Rural Social Work: Building and Sustaining Community Capacity

A thoughtful text integrating strengths, assets, andcapacity-building themes with contemporary issues in rural socialwork practice

Now in its second edition, Rural Social Work is acollection of contributed readings from social work scholars, students, and practitioners presenting a framework for resourcebuilding 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 participatein the work of sustaining rural communities. Each chapter featuresa reading integrating the themes of capacity-building and ruralsocial work
discussion questions that facilitate critical thinkingaround the chapter
and suggested activities and assignments.

Rural Social Work, Second Edition explores:

• Important practice issues in rural communities, including thechallenges of working with stigmatized populations such as gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people, the homeless, andpeople living with HIV/AIDS
• Practice models that hold special promise for rural socialworkers, including evidence-based practice and communitypartnership models
• Newer research tools such as asset mapping, social networkanalysis, concept mapping, and Geographic Information Systems(GIS)

Exploring how social workers can integrate the tremendousresources that exist in rural communities into their practice, Rural Social Work, Second Edition provides a solidintroduction to the complex, challenging, and rewarding work ofbuilding and sustaining rural communities.