What does a workday look like inside an Integrative Community Venture? Follow one team of twenty through a Monday—from the 9:00 AM check-in to a garden documentary and a meeting with local businesses.
As you read about building an Integrative Economy, part of you may be thinking: this is crazy. The world would have to turn upside down and inside out to create new wealth options, a new Local Community Capacity work sector, and a way to measure quality of life instead of just quantity of stuff.
And yet, just a few short years ago, the world did turn upside down and inside out. Almost overnight, the COVID-19 pandemic sent people to work from home, moved schools online, and changed life across the globe. In hindsight it wasn’t well thought out—no one can fully plan for a pandemic that arrives without notice. But we can plan for an Integrative Economy.
Machines, AI, and other technology are reducing the need for people to do boring, tedious, repetitive jobs. Yet the work of building an economy that manages our lives still requires humans who are fully functioning and able to take part.
We are the first generation that can focus on thriving instead of surviving.
To thrive, a human being has to learn to be whole: to know themselves as a physical, emotional, thinking, sexual, and spiritual self that can take responsibility for building a healthy, dynamic life. That doesn’t just happen—a child has to be taught. This is the work of the Human Capacity Development Professional, and it will employ millions of people in the decades ahead.
This is first and foremost a business, and these are employees. The three-person management team and twenty HCDPs are self-directed and decide what each workday, week, and quarter will focus on. The management team is the integrative network between the team and the outside community—universities, businesses, and government—while staying deeply connected to the HCDPs and the people in their care.
Imagine a team that has finished three months of training and is ready for its first official day on the job:
| Group | Ages | Number |
|---|---|---|
| Children | 0–2 | 16 (2) |
| 3–5 | 10 (5) | |
| 5–7 | 12 (1) | |
| 8–12 | 5 | |
| 12–18 | 4 (1) | |
| Adults with disabilities | 35 | 2 |
| Seniors | 78–82 | 5 |
| Total in the team’s care | 54 | |
Two children, ages 2 and 6
Marci has an undergraduate degree in anthropology and briefly worked for a university cataloging finds from its outreach projects. She’s married; her partner works for an engineering firm. When the chance to join ICV came along, they agreed the work would be stimulating and good for their family.
Three children, ages 11, 9, and 4, and his father, 78
Jared finished high school and worked in restaurants until joining ICV. Divorced since his youngest was born, he worries his kids went without during some unstable years, and he sees this work as good for all of them. His father, mentally sharp but no longer able to drive because of macular degeneration, stays in the family home nearby—within the team’s one-mile radius—with Jared’s support.
All twenty HCDPs log in to the team’s private online call, using headphones and muting as needed if they’re caring for a child at the same time. After a brief round of news and requests for help, the three managers—each with a specialty—review the week ahead. Everyone attends, because everyone needs to know what’s happening across the whole cohort, not just their own homes. Meetings are recorded for anyone who can’t make it.
Raymond oversees the five seniors. Two live in their HCDPs’ homes; three live nearby in their own. Without ICV, all five would be in assisted living; instead they remain in their long-time communities. Jared reports that his father has a two-day Veterans Administration training to help him live actively with macular degeneration—and asks for help with his three kids while he’s away.
The team gets to work. Two members offer overnight care, matched to their own children’s ages: the 11-year-old goes to one home, the 9- and 4-year-olds to another. Someone covers the 4-year-old during the day. Another takes the 11-year-old to softball practice after school, and the 9-year-old’s music lessons line up perfectly with her host family’s schedule. In less than ten minutes, it’s all arranged.
Cecelia oversees care for the nine children and two adults with disabilities. This week she’s scheduled three sessions of training on building on the strengths of children with high-functioning autism—three of the nine children fit that description. One session is in the evening so partners and spouses can join. Only six HCDPs have a child with disabilities at home, but every HCDP is expected to be capable of caring for them, since all will spend significant time with each child over the years.
Ian, whose 35-year-old brother lives with him and functions at the developmental level of an 11-year-old, shares some news: his brother has become the equipment manager for a local adult touch football league. It’s going well, but no one from ICV plays in the league. What happens if his brother needs help at a game Ian can’t stay for? After a spirited discussion, the team decides to invite the league in as a partner and build a five-level phone tree: three designated league members can reach ICV staff at any time, so help is in place long before an emergency could arise.
Wendy manages the children. With forty-seven in the cohort, the team has organized sub-teams by developmental stage, and each gives a brief report. The sub-team for the preteens and young teens asks for help: a few are showing signs of withdrawal. Is it typical for their age, or does it need intervention? After weighing brain development and the reality that some kids take longer to bloom, the team lands on an idea. One HCDP has long wanted to raise a guide dog for the blind; he’ll invite those kids to help—a way to draw them out while serving the community and showing them they belong to it.
The meeting ends, and sub-teams confirm when they’ll meet next—online or in person, later today or later in the week.
Marci’s sub-team of six HCDPs works with the early-elementary children. Their current project combines community and backyard gardens with a video documentary the children are making. The sub-team began by looking at this age group’s developmental needs and set five outcomes tied to the wholeness framework:
Two team members know Photoshop and video editing and are teaching the rest; each child learns some of those skills, too, while editing their part of the film. That’s one of the key assets of working at ICV: it isn’t only about the people in the team’s care. Employees keep building skills that will serve them in any future job.
At every opportunity, HCDPs connect their work with the wider community—schools, businesses, art centers, faith-based organizations, and more. By the time ICV’s children leave home, they’ll be comfortable in the larger community, with internships, apprenticeships, and community leaders who know them by name.
After the morning check-in, the three managers turn to the outside community. Each leads one area—universities, businesses, or government—while staying aware of the others’. Today’s focus is the local business sector, whose members meet weekly to support one another. A newcomer considering office space in the area is introduced; the team makes a note to follow up and explain how ICVs work there.
This ICV isn’t the only one in the area; there are eleven more within the same local circle, and many of their managers are in the room. Once a month, all twelve meet to share what’s happening and coordinate their work with universities, businesses, and government. Local businesses support the ICVs because ICV families are their customers—whether that support comes as direct funding or as acceptance of the local currency that makes up part of every ICV salary.
This is truly a local economy, built from the bottom up, networked and integrated on many levels to ensure a high quality of life for all.
For many people, paying Human Capacity Development Professionals sounds great—until it looks like paying people to stay home and be parents. It is much more than that. All HCDPs are parents, but not all parents are HCDPs. Those who are hired understand the difference and come to work each day ready to do it: their daily work is meant to help each person in their care become self-directed and autonomous, able to take part in an Integrative Economy.
As in any job, some days are fun and some are stressful; some days the team is tight, and some days there are conflicts to resolve first. Over time, many HCDPs will gain the equivalent of a master’s degree in whole-person development, along with expertise in nutrition and exercise, financial literacy, creative thinking, technology, and local civics—and strong relationship, communication, and emotional-intelligence skills. They can stay as long as someone in their home is in the team’s care, then join the management team or move into the market or government sectors with an enormous set of skills.
And yes, an HCDP can be let go. Long before that, the team would step in with support to help improve their work. If children were ever at risk, ICV would care for them within another HCDP’s home—inside the neighborhood, not with strangers—with the goal of reuniting the family and getting the employee back to work.
This is an Integrative Economy—the management of life, built from wholeness and practiced one Monday morning at a time. Want the big picture? Read the Key Concepts or watch Ann and Lawrence’s series.
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