The Short Guide to Community Development

Description

The only up-to-date, accessibly written short guide to community development, this third edition offers an invaluable and authoritative introduction. Fully updated to reflect changes in policy, practice, economics and culture, it will equip readers with an understanding of the history and theory of community development, as well as practical guidance on how to do it. This is a key text for all students and practitioners working with communities. It includes: a broad overview of core themes, concepts, basic practices and key issues in community development; an analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on community life and well-being, along with the implications for longer-term community support; additional brand new content on the pressing issues of democratic decline, social fragmentation and isolation, social care pressures, technological developments and climate change.

Marilyn Taylor has extensive experience of research and practice in the community development field. She is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Voluntary Action Research in the UK and Emeritus Professor, University of the West of England. Alison Gilchrist has worked for over three decades in community development: as an activist, practitioner, trainer, researcher and manager, including several years at the Community Development Foundation. She now works as an independent consultant.

"A great resource -- so well written and informative." Sarah Banks, Professor of Community and Youth Work at Durham University "An extremely useful introductory text, which covers all of the essential building blocks for an up-to-date understanding of the practice of community development work in the United Kingdom" Dr Rosemary Moreland, University of Ulster "It's an extremely useful publication, which presents some refreshingly straightforward observations, whilst acknowledging the complexity of the politics and the practice. I will recommend it to students". Mae Shaw, Institute of Education, University of Edinburgh "The Short Guide to Community Development is a valuable and concise contemporary account of community development." Community Development Journal