Rural Social Work: Building and Sustaining Community Capacity (Coursesmart)

About this book

A thoughtful text integrating strengths assets and capacity-building themes with contemporary issues in rural social work practice Now in its second edition Rural Social Work is a collection of contributed readings from social work scholars students and practitioners presenting a framework for resource building based on the strengths assets and capacities of people a tool essential for working with rural communities. This guide considers methods for social workers to participate in the work of sustaining rural communities. Each chapter features a reading integrating the themes of capacity-building and rural social work; discussion questions that facilitate critical thinking around the chapter; and suggested activities and assignments. Rural Social Work Second Edition explores: Important practice issues in rural communities including the challenges of working with stigmatized populations such as gay lesbian bisexual and transgendered people the homeless and people living with HIV/AIDS Practice models that hold special promise for rural social workers including evidence-based practice and community partnership models Newer research tools such as asset mapping social network analysis concept mapping and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Exploring how social workers can integrate the tremendous resources that exist in rural communities into their practice Rural Social Work Second Edition provides a solid introduction to the complex challenging and rewarding work of building and sustaining rural communities.