Promoting Community Change: Making it Happen in the Real World

Learn the skills that will allow you to improve the lives of not only individual clients, but of entire communities, with PROMOTING COMMUNITY CHANGE. This text addresses the real world issues facing social work, human services, and community health professionals who want to take the theoretical discussion of community forward and realize tangible community changes. As you progress through the text, you'll learn to identify the issues related to change and discover exactly how you can become an effective agent of change. Author Mark Homan emphasizes the role a strengthened community can play in preventing and solving the problems that individuals and families commonly experience, and gives you the tools to organize empowering local actions brining clients, families, and other community members into an active role in building a healthier community for themselves, their families, and their neighbors.

Now retired, Mark S. Homan served as Chair of the Social Services Department at Pima Community College, where he taught for over 30 years. In addition to these duties, Mark has served as adjunct faculty and guest lecturer for colleges, universities, and training consortia in the United States, Russia, and Sweden. A strong advocate of community empowerment, Mark has worked with diverse populations in urban, rural, and reservation communities on a broad range of issues and has developed and directed several human services programs. He is the past Chair of the international Association for Community Organization and Social Administration (ACOSA), a founding member of community organizations and agencies, and has served in executive leadership roles on numerous community boards and councils. He has conducted workshops and delivered presentations on various aspects of community building and community power. The recipient of numerous awards for teaching excellence and for work with communities, Mark is also the author of RULES OF THE GAME: LESSONS FROM THE FIELD OF COMMUNITY CHANGE, which is used both as a textbook and as a practical guide for community change agents.