What connects an individual with a community?

In an age where social connections can appear as easy as clicking onto a social networking site, we don't like to admit that isolation and lonliness is a factor in many of our most challenging social issues. As a community development agency we believe in enabling people to act together to create positive solutions to their experiences.  Yet our work at the front end of trying to help people achieve social justice forces us to recognise that some individuals experience a deep sense of lonliness and otherness that is not resolved simply by engaging them in social or community groups - if they can be persuaded to set foot over the threshold in the first place.
Community development practitioners who wish to be genuinely inclusive face the challenge of responding to individual need and the very unique characteristics of each individual, particularly those described in the generic term 'Multiple and Complex Needs'. We must respond to individuals by walking alongside them while we learn what kinds of opportunities and experiences will help them engage and reflect on their experience. We can than support them to help collectively design community and service responses which help them to gain a firmer foothold in society and experience happier, healther, connected lives.