Search

Medical mistrust among the public was amplified during the COVID-19 pandemic due to racial and social inequities in infection rates and misinformation in the media. In Boston, two initiatives were launched by the Boston University Clinical Translational Science Institute (BU CTSI), Boston Medical Center (BMC), community health centers (CHCs), and community organizations to establish longitudinal and authentic partnerships with community-research boundary spanners who remained trusted sources of information. Each initiative addressed the immediate need for community-informed and partnered COVID research and provided a structure for longitudinal partnerships. In this paper, we describe the process of envisioning how these two initiatives could move from isolation toward collective impact. We also identify opportunities to improve community-engaged research practices within an academic health system. Our approach provides a structure that other organizations can use to align initiatives and move toward boundary-crossing partnerships which foster health equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, six social work scholars at varying career stages and institutions used collaborative autoethnography to identify (1) structural constraints and tensions to engage in participatory action research (PAR) in the academy, (2) the strategies we have used to navigate this work, and (3) suggestions for structural changes necessary to meaningfully value this work in the academy. Key structural constraints and tensions center around questioning the legitimacy of this work, time necessary to do this work, challenges funding this work, and inherent ableism in the academy. We share case examples of strategies PAR scholars have used to navigate or subvert academic expectations, including operationalizing values, rooting in movements, uplifting accessibility and knowledge; holding accountability to community, and articulating commitments. We end with recommendations for social work institutions and funders to meaningfully elevate, support, and fund PAR work in the academy. Specifically, we see the need for social work institutions to elevate PAR training and reward systems as legitimate knowledge, build support systems for conducting PAR in the academy, revise evaluation of scholars at milestones to value PAR; funders should also work to align funding opportunities and practices with participatory praxis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding Twitter by individuals and organizations to raise awareness and give voice to the disability community provides important insight into digital discourse around disability. This study examines #disability tweets shared during National Disability Employment Awareness Month in October 2018. Sourced and cleaned, English language tweets (n = 12,963) were analyzed through a mixed-methods approach. As the title of this paper, a tweet from our dataset, suggests, Twitter discourse reflects disability activism and culture as it exists globally. This work highlights important methodological considerations for differentiating the ways individuals and organizations utilize Twitter and highlights the importance of qualitative analysis in this regard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the paper titled "Economic stabilization of the family: The standard of living" by Harry L. Lurie that was presented at the 5th Annual Meeting of the National Conference of Social Work in Memphis, Tennessee on May 2 to 9, 1928. It mentions the issues to consider in analysing poverty in terms of standards of living and sources of income. It also explores the development of the Chicago Standard Budget by social agencies in Illinois to govern the assistance to poor families.

This paper presents a participatory research and planned change effort to develop a coordinated community response system to domestic violence in a United States culturally diverse community with a large immigrant population. This work grew out of an international, interdisciplinary project that was designed to establish ongoing collaborative relationships between university and community practitioners in the United States, Honduras, and Costa Rica around the theme of intra-familial violence, particularly gender-based violence against women. The paper analytically describes the international collaborative project, the local community-based participatory research and community development project, and lessons learned from both the local and international interdisciplinary collaboration. Examination of differences across disciplinary and cultural contexts generated critical reflection on the need to consider reframing domestic violence in the context of fundamental human rights, as is the case in Central America. At the same time, challenges around developing a coordinated community response, addressing inadequacies in the legal system, and implementing education and training were echoed across boundaries, demonstrating the need for continued international collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following welfare reform implementation, human service agencies are transforming themselves as they change their function from determining eligibility to enhancing employability. Most new programs are removing barriers to work force participation and facilitating self-sufficiency, while most community partnerships are providing a variety of support services. Administratively, human service agencies are incorporating private-sector organizational development functions,merging with other agencies, blending funding streams, and linking adult and child welfare services. This paper highlights innovative programs and practices emerging from welfare reform implementation, examines cross-cutting themes within a social development framework, and concludes with a discussion of challenges and lessons learned in the change process. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents views and insights of the author concerning civil rights in times of stress in the U.S. The author offers information about the historical background of civil rights. The Federal Bill of Rights was adopted by the first Congress in 1789, and within the next two years ratified by eleven states, because the states feared the new strength which had been handed to the Federal Government and deemed it safer to outline the limits of its exercise.

