Community Profiling: A Practical Guide

Community profiling involves building up a picture of the nature, needs and resources of a community with the active participation of that community. This book provides a practical guide to the community profiling process which can be used by professionals involved in the planning and delivery of services, community development workers, community groups, voluntary organizations and tenants' associations. Since the publication of the first edition in 1994, there have been numerous developments in the field of community profiling. For example, there are now many online and IT based resources available to those undertaking community profiles.The new edition will be fully updated throughout and will include: revised chapter structure; a new chapter on the links between community profiling and policy development and practice; boxed examples; bulleted key issues at the end of each chapter; case studies; and further reading and a list of resources. The book will appeal to undergraduates and postgraduates undertaking practical research projects on the following kinds of courses: community work, youth studies, nursing, midwifery, social work, social policy, housing studies, urban studies and library and information studies. It will also appeal to community health professionals e.g. health visitors, social workers, community workers, housing and environmental health officers, regeneration workers, and library and information workers.

Murray Hawtin is Senior Policy Analyst at the Policy Research Institute, Leeds Business School. Murray is qualified as a Social Worker but has around 20 years experience as a grass roots Community Development Worker. He has worked for over ten years in research and consultancy especially in housing, tenant participation, community development, regeneration and local government, and has undertaken many community profiles and evaluations of locally based initiatives.

Janie Percy-Smith was, until the end of 2002, Professor of Public Policy at the Policy Research Institute (PRI), Leeds Metropolitan University. She is now working as a freelance researcher and consultant while retaining Visiting Professor status at the PRI. Janie has more than fifteen years experience of research and consultancy in the areas of research impact, social exclusion, local governance, regeneration and community development. She has particular expertise in relation to project and programme evaluation and qualitative research methods, and has worked extensively on projects requiring a high level of community involvement.