Building Strong Communities

Indigenous scholars strive to produce research to improve Native communities in meaningful ways. They also recognize that long-lasting change depends on effective leadership. Living Indigenous Leadership showcases innovative research and leadership practices from diverse nations and tribes in Canada, the United States, and New Zealand. The contributors use storytelling to highlight the distinctive nature of Indigenous leadership. Native leaders, whether formal or informal, ground their work in embodied concepts such as land, story, ancestors, and elders, and their leadership style finds its most powerful expression in collaboration, in the teaching and example of Eders, and in community projects to promote higher education, language revitalization, health care, and the preservation of Indigenous arts. This inspiring collection not only adds indigenous methods to studies on leadership, it also gives a voice to the wives, mothers, and grandmothers who are using their knowledge to mend hearts and minds and to build strong communities.

Building Strong Communities is an introductory textbook that contains practical tools, down-to-earth frameworks and useful methods, a valuable resource for working with communities. A key focus of the book is on empowering the grass roots – building people, groups, organisations, partnerships and networks. In particular, it describes how strong communities might look with seven key features and introduces a new 'Wheel of Participation' as a useful planning framework. Written by a practitioner for both students and other practitioners, the book combines theory and practice, draws on recent research and is packed with practical examples. This is key reading for community studies, social work or youth and community programmes, and will also be useful in many different settings, such as regeneration, local government, health and housing.

Exploring ethical approaches to inclusive development, this book navigates challenges and strategies, empowering readers to foster resilient, equitable communities in the ever evolving 21st century.

This book highlights key principles emerging from the process of implementing an entire community and government approach to supporting families at risk of vulnerability. Drawing on the expertise of a number of practitioners and researchers, it also examines the efficacy of some of the early intervention and prevention strategies developed through the Australian Communities for Children initiative. It will be of particular interest to community services, education and child welfare practitioners and policy makers involved with, or contemplating involvement in, implementing a place-based collective impact approach to child development, wellbeing and protection. How can we better engage with families at risk in a digital world? How can we deliver holistic, integrated support? How can we redesign our family support systems? What kind of leadership and governance will it take to implement the kind of systems change that delivers improved outcomes? These are critical questions we need to engage with if we are to collaboratively redesign inadequate, siloed approaches and build family-friendly communities that improve the lives of children and families.

Analyzes the meaning of community for parishes, religious orders, and lay ecclesial movements within the Catholic Church and describes the basic issues and tasks that Church communities need to address in order to survive and be healthy.

It's not always easy to understand the experiences of people who are different from us. But we have to work at it to build better communities. In this book, you'll learn about practicing empathy, communicating respectfully, and building meaningful community with other people. With kid-friendly explanations of key ideas and relevant scenarios, this text will help young kids be engaged, respectful members of their community.

Good Food, Strong Communities shares ideas and stories about efforts to improve food security in large urban areas of the United States by strengthening community food systems. It draws on five years of collaboration between a research team composed of the University of Wisconsin, Growing Power, the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute, and more than thirty organizations on the front lines of this work. Here, activists and scholars talk about what's working and what still needs to be done to ensure that everyone has access to readily available, affordable, appropriate, and acceptable food. This book helps readers understand how a food system functions and how individual and community initiatives can lessen the problems associated with an industrialized food system.--Back cover.

In today's fast-food world, Christianity can seem outdated or archaic. The temptation becomes to pick up the pace and play the game. But Chris Smith and John Pattison invites us to leave franchise faith behind and enter the kingdom of God, where people know each other well and love one another as Christ loves the church.