Bridges Out of Poverty: Strategies for Professional and Communities

Bridges Out of Poverty is a unique and powerful tool designed specifically for social, health, and legal services professionals. Based in part on Dr. Ruby K. Payne's myth shattering A Framework for Understanding Poverty, Bridges reaches out to the millions of service providers and businesses whose daily work connects them with the lives of people in poverty. In a highly readable format you'll find case studies, detailed analysis, helpful charts and exercises, and specific solutions you and your organization can implement right now to: Redesign programs to better serve people you work with Build skill sets for management to help guide employees Upgrade training for front-line staff like receptionists, case workers, and managers; Improve treatment outcomes in health care and behavioral health care; Increase the likelihood of moving from welfare to work. If your business, agency, or organization works with people from poverty, only a deeper understanding of their challenges-and strengths-will help you partner with them to create opportunities for success.

Philip E. DeVol has been training and consulting on poverty issues since 1997 and on Bridges Out of Poverty since the very beginning of this initiative when he co-authored Bridges Out of Poverty: Strategies for Professionals and Communities with Ruby K. Payne, Ph.D., and Terie Dreussi Smith in 1999. In 2004, he wrote Getting Ahead in a Just-Gettin -By World: Building Your Resources for a Better Life to help people in poverty investigate the impact of poverty on their communities and themselves. He wrote the revised edition of Getting Ahead which was released in September 2012. DeVol works in North America and internationally with communities that apply Bridges constructs including sites in Canada, Australia, Uganda, and Slovakia where Bridges Communities have been awarded two European Union grants to further the work there. Bridges Communities bring people together from all classes, sectors, and political persuasions to address the multiple causes of poverty in a systemic way. The many Bridges Communities using Getting Ahead led to a new edition of Getting Ahead in a Just-Gettin -By World. DeVol consults with Bridges Communities on a variety of topics to assist knowledge transfer among the many individuals, organizations, and communities that are adopting Bridges principles in their settings as well as developing new levels of expertise. In addition to writing and consulting, DeVol works with aha! Process s collaborations with other organizations to implement innovative, high-impact strategies for ending poverty and building sustainable communities where everyone can do well. His 2010 book Investigations into Economic Class in America, co-authored with Karla M. Krodel, applies the Getting Ahead concepts to college life for under-resourced postsecondary students. That book was honored in 2011 by the Association of Educational Publishers, winning its Distinguished Achievement Award for Adult Curriculum (Life Skills); the book was also a 2011 Innovation Award finalist. Finally, a collection of DeVol s essays and articles was published by aha! Process in 2010 under the title Bridges to Sustainable Communities: A Systemwide, Cradle-to-Grave Approach to Ending Poverty in America. It describes how communities, organizations, and businesses across the U.S. have applied Bridges concepts. In his current work DeVol builds on his 19 years as director of an Ohio outpatient substance abuse treatment facility in which he designed treatment programs and collaborative systems for school-based prevention, community-based intervention, and Ohio s first alternative school for recovering young people. During this time he also co-authored The Complete Guide to Elementary Student Assistance Programs with Linda Christensen. He and his wife, Susan, live in the country near Marengo, Ohio, just a few miles from his two children and their three grandchildren.