations in the wider social, political and economic context and to consider how they can identify and engage with these , in fact to challenge the taken-for-granted explanations or discourses which serve vested interests (Foucault 1 980) in which they are trapped. It turns the spotlight round from people as a problem in themselves , to the problems they encounter, and enables them to see opportunities to develop a much wider range of options for action and change . (For further explana
tion and detail of this process , please see Mullender and Ward 1 99 1 ; Ward and Mullender 1 99 1 ; Kidd and Kumar 1 982) .
Thirdly, Social Action is process orientated rather than outcome orien
tated. The empowering action has its locus on the processes of change , which means that the underlying dynamics are not predetermined by an antici
pated end result of certain proj ects or activities . Empowerment is a way for
ward of discovery and liberation, of dialogue and conscientisation. This is why Social Action focuses on the processes . It moves away from an approach
that is managerial and business orientated.
By focusing on process , the focus is on the agenda of the people and in particular the awareness raising, learning and the liberating activity of 'tak
ing charge of the situation' in all the stages of the development. In this sense, the underlying processes continuously redefine the outcomes, which become flexible and not predetermined by those who hold the power.
For the purpose of this research proj ect, Social Action is offered as an 'ideal type' , not as a definitive and completed model of practice. In some settings (e .g. in Magdeburg) , Social Action can provide a starting point for a new and innovatory approach to practice . In Jyvaskyla and Leicester, where
Ecosocial and Community Action methods are well established, Social Ac
tion acts as a comparator which enables us to specify more clearly what is actually going on.