Major Approaches to Community Practice

In Part II, major approaches to community practice are presented, with two chapters each dealing with emerging issues in development, organizing, and planning. In addition, six chapters are devoted to various aspects of social change efforts in community practice. James Midgley and Michelle Livermore's analysis of development theory and its increasing importance for all community practice provides a perspective that is echoed in numerous chapters. As we learn more about development problems and issues in other parts of the world and about positive and empowering practices, we recognize the adaptability of development theory to our own society. As we move into the 21st century, social and economic development efforts alone will be insufficient responses to global changes. Increasingly, environmental and sustainable community development, as described and illustrated by Dorothy Gamble and Marie Hoff, will need to be woven into all community work, whether urban or rural, in the postindustrial and developing nations alike.

Herbert and Irene Rubin contribute Chapter 9, “The Practice of Community Organizing,” illustrating essential practice skills for mobilization of people and resources to advocate for change and improve the quality of life in marginalized communities. They also provide useful theory to guide organizing and development. An area often insufficiently covered in social work literature and curricula is excitingly engaged by Steve Burghardt and Michael Fabricant in Chapter 10, “Which Side Are You On? Social Work, Community Organizing, and the Labor Movement.” The need for community practitioners to connect more closely with workers and the labor movement is cogently argued—shifts in the global economy and the increasing income gap make the necessity for common cause with workers more obvious now than perhaps any time since the Great Depression.

Two approaches presenting current models of social planning conclude this section. In a practice that has become more current, sparked by devolution of federal funds to states and fostered by national and regional foundations, local community planning has again emerged as a critical form of community practice. In “Social Planning With Communities: Theory and Practice,” Chapter 11, I illustrate this growing practice and provide supporting theory and examples of why this approach has [Page 152]become stronger in the late 20th century and in the early years of the 21st century. In Chapter 12, “From Community Planning to Changing Communities: Fundraising and Fund Allocation for Human Services,” Eleanor Brilliant provides a sound critique of the growth of single-sector planning (dueling initiatives) and the difficulties experienced over the past two decades in federated fundraising and community-wide planning. The earlier retreat of United Way from community-focused planning and allocation is now shifting back to increasing efforts to rebuild city or regional federated fundraising and broad-based community planning for social needs. The recent rebirth of planning councils and their success in community-wide planning in a number of areas provides a positive example of an arena in which social work greatly needs to re-engage.

The fourth section of Part II, “Social Change: People, Systems, and Societies,” presents six perspectives with methods and approaches for achieving positive change. Chapter 13, “Participatory Methods in Community Practice: Popular Education and Participatory Rural Appraisal,” by Paul Castelloe and Dorothy Gamble, presents the methods and practices that need to be precursors to much of direct practice with communities. Using a range of facilitation methods developed by Freire and others in popular education efforts, local knowledge is shared; root-cause analyses are conducted; and people set their own goals, develop plans, and engage in community development, organizing, or action as their interests determine. These processes are mutual and grounded in values of shared participation as the basis for empowerment practice.

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