Community Practice Skills: Local to Global Perspectives/

ABOUT THE BOOK
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.

TABLE OF CONTENTS 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

ABOUT THE AUTHOR / EDITOR
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.