Community Champions

This book highlights the experiences of 14 high poverty communities in the rural South that accepted the invitation to be part of the Turning the Tide on Poverty (Tide) initiative. While history would suggest that impoverished places have limited capacity to make good things happen, Tide demonstrated otherwise. This volume is a testament to the positive work that can be realized when people from all walks of life are accorded the opportunity to discuss, deliberate, and act on strategies designed to improve the lives of rural people and places in the South. The message is clear: when local residents are provided a safe space to weigh in on local issues and asked to give respectful consideration to the views of others in their community, they create pathways for spurring positive changes. Simply put, civic engagement propels people to do more for their community and instils in them a sense of hope for what can be accomplished when local people work together. This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal Community Development.

This book is an in-depth tutorial on how to make communities work to really improve business performance. It covers principles and proven practices that ensure community success and longevity, provides tips and techniques for leading communities and communities programs that the reader can apply immediately, looks at different types of communities and the technologies that support them, and illustrates communities in practice.

Engaged Research for Community Resilience to Climate Change is a guide to successfully integrating science into urban, regional, and coastal planning activities to build truly sustainable communities that can withstand climate change. It calls for a shift in academic researchers’ traditional thinking by working across disciplines to solve complex societal and environmental problems, focusing on the real-world human impacts of climate change, and providing an overview of how science can be used to advocate for institutional change. Engaged Research for Community Resilience to Climate Change appeals to a wide variety of audiences, including university administrators looking to create and sustain interdisciplinary research groups, community and state officials, non-profit and community advocates, and community organizers seeking guidance for generating and growing meaningful, productive relationships with university researchers to support change in their communities. Focuses on the process of building a successful, active partnership between climate change researchers and climate resilience professionals Provides case studies of university-community partnerships in building climate resilience Includes interviews and contributors from a wide variety of disciplines engaged in climate resilience partnerships

This book makes a highly innovative contribution to overcoming the stigma and discrimination associated with mental illness – still the heaviest burden both for those afflicted and those caring for them. The scene is set by the presentation of different fundamental perspectives on the problem of stigma and discrimination by researchers, consumers, families, and human rights experts. Current knowledge and practice used in reducing stigma are then described, with information on the programmes adopted across the world and their utility, feasibility, and effectiveness. The core of the volume comprises descriptions of new approaches and innovative programmes specifically designed to overcome stigma and discrimination. In the closing part of the book, the editors – all respected experts in the field – summarize some of the most important evidence- and experience-based recommendations for future action to successfully rewrite the long and burdensome ‘story’ of mental illness stigma and discrimination.

By exploring the experiences of community activists and organizations working with information and communication technology (ICT) to build communities, this book offers a grounded and informed study of the role ICT plays in people's lives. The author emphasizes the importance of networks built around trust, shared spaces and local knowledge bases in the formation of significant relationships in contemporary Western societies and in doing so, questions many of the assumptions which inform the rhetorics of the information age.

Over 98% of sprayed insecticides and 95% of herbicides reach a destination other than their target species, including non-target species, air, water and soil. The extensive reliance on insecticide use reduces biodiversity, contributes to pollinator decline, destroys habitat, and threatens endangered species. This book offers a more effective application of the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) approach, on an area-wide (AW) or population-wide (AW-IPM) basis, which aims at the management of the total population of a pest, involving a coordinated effort over often larger areas. For major livestock pests, vectors of human diseases and pests of high-value crops with low pest tolerance, there are compelling economic reasons for participating in AW-IPM. This new textbook attempts to address various fundamental components of AW-IPM, e.g. the importance of relevant problem-solving research, the need for planning and essential baseline data collection, the significance of integrating adequate tools for appropriate control strategies, and the value of pilot trials, etc. With chapters authored by 184 experts from more than 31 countries, the book includes many technical advances in the areas of genetics, molecular biology, microbiology, resistance management, and social sciences that facilitate the planning and implementing of area-wide strategies. The book is essential reading for the academic and applied research community as well as national and regional government plant and human/animal health authorities with responsibility for protecting plant and human/animal health.

This interdisciplinary study details spiritual approaches including meditation and yoga shown to be helpful in improving physical and psychological well-being. Whether a person suffers from a psychological or physical malady, such as depression, addictions, chronic pain, cancer, or complications from pregnancy, the best practice treatments likely include one common thread: spiritual practice. From meditation and yoga to spiritual surrender and religious rituals, spiritual practices are increasingly being recognized as physically and mentally beneficial for recovering from illness and for retaining optimal health. Healing with Spiritual Practices: Proven Techniques for Disorders from Addictions and Anxiety to Cancer and Chronic Pain, edited by the director of one of the nation's best-known university institutes of spirituality and health, explains current and emerging practices, their benefits, and the growing body of research that proves them effective. Comprising chapters from expert contributors, this book will appeal to students, scholars, and other readers interested in psychology, medicine, nursing, social work, pastoral care, and related disciplines.