The article provides information on organizing a community for disaster preparedness, consideration and planning which should be limited to those natural and accident-caused situations in the U.S. Disasters usually catastrophic in nature, such as hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, fires, explosions, and epidemics. Furthermore, the peculiar connotation of the word disaster makes its use ill-advised in emergencies resulting from enemy action. The need for organizing a community for disaster preparedness is seldom realized fully until after a disaster has struck.

This paper focuses on recruiting participants for community practice interventions. We begin by presenting a case study of the recruitment methods used in a community-based development effort in the southeastern United States. In the next sections, we review some key issues in recruitment as discussed in the community practice and social movement literatures, and use them to reflect upon the case study. In the final section, we try to make social movement theory more accessible to community practitioners by developing a set of principles for use in recruitment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

African American families face significant racial barriers to their educational attainment. Within the experience of schooling specifically, anti-Black oppressive forces manifest in both structural and interpersonal forms, and existing challenges have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Black families have consistently developed strategies for navigating racialized educational barriers. Moreover, their own agency has been enhanced through engagement with justice-oriented community partnerships. The current study captures how a reciprocal university-community partnership advanced African American parent agency before and during the pandemic. The history of the partnership is first detailed, followed by a qualitative study of data from six parent focus groups regarding parents' perceptions of barriers to educational success across public and private school contexts, their own efforts to overcome those barriers, and the role of the community university partnership in advancing the families' educational aims. Findings reveal ecologically distinct racialized barriers in public and private school settings, with economic barriers transcending educational contexts. Black parents navigated these barriers with adaptative strategies across parent involvement domains. Implications for research, practice, and university-community partnerships are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mutual aid, a longstanding practice among socially marginalized communities, has proliferated as a widespread form of collective care amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and compounding crises. We used critical phenomenological methods to understand how participants (N = 25) who engaged in mutual aid in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic conceptualized mutual aid, and how their social identities intersect with their conceptualizations. We found that conceptualizations of mutual aid fell upon a spectrum; some participants (who primarily held privileged social identities) saw mutual aid as a temporary crisis response, which was similar to traditional aid, and could be adjunctive to government support. Others (who tended to hold more marginalized social identities) saw mutual aid as an ongoing support mechanism which was explicitly different than traditional aid and should be separate from government structures. Our research offers insight into mutual aid at a moment of compounding crises and little studied increase in mutual aid. We invite mutual aid groups to consider how their understandings of their work fall upon this spectrum and offer resources for political education in mutual aid work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Professionals such as social workers, public health officials, cultural networkers, researchers, and community leaders, who are designing and implementing programs and policies, can look to youth to gain a unique perspective on promoting community health. Across the United States, many communities experience inadequate access to nutritious foods that exacerbate poor health outcomes for marginalized populations – people of color, older or disabled adults, and those with lower education or income. To address food access disparities, providing youth voice and building youth empowerment may offer creative strategies to encourage community change. The Youth CAN (Change.Activity.Nutrition) project aimed to engage and empower adolescents to become agents of change for health within their community. Youth became active researchers through participatory action research (PAR) using socially engaged art platforms such as photovoice (photography), street art (graffiti-style art), and spoken word (poetry) to explore their environment and identify facilitators and barriers to healthy eating within their community. The World Café activity facilitated conversation among youth and adults to generate ideas to improve community food access. Collaboration between adult and youth researchers, and community leaders led to proposed solutions for improving access to healthy foods within an urban, low-income neighborhood. The Youth CAN project demonstrated how engaging and empowering youth through PAR is fundamental in promoting positive youth development and enabling youth to become advocates for equitable food access in their communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social workers are expected to serve and advocate for marginalized communities, including but not limited to transgender and nonbinary communities (TNB). However, the extent to which social workers meet this expectation is unknown. Using data from a 2019–2020 survey of students who were enrolled in U.S. social work programs (N = 725), this study examined the predictors for engaging in TNB activism, including interaction effects between subdomains of the adapted Ally Identity Measure and students' personal endorsement of a Critical Orientation to Social Justice. We found that both students identifying as LGBQ and having more TNB people in one's social network were associated with an increase in engaging with TNB activism. Among our social work educational variables, we found that students who have a mixed micro/macro focus, those who had taken a course on power, privilege, and oppression, and those who had engaged in intergroup dialogue were more likely to engage in TNB activism. Finally, we found that the interaction effects between the Critical Orientation to Social Justice Scale and two of the adapted Ally Identity Measure subdomains were significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We conducted a community-based study to analyze outcomes of and community responses to six large-scale immigration worksite raids by conducting semi-structured interviews with individuals who responded to these raids. Participants (n = 77) represented four primary sectors: faith, advocacy, education, and law. Analyses show that large-scale immigration worksite raids frequently prompt family reorganization and generally impact men and women differently, as men are predominantly detained while women and children are generally left behind. Findings indicate a need for these raids to be eliminated completely, although they also reinforce the importance of implementing damage-mitigation strategies such as trauma-informed social services, legal guardianship clinics to facilitate guardianship paperwork, and policy changes to address family separation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the report "A Year's Progress in Remedial Loan Work" by Arthur H. Ham presented at the 37th Annual Meeting of the National Conference of Charities and Correction in Saint Louis, Missouri, on May 19-26, 1910. The report discusses how remedial loans help people by offering alternative sources of credit. It also explores Ham's attempt to organize social change in the Progressive Era and efforts to create loan associations in U.S. cities.

