Rural Social Work: Building and Sustaining Community Capacity

A thoughtful text integrating strengths, assets, and capacity-building themes with contemporary issues in rural social work practice

Now in its second edition, Rural Social Work is a collection of contributed readings from social work scholars, students, and practitioners presenting a framework for resource building 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 participate in the work of sustaining rural communities. Each chapter features a reading integrating the themes of capacity-building and rural social work; discussion questions that facilitate critical thinking around the chapter; and suggested activities and assignments.

Rural Social Work, Second Edition explores:

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

Exploring how social workers can integrate the tremendous resources that exist in rural communities into their practice, Rural Social Work, Second Edition provides a solid introduction to the complex, challenging, and rewarding work of building and sustaining rural communities.

T. LAINE SCALES, PhD, is Professor of Higher Education and Associate Dean of the Graduate School at Baylor University, Waco, Texas. She taught social work for 17 years and has published in the areas of social welfare history, rural social work, religion in social work, and teaching with decision cases.

CALVIN L. STREETER, PhD, is the Meadows Foundation Centennial Professor in the Quality of Life in the Rural Environment and former chair of the Community and Administrative Leadership Concentration in Social Work at The University of Texas at Austin.

H. STEPHEN COOPER, PhD, is Associate Professor of Social Work and Associate Dean, College of Liberal and Applied Arts at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas.