Documenting the development of social capital in a community Safety Promotion Network: It's not what you know but who you know

Abstract

Issue addressed The Mackay Whitsunday Safe Communities (MWSC) was established in February 2000 in response to high rates of injury observed in the region. A key objective was to consolidate and better coordinate a network of community groups already working in community safety promotion. Methods This study used Social Network Analysis (SNA) to document and analyse the social resources, or social capital, mobilised by the network. Using a snowballing methodology, the chain of relationships that constitute MWSC and its Support Network (SN) was elucidated and quantified. Results Since it was launched in February 2000, MWSC and its SN almost doubled its bonding social capital, while bridging social capital increased 160% and linking social capital increased 280%. Relationships were not evenly distributed. Forty-four per cent of relationships were maintained by six actors who also maintained 60% of the network's brokerage potential. Conclusion SNA proved a powerful tool for describing and analysing relationships within the MWSC and its SN. It provided diagrammatic representation of the social structure and quantified important aspects of its structure and function. It highlighted the asymmetric distribution of relationships, resources and power that had a profound impact on how the network functioned. So what? There is more than one type of social capital. Bonding social capital (an attribute of cohesive groups) enhanced cooperation, while bridging and linking social capital (an attribute of strategically connected individuals) accessed the resources necessary to maintain MWSC activities.