Social Work Skills for Community Practice

Abstract

<italic>Social Work Skills for Community Practice: Applied Macro Social Work, Second Edition</italic>, aims to prepare social workers to engage in macro community practice by providing straightforward content for social work students that is enriched with practical and applicable learning experiences. The text focuses on building the social work skills required for organizing communities, including cause-based coalitions, geographically/identity-based communities, and health and human service organizations, to achieve culturally relevant, equity- and justice-driven social change. The second edition presents new information that includes self-care for the community practitioner, social work Grand Challenges, cultural humility, community dialogue, trauma-informed and resiliency-focused community development, environmental justice, and many other topics. Its focus on a broad range of community practice models makes it accessible to all social workers. This book is written for social work students and can be used either at the BSW or MSW level. It is intended for use in introductory macro social work practice courses and community practice courses, and it is designed to be accessible to both students who are interested in organizing and community practice careers and those who are likely to apply some of these skills in practice for tasks such as facilitating meetings, coalition building, facilitating public participation, engaging in political activism, and lobbying. This book includes case vignettes and a variety of suggested applied and experiential learning activities and assignments to reinforce content and to emphasize the skill-building focus of the text. The textbook is accompanied by an Instructor’s Manual that includes the Council on Social Work Education competencies covered in each chapter and suggested individual and group discussion prompts and activities. Sample PowerPoints to guide lectures and a Test Bank with multiple-choice and essay questions for each chapter are also available.