Reading Room

Community Practice: Theories and Skills for Social Workers, Third Edition
David A. Hardcastle, PhD; Patricia R. Powers, PhD; Stanley Wenocur, PhD
456 pgs; $67.50

For almost two decades, Community Practice has been a definitive text for social workers, community practitioners, and students who help individuals contribute to and use community resources or work to change oppressive community structures. The third edition includes new charts and cases linking theoretical orientations and practical skills with an emphasis on the inherently political nature of social work and community practice. Boxes, examples, and exercises illustrate the range of skills and strategies available to savvy community practitioners in the 21st century, including networking, marketing and staging, political advocacy, and leveraging information and communication technologies. Other features include the following:

- new material on community practice ethics, critical practice skills, community assessment and assets inventory and mapping, social problem analysis, and applying community practice skills to casework practice;

- consideration of post-9/11 community challenges;

- discussion on the changing ethnic composition of America and what this means for practitioners;

- an exploration of a vastly changed political landscape following the election of President Obama, the Great Recession, the rise of the Tea Party, and the increasing political and corporate use of pseudo-grassroots endeavors; and

- a completely revamped instructor's manual available online.

This fully revised text provides a comprehensive and integrated overview of the community theory and skills fundamental to all areas of social work practice. Broad in scope and intensive in analysis, it is suitable for undergraduate as well as graduate study. Community Practice offers students and practitioners the tools necessary to promote the welfare of individuals and communities by tapping into the ecological foundations of community and social work practice.