Community Engagement Placement: Reflection on Food-aid Services

This report reflects on a student's experience during a community engagement placement at a Foodbank warehouse, focusing on food-aid services in Australia. The report identifies the various disadvantaged groups facing food insecurity, including the unemployed, low-income earners, single-parent households, and indigenous communities. It aligns community engagement theory with the practical realities of food-relief efforts, noting that while such programs address the symptoms of food insecurity, they often fail to tackle the root causes. The report also provides recommendations for improving community engagement, such as capacity building, attracting public entity involvement, and forming a civic infrastructure. Furthermore, it includes a reflection on the student's personal values, assumptions, and the skills developed through the placement, emphasizing the importance of employability skills and community awareness. The report concludes that community engagement practices are valuable for learning employability skills and supporting social causes.

Running head: COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT PLACEMENT
A Reflection on Community Engagement Placement
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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Executive summary
The main purpose of this report is to understand community engagement with the help of food-
aid services by firms such as Foodbank warehouse in this report. The paper with the help of my
experience of working as a volunteer and with reference to journals and websites articles discuss
a few important things regarding food-aid services. Food-aid services as found in this report
addresses the issue but not to its causes. Additionally, it also does not provide an utmost support
to the needy people.

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction..................................................................................................................................3
2. The experience of an engagement with people during the placement.........................................3
3. The purpose: the kinds of disadvantage observed, and/or the client needs addressing during the
placement.........................................................................................................................................4
4. Aligning the community engagement theory with the practice...................................................5
5. Recommendations for improving community engagement in the Placement Organization.......6
6. Reflection on your own values, assumptions and attitudes and the skills developed through
the placement...................................................................................................................................7
7. Conclusion...................................................................................................................................8
References........................................................................................................................................9

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1. Introduction
Community engagement placement is a process through which agreed goals are achieved
by its stakeholders. The stakeholders of a community engagement are universities, the
community, and organizations that collaborate to fulfill their distinguished but agreed goals.
Universities send their staffs and students to work as volunteers to support a community with the
available resources. Organizations both multinational corporations and not-for-profit firms help
such organizations with foods, which are being supplied to the selected community group.
Community groups are the population of Australia that has no food (Acu.edu.au 2018). A
collaboration of this kind does not only provide the food to needful people but also provides a
learning opportunity to students and staffs of universities. These are also some real opportunities
that firms can utilize to become social entrepreneurs. The main purpose of this report is to
conduct a reflection of mine working as a volunteer with the Foodbank warehouse.
2. The experience of an engagement with people during the placement
The community that I engaged with while working as a volunteer is the selected
Australian population, which do not have sufficient food. In fact, a food crisis like Australia is a
global issue. The number of people facing food insecurity at some point in a year is close to
above 3.6 million in Australia (Foodbank 2018). Children make 27% of the stated figure
(Foodbank 2018). Additionally, the demands for food relief rises on an average at 10% every
year (Foodbank 2018).
Communities those that are prime targets of food relief campaigns are many. There are a
certain group of people in Australia that are relatively more susceptible to food insecurity such as
unemployed people, low-income earners, single-parent households, young people and rental

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households (Child Family Community Australia 2018). There are certain communities, which
are prone to food insecurity. These are indigenous, socially isolated and culturally and
linguistically diverse (CALD) people. These communities experience food security at higher
rates (Child Family Community Australia 2018).
The nature of food insecurity can be of varied kinds. These are the inadequate supply of
and access to food and the inappropriate use of food. A close to 5% of the entire population in
Australia was at once stage estimated to be as facing the threat of food insecurity (Child Family
Community Australia 2018).
Organizations those that are involved in helping the community with their donations and
the food are concerned with food insecurity for child and family. Food insecurity can cause both
short and long-term negative outcomes for children (Kaur, Lamb and Ogden 2015).
3. The purpose: the kinds of disadvantage observed, and/or the client needs addressing
during the placement
As stated earlier, the kind of people at the disadvantage is the people of different groups
and communities. Those who are unemployed they face the fear of food insecurity. Such people
are not sure of whether they would be able to afford the food as long as they are unemployed.
The food insecurity is also very common with those that earn a very less income. These
population in Australia at any point in time can have no food. Additionally, there are other
groups as well such as the young people and the households both of single parent and rental
status. The community, which is the most affected from food insecurity are CALD, indigenous
and socially violated people (Child Family Community Australia 2018).

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Despite being such a noble cause and collectively supported by child and family
organizations and universities, food insecurity fails to fulfill the mission to reduce food scarcity
from Australia. The Foodbank warehouse addresses symptoms rather than its causes. Such
campaigns do not justify their existence for a fact that despite being for so long in action, they
are yet away from causes of food insecurity. In fact, they cannot also resolve such issues as these
are beyond the scope of one organization or a few.
The socio-economic issues need to be addressed at the national as well as at the global
level. On the other hand, the system continues to persist at the global level. There is no stoppage
put to the food scarcity. It keeps on growing with its driving forces becoming stronger every
year. Despite a growing popularity, Foodbank warehouse is unable to the demand produced due
to rising living cost, stagnating wages and a state of shrinking welfare. Some of the driving
forces of food scarcity include the unemployment rate, migration of people, and ineffective
government policies and implementation for migrants (Bocquier et al. 2015).
There are some other problems of a food-relief campaign as well. These are (Globalissues.org
2018).
 Being a donor-driven system it relies solely on donors
 It is a kind of a foreign policy strategy
 Development is not necessarily the part of food-aid programs
4. Aligning the community engagement theory with the practice
Community engagement is a term that consists of numerous methods and brings
concerned stakeholders towards a set of issues. For example, food insecurity is a form of an issue
that needs to be dealt with by forming a community of concerned stakeholders and using relevant