The United States is home to more than 4 million Native Americans, the majority of whom live in urban areas. Urban Native Americans often experience significant social, health, and economic problems while having access to substantially fewer Native-specific resources than their reservation-based counterparts. They also face challenges with access to tribal services and political processes, as well as identity-sustaining cultural resources. This article describes the urban nature of many contemporary Native American communities. Examples from various urban Native American communities highlight the challenges faced by urban Native people, as well as creative initiatives developed to serve this population. This paper draws on and synthesizes the literature on contemporary urban Native communities, thus providing needed information for service providers and researchers working in these communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents views and insights of the author on the importance of moral judgments to promote the common good and a democratic way of life in the U.S. Democracy means to us government of the people and it underlies silently all that we do. It has been conceived that the rule of the people would be a government which had back of it certain moral judgments, certain conceptions of good, certain aspirations which grow out of moral sense. The author points out that American life is not carried on by the Government but by a larger number of free, self-compelled, self-disciplined associations of individuals related to each other in good faith for the express purpose of carrying on a particular part of American life.

The article focuses on the impact of the war on the public social services in the U.S. The effects of these various impacts are determined, not only by the nature of the forces themselves, but by the characteristics of the social services affected. The result of any given impact upon any one welfare program, therefore, will vary with the type of people served, the geographical area covered, and the adequacy of the service previously rendered. The author presented eight of the factors which influences public welfare and social services programs.

This article reports on increasing protests and social action in the U.S. and Israel. For those opposing conservative government policies that adversely affect the poor, immigrants and other disenfranchised groups, the summer of 2003 witnessed the mobilization and visibility of those constituencies who are its targets. In the United States there was a national march for economic human rights, resulting in a one-day tent city on August 24, 2003 on the mall in Washington D.C., at the time of the Commemoration of the 35th Anniversary of the 1968 Poor People's Campaign. The Kensington Welfare Rights Union and other groups led the march. In another incident, October 4, 2003 saw the culmination of an immigrant-rights campaign called the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride. It made its way across the United States, culminating in a rally in Queens, a borough of New York City. Thousands of people came together to address the issues of civil liberties, labor protections, family unification, visas and legal status for immigrants, among other issues.

