Rural Social Work - Softcover

This book is timely for two reasons: first our greater understanding of the benefits of learning across social work contexts - the UK, Australia and North America. Second, the greater interest in local assessment of need, community profiles, decentralisation and place-shaping. Rural social work practice is rising up the education, training and research agenda; this text provides its champions and novices with stimulating and evidence-based ideas and information. Jill Manthorpe, Professor of Social Work, King's College London.

...a well organized and accessible volume discussing the intricacies and sometimes contradictions of rural services. As the world gets flatter," let us not forget those politically and socially isolated populations who are still struggling to function within their chosen communities.... Pugh and Cheers have written with the authority of personal experience in the field and with a great deal of empathy for those our fast moving work appears to be leaving by the wayside. This book will be an excellent and necessary guide for practitioners and students of the rural field." Emilia E. Martinez-Brawley, John F. Roatch Distinguished Professor and Professor of Social Work, Arizona State University, USA

For some, life in the countryside is an ideal, even a dream. But poverty, racism, sexism and restricted services and infrastructure - especially transport - can all contribute to complex patterns of disadvantage and challenging contexts in which to work to make a difference. Dicussing social work in rural areas. this text looks at: the sociological and eocnomic realities; the poolitics; the structures and processes of policy and service development; and the delivery of service.