Community Practice Skills: Local to Global Perspectives

by Dorothy Gamble MSW, Marie Weil D.S.W.

Overview

Dorothy N. Gamble and Marie Weil differentiate among a range of intervention methods to provide a comprehensive and effective guide to working with communities. Presenting eight distinct models grounded in current practice and targeted toward specific goals, Gamble and Weil take an unusually inclusive step, combining their own extensive experience with numerous case and practice examples from talented practitioners in international and domestic settings.

The authors open with a discussion of the theories for community work and the values of social justice and human rights, concerns that have guided the work of activists from Jane Addams and Martin Luther King Jr. to Cesar Chavez, Wangari Maathai, and Vandana Shiva. They survey the concepts, knowledge, and perspectives influencing community practice and evaluation strategies. Descriptions of eight practice models follow, incorporating real-life case examples from many parts of the world and demonstrating multiple applications for each model as well as the primary roles, competencies, and skills used by the practitioner. Complexities and variations encourage readers to determine, through comparative analysis, which model at which time best fits the goals of a community group or organization, given the context, culture, social, economic, and environmental issues and opportunities for change. An accompanying workbook stressing empowerment strategies and skills development is also available from Columbia University Press.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231110020
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	11/12/2009
Pages:	496
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Dorothy N. Gamble is Clinical Associate Professor Emerita at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill School of Social Work and has contributed to over twenty-five publications, among them The Handbook of Community Practice. She has extensive experience in both domestic and international community practice settings.Marie Weil is the Berg-Beach Distinguished Professor of Community Practice at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill School of Social Work and founding editor of the Journal of Community Practice. She has numerous publications and experience in urban and rural practice with diverse populations. She is the editor of The Handbook of Community Practice.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Preface and Acknowledgments
Part I. Community Practice: Purpose and Knowledge Base
1. Communities and Community Practice in Local to Global Contexts
2. Conceptual Frameworks and Models for Community Practice
3. Evolution of Values, Concepts, and Community Practice Approaches
4. Theories and Perspectives for Community Practice
Part II. Eight Models of Community Practice for the Twenty-First Century
5. Neighborhood and Community Organizing
6. Organizing Functional Communities
7. Social, Economic, and Sustainable Development
8. Inclusive Program Development
9. Communities and Social Planning
10. Building Effective Coalitions
11. Political and Social Action
12. Movements for Progressive Change
13. The Challenges for Community Practice Ahead
References
Index

What People are Saying About This

John Hatch

As someone who has spent his entire professional life working with low-income communities of the Third World, I find Gamble and Weil's textbook to be remarkably comprehensive, insightful, well-organized, and practical. The 'global perspective' carries great credibility, powerfully addressing the nascent social consciousness of its readers. If I had been exposed to Community Practice Skills as an undergraduate, I would have majored in social work rather than economics.

— John Hatch, founder, FINCA International

Elena Iarskaia-Smirnova

Community Practice Skills is a detailed presentation of aspects of community social work—its history and contemporary contexts, models of community intervention, theoretical backgrounds, practical examples with ethical considerations, and others—that could only have been put together and systematized by focusing on the role of social workers. Social work will be a strong profession only when it will develop in partnership with communities. This book shows a number of ways that community interacts with social work in actual practice and provides useful frameworks for assessment and analysis of current community practice interventions. It encompasses the value and importance of community as the primary arena of all sorts of human relationships and social development and a key actor providing support for people.

— Elena Iarskaia-Smirnova, coeditor of the Journal for Social Policy Studies

Terry Mizrahi

Gamble and Weil have a relevant and timely new book that includes the best of the social work community organizing tradition with a transformative application for the twenty-first century. The international as well as interdisciplinary perspective allows readers—whether practitioners, students, or leaders—to use models from the U.S. and other countries. The interrelationship between the processes of community practice and the value base of social justice, human rights, and social, economic, and environmental well-being makes this a valuable book for community practice workers.

— Terry Mizrahi, Hunter College School of Social Work