Based on information collected from Washington, D.C.-based interest groups active in influencing social welfare policy, I have identified seven tactics that highly effective groups use more than least effective groups. Highly effective groups work more often to develop consensus among experts, pursue issues in court, aid the election of particular candidates, participate in public hearings, bring current regulations to executive branch attention, take changes to proposed regulations to the issuing agency and offer drafts of regulations prior to publication in The Federal Register. These results, by themselves and in conjunction with other research efforts, indicate more effective lobbying efforts and more empirically grounded policy practice by all social workers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A rapid emergent media scan, describing 1) how mutual aid emerged as a response to COVID-19 and 2) how digital organizing was used for mutual aid, was conducted using a media bias framework to select media outlets, standardized search terms to identify relevant content, and content analysis to describe themes. A variety of digital tools (e.g., social media, crowdsourcing, video conferencing) were used to coordinate people/resources, raise funds, create connections, and educate others. Findings encourage digital organizing to meet tangible and intangible needs when formal systems fail, while carefully avoiding reifying inequities based on differential access to technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how U.S. refugee policy changes from 2014 to 2018 affected the emotional well-being of nonprofit service providers. Participants identified the general political climate, including funding cuts; the Trump administration refugee bans; the unpredictable nature of policy change; and most impactful, negative political rhetoric, as affecting their emotional well-being. Negative effects on emotional well-being included an increase in stress, anger, sadness, despair, depression, helplessness, and caution. Negative rhetoric also impacted professional identities and personal relationships. Positive effects include greater motivation for advocacy. Impact on emotional well-being differed by level of organization at which the participant worked and by organizational characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study provides an updated understanding of the public's perception of social work in a Midwestern U. S. context, with an emphasis on how the public views macro practice as part of the scope of the profession, the tasks of social workers, and an exploration of the factors associated with attitudes about social workers. Findings suggest a positive perception of social work as a helping profession. While respondents reported a greater awareness of the comprehensive nature of social work roles, including macro-practice roles, than previous studies, participants still reflected a lack of knowledge around about some of the specific tasks that social workers perform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of community development has grown substantially over the past few decades. This is characterized by an increased demand for professionals who can engage in community development efforts and assist in establishing solutions. However, due to disparities within the field, there is no consistent education available for community development practitioners. To address this issue, researchers conducted a Delphi study with an expert panel of practitioners from across the United States. The panel achieved consensus on 12 knowledge constructs, 13 values, and 11 skills deemed imperative for successful community development practice. Future recommendations, implications for the field are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the article, the authors discuss issues on systemic racism worldwide, particularly in the U.S. Topics include the harassment and threats experienced by African Americans while engaging in activities of daily living, the police violence against minoritized communities, the systemic racism in social work and social welfare, and the adoption of anti-racist social work and the advancement of social action for racial justice.

