The Handbook of Community Practice

The Second Edition of The Handbook of Community Practice is expanded and updated with a major global focus and serves as a comprehensive guidebook of community practice grounded in social justice and human rights. It utilizes community and practice theories and encompasses community development, organizing, planning, social change, policy practice, program development, service coordination, organizational cultural competency, and community-based research in relation to global poverty and community empowerment. This is also the first community practice text to provide combined and in-depth treatment of globalization and international development practice issues―including impacts on communities in the United States and on international development work. The Handbook is grounded in participatory and empowerment practices, including social change, social and economic development, feminist practice, community-collaborative, and engagement in diverse communities. It utilizes the social development perspective and employs analyses of persistent poverty, asset development, policy practice, and community research approaches as well as providing strategies for advocacy and social and legislative action.

The handbook consists of forty chapters which challenge readers to examine and assess practice, theory, and research methods. As it expands on models and approaches, delineates emerging issues, and connects policy and practice, the book provides vision and strategies for local to global community practice in the coming decades.

The handbook will continue to stand as the central text and reference for comprehensive community practice, and will be useful for years to come as it emphasizes direction for positive change, new developments in community approaches, and focuses attention on globalization, human rights, and social justice. It will continue to be used as a core text for multiple courses within programs, will have long term application for students of community practice, and will provide practitioners with new grounding for development, planning, organizing, and empowerment and social change work.

Marie O. Weil, DSW, ACSW, is Berg-Beach Professor of Community Practice at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Michael Reisch is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Maryland. A former Woodrow Wilson Fellow and Fulbright Senior Scholar, he has held faculty and administrative positions at five other major U.S. universities, and has been a visiting professor and lectured widely in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Australia. Based on his interdisciplinary educational background in law, history, political and social theory, and social work, he has authored or edited 35 books and monographs, 150 journal articles and book chapters, and over 450 conference papers. His scholarship focuses on such topics as poverty and inequality, welfare and welfare reform, the history and philosophy of social welfare, social justice, social policy, and social work practice, and the impact of economic globalization on social welfare.  His many books include From Charity to Enterprise: The Development of American Social Work in a Market Economy (with Stanley Wenocur); The Road Not Taken: A History of Radical Social Work in the United States (with Janice Andrews); Social Work and Social Justice: Concepts, Challenges, and Strategies (with Charles Garvin); Macro Social Work Practice: Working for Change in a Multicultural Society; Social Work Ethics in a Changing Society; and the Routledge International Handbook of Social Justice. He has also co-edited two editions of the Handbook of Community Practice and the 4^th edition of his book, Social Policy and Social Justice, will be published in spring 2021. Translations of his scholarship appear in 10 languages. With Dr. Yoosun Park, he is currently working on a book tentatively titled From Americanization to Integration: A Discursive History of Social Work with Immigrants and Immigration.

Dr. Reisch has held leadership positions in national, state, and local advocacy, professional, and social justice organizations with a particular focus on the issues confronting low-income children and families, welfare recipients, immigrants and refugees, and unemployed or homeless persons.  His op-eds have appeared in numerous newspapers and he has been a frequent guest on public interest radio programs. Reisch has directed and consulted on political campaigns at the federal, state, and local levels in four states, and been honored for his work by the Maryland General Assembly, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, and numerous nonprofit organizations, professional associations, and universities. In 2013, he received the Social Work Educator of the Year Award from the Maryland Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.  In 2014, he received both the Teacher of the Year Award from the University of Maryland and the Significant Lifetime Achievement Award from the Council on Social Work Education. In 2017, Reisch became a Fellow of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare, and in 2019, he received the Career Achievement Award from the Association for Community Organization and Social Action.

 Mary Ohmer has over twenty years of experience working in community organizing and development around the country with national and local nonprofit and community based organizations, foundations, and government.  Dr. Ohmer has taught consensus organizing approaches as part of macro practice and community organizing social work courses.  She received her Ph.D. in social work from the University of Pittsburgh in August 2004, and she is currently an assistant professor at the School of Social Work at Georgia State University.  Dr. Ohmer is also currently working with the United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta to help them develop and implement an evaluation of the community training.