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methods to address the issue. Stakeholders in a community engagement program are those who
affect the campaign and are affected by it. Community engagement is related to notions of
empowerment as it attracts stakeholders outside of government to contribute to the cause by
getting involved in the decision-making for services and policies (Case and Zeglen 2018).
In recent years, there has been a significant resurgence of interest in activities related to
community engagement. Supporters claim that community engagement provides ample
opportunities for diverse issues. It does generate support and relief work of varied types
addressing different issues. Community engagement is like a momentum and an agreement for a
kind of public actions. It attempts to build up stronger communities. It is assumed to be the key
method to address the kind of practical concerns (Lam et al. 2016).
On a practical ground, community engagement programs are less effective with a few
kinds of issues. For example, community engagement for a flood-relief campaign is the necessity
of the moment and more or less provides the relief work to affected people. On contrary to this,
food-relief campaigns supply help to a significant population but do not fix its root causes. It is a
troublesome situation for a reason that such campaigns rely entirely on donors. In case, there are
fewer inflows what would then happen with the mission to feed those who do not have the food
(The Independent 2018). The learner during his or her participation as a volunteer did observe
the dependency of the Foodbank warehouse on private organizations and others for the donation.
Firms as like the Foodbank warehouse can only supply the uninterrupted help if they have
adequate funds available all the time.
5. Recommendations for improving community engagement in the Placement Organization

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Community engagement can be improved in a number of ways. Those ways are (Ojha et al.
2016):
Capacity Building: This would require giving training and assistance to those who work as
volunteers. This would empower them with the technical skills needed to engage with the
community and the stakeholders. These volunteers are responsible for many tasks like public
speaking, technical skills, and writing.
Draw the Attention of a Public Entity: Things would improve significantly if a public entity
such as the local council gets involved in the campaign. The local council can help by promoting
a social cohesion among its jurisdiction to help them identify the issue and support this
monetarily.
Form a Civic Infrastructure and a Community Network: There is a need to attract the
participation from individuals, groups, and organizations.
Diversity: Community engagement initiatives must not be identical but diverse.
Public Policy System: A public policy system is required to address issues by working towards
positive outcomes. They can also help with ongoing feedbacks on service delivery.
6. Reflection on your own values, assumptions and attitudes and the skills developed
through the placement
I worked as a volunteer for a Foodbank warehouse. My role was to pack foods for people
those who had required it. I learned quite a many things by working as a volunteer. The
campaign did explore me to the reality of this world and the job market. Consequently, I could
know that getting a good job in Australia is very challenging. Hence, I decided to be focused on

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the development of graduate employability skills. Those skills include effective communication,
teamwork, passionate to look beyond the technical skills and aspiration to become an executive
and so on. The placement made me work closely with the community. Hence, I am now well
equipped with the skills needed to effectively deal with such people. These learning would be of
great importance for me for my professional career and for more volunteering works.
7. Conclusion
In summary, this can be concluded that community engagement practices are good
resources for learning employability skills and support a social cause. Students those who are
pursuing degrees in specialized courses can be benefitted from such programs. They have
opportunities to groom their skills. They are also elaborating their knowledge of the community
and their needs.

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References
Acu.edu.au 2018. What is community engagement? - ACU (Australian Catholic University).
[online] Acu.edu.au. Available at:
https://www.acu.edu.au/about_acu/our_university/acu_engagement/community_engagement/
what_is_community_engagement [Accessed 28 Oct. 2018].
Bocquier, A., Vieux, F., Lioret, S., Dubuisson, C., Caillavet, F. and Darmon, N., 2015. Socio-
economic characteristics, living conditions, and diet quality are associated with food insecurity in
France. Public health nutrition, 18(16), pp.2952-2961.
Case, R.A. and Zeglen, L., 2018. Exploring the ebbs and flows of community engagement: The
pyramid of engagement and water activism in two Canadian communities. Journal of
Community Practice, 26(2), pp.184-203.
Child Family Community Australia 2018. Food insecurity in Australia: What is it, who
experiences it and how can child and family services support families experiencing it?. [online]
Child Family Community Australia. Available at: https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/food-
insecurity-australia-what-it-who-experiences-it-and-how-can-child [Accessed 28 Oct. 2018].
Foodbank 2018. The Facts - Foodbank. [online] Foodbank. Available at:
https://www.foodbank.org.au/hunger-in-australia/the-facts/ [Accessed 28 Oct. 2018].
Foodbank 2018. Volunteer - Foodbank. [online] Foodbank. Available at:
https://www.foodbank.org.au/want-to-help/volunteer/ [Accessed 28 Oct. 2018].
Globalissues.org. 2018. Food Aid — Global Issues. Retrieved from
http://www.globalissues.org/article/748/food-aid

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Kaur, J., Lamb, M.M. and Ogden, C.L., 2015. The association between food insecurity and
obesity in children—The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Journal of the
Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 115(5), pp.751-758.
Lam, C.A., Sherbourne, C., Tang, L., Belin, T.R., Williams, P., Young-Brinn, A., Miranda, J.
and Wells, K.B., 2016. The impact of community engagement on health, social, and utilization
outcomes in depressed, impoverished populations: Secondary findings from a randomized
trial. The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, 29(3), pp.325-338.
Ojha, H.R., Ford, R., Keenan, R.J., Race, D., Vega, D.C., Baral, H. and Sapkota, P., 2016.
Delocalizing communities: changing forms of community engagement in natural resources
governance. World Development, 87, pp.274-290.
The Independent. 2018. The problem with Australia's food banks. Retrieved from
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/food-banks-australia-food-shortage-
a8052156.html