Innovative pedagogical approaches are needed to teach community practice in this time of rapid community change and political polarization. Bridging the Gap Together is an ongoing experiential learning project with undergraduate social work students and a qualitative study designed to enhance "poverty awareness" and increase social connection among members of a rural, poor community. Students express an increased and deepened understanding of poverty post-experience. Their reflections also capture an awareness of the importance of human connection and the potential of compassionate professionalism to foster its development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides the assessment results from a community-engaged field education unit for social work students situated within a neighborhood setting in the South-Central region of the United States. A community-university partnership between several community institutions and a school of social work created the Southside Initiative (SSI) as a means to build capacity within the Oaks neighborhood. This neighborhood lacked professional social workers but was rich in other types of assets. The lessons learned from this initiative provide preliminary understanding about the benefits, complexity, and challenges of building and sustaining community-rooted practicum placements in neighborhood settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current trends point toward the marginalization of community practice in the field of social work and social work education. Since community practice education is heavily informed by trends in the field, the opportunity for educational expansion is immediate and great. This moment necessitates a move toward methods of community practice education that emphasize practitioner skill development in theory, creativity, collaboration, understanding, and investment. In an attempt to address the need for community-practice education, the authors present a challenging and innovative assignment for graduate students that encouraged university/community partnerships through experiential community experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whereas conventional theories depict the migrant organization in terms of its social and cultural dimensions, an emerging line of research expands "established models" of migrant organizations, empirically by widening the scope of analysis to include informal entities, and theoretically by taking account of their complex, dynamic functions. This study joins such discussions by examining the activities of refugee-run organizational entities, and then developing a synthesizing theoretical framework. Data were collected through 40 interviews of organizational leaders in 30 U.S. states, using Bhutanese refugees as case study. Findings suggest five types of "welfare support activities" of refugee-run grassroots organizations, and thus a repositioning within their institutional network, raising questions about organizational legitimacy and access to resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The integration of environmental justice into social work education, research, and practice has grown substantially in the past decade. However, social workers still report feeling unprepared to address these challenges with their clients and communities. To understand the disconnect between education about and application of environmental justice principles, semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with graduate social work students (n = 14). Findings suggest this disconnect is catalyzed, in part, by the environment's meta nature and a lack of facilitated education on the dynamic feedbacks between the physical environment and social justice issues. Implications for social work educators are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study extends research on financial inclusion by exploring the composition of financial services within communities. Using propensity-score-adjusted probit regression, we explored associations with savings account ownership using restriscted-access, cross-sectional data from the 2015 National Financial Capability Study with merged financial services and community demographic data. Living in communities where the density of banks and credit unions outnumbered that of alternative financial services was associated with lower-income households' greater probability of owning a savings account, all else being equal. These results have implications for efforts aiming to improve financial inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article highlights a structured approach to preparing community members for observational data collection in participatory research. Providing training related to the items that will be observed and conducting post-training assessments of observer accuracy and interrater reliability provides researchers with a measure of observer readiness to collect data. In addition, reassessing observer accuracy and interrater reliability at the end of data collection offers a measure of confidence in the data collection process. Discussion of this approach includes addressing survey items with low observer percentage agreement scores and training and evaluation strategies for intermittent and extended data collection periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an analysis of a brief case study in community organizing undertaken by low-wage fast food workers and community allies over the issue of wage theft. The case analyzed in this article takes place in a highly conservative state in the South Central region of the United States. Through utilizing critical pedagogy, social action, action research, and praxis, workers were able to stop the wage theft. Despite the victory by workers, lessons learned from this experience point to a need for the development of more innovative strategies in labor organizing that emphasize community building and popular education to develop worker-led strategies and movements that work in the most conservative states and contexts in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasingly, community coalitions are being developed to address a myriad of social challenges. However, documented research efforts related to planning processes associated with coalition formation are few. This case-study documents the use of concept mapping (CM) to d elineate a conceptual framework for developing a statewide kinship care coalition in one southeastern state. CM is a mixed-method research approach that analyzes qualitative data via nonmetric multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analyses. After a review of relevant literature, this article discusses CM processes associated with this endeavor and examines implications for future use of CM for coalition formation and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the theoretical scaffold of the relative deprivation theory, we present a commentary that delineates: (a) the 4 stages of social movements (e.g., emergence, coalescence, bureaucratization, and decline) and (b) sociopolitical and ethno-generational leadership, networks, narratives and tactics of the Civil Rights Movement compared with the Black Lives Matter. We provide a commentary on the 2 social movements’ precipitating events during the emergence and coalescence stages. Also, the social-psychological pressures of mainstream social justice protest during the bureaucratization and decline stages are explored to highlight the emotional toil that threaten social movements and the lives of its leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Large numbers of households experiencing the effects of food insecurity threaten a community’s viability. Although hunger has been viewed as a social problem, research focused on household-level food security tends to primarily focus on the household economics. This thematic overview of academic and grey literature (a) describes community food security (CFS) research and indicators related to accessibility, affordability, community self-reliance, social justice, and sustainability; (b) provides examples of how community social workers can participate, lead or evaluate CFS strategies that can create sustainable food secure communities; and (c) invites social work researchers to develop holistic measures of CFS. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article draws on data from an exploratory study involving an organized group of Mexican immigrant mothers engaged in community-based policy advocacy in the Pacific Northwest. Participants in the project lobbied state legislators on bills expanding the rights of undocumented immigrants—most notably, bills granting access to in-state tuition and driver’s licenses. In-depth interviews (n=12) reveal that through this process, participants came to see themselves as political subjects, despite their unauthorized legal status. Findings reveal that participants’ engagement in the policy process is centered on the idea of expressing needs and reflects their interest in improving individual, family, and community well-being. In this sense, their participation in politics flows from their roles as mothers and caregivers. By illuminating the experiences of a group—undocumented immigrant women—often overlooked in research on immigration policy and practice, this case offers a counter-narrative to the dominant portrayal of immigrant women and suggests ways to integrate community organizing and collective action into policy practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This exploratory study examined ethnic differences in financial outcomes among low-income older Asian immigrants from a financial capability perspective. We used survey data collected from a convenience sample of Chinese, Korean, and “Other Asian” ethnic participants in a subsidized employment program (n = 159). We ran logit regressions of dichotomous financial outcomes. Regression analysis showed significant ethnic differences in some financial outcomes after controlling for financial capability and other factors. Findings did not support our hypothesis that financial capability explains ethnic differences in financial outcomes. Findings suggest the need to develop culturally suitable financial capability measures for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

To expand the financial capability of Latinos, culturally sensitive interventions are needed. A literature search was conducted to examine how financial education interventions have been used to improve financial outcomes for Latinos. Just 7 peer-reviewed intervention studies were identified, suggesting a substantial gap in knowledge in this area. Although conclusions about the effectiveness of financial education interventions with Latinos are limited, each study finds positive changes in financial attitudes or behaviors. Using Resnicow’s (1999) cultural sensitivity framework, surface and deep structure methods of tailoring financial education were identified. Implications for designing and testing culturally sensitive financial education interventions are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various articles within the issue on topics including how individual empowerment and resilience influence community resilience; reduction in rural poverty in China between 1986 and 2010; and entrepreneurship for community practitioners.

