Differing perceptions of risk and the implications for the delivery of harm prevention programmes in Cambodia

ABSTRACT In 2005, Cambodia implemented harm prevention as a guiding principle in their National Strategic approach. In this practice-based research, social and community work practitioners at a community-based non-government organisation (NGO) delivered harm prevention workshops to 18 villages in rural Cambodia. Findings indicated that traditional expert understanding of risk did not always match how communities perceived risk. By engaging with the community utilising a Participation Action Research approach, Children’s Future International (CFI) found their expert position shifted to one where the communities became the experts, empowering them to be actively engaged in risk reduction strategies. These findings have implications for community engagement, development and targeting of harm prevention workshops.