2 models of Vulnerable Population Approach

Now, let’s move on to specific cases of vulnerable populations approach to overcome diversity and inclusiveness challenges. Here is a glass of water, and some people say half empty and others say half full. Those who think it half empty, particularly health specialists, or any kind of specialists, try to fill the glass from outisde by investing money and by using their technical support. On the other hand, those who think it half full, they try to make the best use of water more effectively to meet the needs of people. The first one is often called as a deficit or needs model. And the latter, assets model.

The second model, or assets model, has been developed by Kretzmann and McKnight, and they called their approach as assets map approach. Y-map. Let’s see needs approach. And this is a figure of a needs map. Specialists are very good at identifying something bad about the community as you can see from this slide. They’re good at finding out dropouts, homeless, teenage mothers, and other problems of communities. And then they try to meet the needs professionally. However, they tend to be always busy and expensive. And we don’t know when such professional supports are given to the needed community. It’s good to know the programs but solution is not so simple. Then let’s see another map focusing on assets.

In the same community, we can find active growth groups, clubs, active churches, and more. They’re all assets and they can do something from within. Some kind of facilitation may be necessary for them but they can start at any time at low cost by using their assets. There are many assets that focus on health assets. They’re defined as resources that we can use to promote our health status. They can be social, financial, physical, environmental, or human resources. Sometimes, these assets are divided into three. Individual, community, and organizational or institutional. For health promotion, organizational or institutional level are very crucial as I have already shown in the beginning of this presentation.