Veterans and military families face a complex set of challenges transitioning to civilian life. Following in a tradition of community collaboration and collective impact, we believe that a coordinated community-based approach can help ease this transition. Our comparative case study suggests that veteran collaborative efforts should be based on best principles including a neutral and natural convening organization; the presence of credibility, respect, and trust; resources to administer and facilitate; and using data for planning and implementation. Looking forward, these collaboratives need to address issues of scale, formalizing and broadening their scope to identify and achieve and evaluate their impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy makers are increasingly interested in incentivized savings programs for low-income children. This study reports findings from interviews with caregivers of accountholders in the Saving for Education, Entrepreneurship, and Downpayment (SEED), a national research initiative. Although asset-building proponents emphasize that low-income citizens can save with the right supports, median saving rates in the SEED study were quite low. In-depth interviews conducted with 27 caregivers at 2 distinct program sites describe obstacles to saving. Barriers are categorized as financial, spatial, cognitive, and behavioral. Policy and practice implications may enhance low savings rates among low-income participants in many incentivized savings programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we trace the ideological and social policy roots of asset-based community development (ABCD) in the United States and the United Kingdom, and explore how this approach has been legitimized in Scotland. We argue that ABCD is a capitulation to neoliberal values of individualization and privatization. Drawing on findings from our empirical work, we discuss how ABCD generates dilemmas for community development. Although some practitioners are able to adapt ABCD to focus on renewing Scottish democracy, several practitioners are using ABCD to privatize public issues such as inequality and justify dramatic cuts to the Scottish welfare state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although an expansive literature exists on individual experiences after a catastrophic event, there is less attention to how the community as a social structure experiences a significant tragedy. These public tragedies create disruptions across multiple domains of community functioning. Using the Community Capacity Model (Hart, 1999) as a framework for assessment, outcomes of a public tragedy are described. Additionally, community practice approaches are identified for the three phases that communities subsequently experience: crisis, processing of the event, and adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including working conditions, communities of color and nutritious food access.

This article examines community planning and communications approaches used by mental health housing organizations in the siting process for community-based psychiatric housing. Drawing on interviews with housing administrators in 7 states, it assesses variations in the approach, content, timing, and modes of agency communications with community leaders, neighbors, and local citizens, and the association of these communications methods with initial and longer-term community responses to the site. The study provides evidence to inform practice for the development of community approaches to the siting of psychiatric housing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author presents Aubrey William's autobiographical "A Dead Battery," which provides a personal and detailed account of the renewal of philosophies and policies related to public welfare during the period of the Great Depression and the New Deal. He discusses the excerpts that focus upon topics including role of the Federal Government in the distribution of Relief, dispute over distribution of Relief by public or private agencies and control of relief funds in southern state.

Youth civic spaces are environments in which youth participation in civic action is fostered-the pathways, structures, and vehicles that provide opportunities for young people to engage in critical discussion, dialogue, and action. The concept of youth civic space includes the formal and informal places in which youth civic engagement can occur and how the lived experience of those places contributes to young people's development as civic actors. It extends discussions regarding the physical locations of youth civic engagement to include the activities, perceptions, and interactions within them. Drawing on archival materials from 2 multiyear projects, this article explores the role of community-based organizations in mediating youth civic action and understanding the characteristics and qualities of the organizations that facilitate youth engagement in community action and social change. We use this analysis of empirical examples to develop a conceptual framework for strengthening practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community developers have long understood the importance of local participation in the events and processes that shape communities. Effective, democratic, and people-and-place-centered development strategies have the potential to achieve such participation. This article suggests that cooperatives can be an effective participatory strategy to bootstrap low-income people into the socio-economic mainstream. Woolcock and Narayan's (2000) social capital and poverty transition model is adapted to demonstrate the development potential of cooperative businesses. We hope to stimulate discussion among community development scholars and practitioners, policymakers, and the public on the potential of cooperative business as a community development strategy, particularly in resource limited communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines a Nicaraguan community 3 years after the signing of the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). Qualitative and quantitative methods were used to learn how families, living in a community constructed near a US-owned factory, maintained resilience under growing negative conditions. These conditions relate to family dislocation, loss of support systems, lack of childcare, safe water, and food security, in addition to labor injustices. Although maintaining relatively high scores on a baseline resilience test, these families and others like them in Central America, demonstrate a struggle for survival in a globalized context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]