Profession community development officer

Community development officers develop plans to improve quality of life in local communities. They investigate and assess the community's issues and needs, manage resources, and develop implementation strategies. They communicate with the community for investigation purposes, and to inform the community on development plans.

Personality Type

• Enterprising / Conventional

Knowledge

• Government policy implementation

  The procedures related to the application of government policies at all levels of public administration.

• Budgetary principles

  Principles of estimating and planning of forecasts for business activity, compile regular budget and reports.

Skills

• Analyse community needs

  Identify and respond to specific social problems in a community, delineating the extent of the problem and outline the level of resources required to address it and identifying the existing community assets and resources that are available to address the problem.

• Perform resource planning

  Estimate the expected input in terms of time, human and financial resources necessary to achieve the project objectives.

• Liaise with local authorities

  Maintain the liaison and exchange of information with regional or local authorities.

• Work within communities

  Establish social projects aimed at community development and active citizen participation.

• Ensure information transparency

  Ensure that required or requested information is provided clearly and completely, in a manner which does not explicitly withhold information, to the public or requesting parties.

• Build community relations

  Establish affectionate and long-lasting relationships with local communities, e.g. by organising special programms for kindergarden, schools and for dissabled and older people, raising awareness and receiving community appreciation in return.

• Conduct public presentations

  Speak in public and interact with those present. Prepare notices, plans, charts, and other information to support the presentation.

• Provide improvement strategies

  Identify root causes of problems and submit proposals for effective and long-term solutions.

• Maintain relations with local representatives

  Maintain good relations with representatives of the local scientific, economic and civil society.

• Carry out strategic research

  Research long term possibilities for improvements and plan steps to achieve them.

Optional knowledge and skills

Source: Sisyphus ODB