Community Practice is a branch of social work in the United States that focuses on larger social systems and social change, and is tied to the historical roots of United States social work. The field of community practice social work encompasses community organizing, social planning, human service management, community development, policy analysis, policy advocacy, evaluation, mediation, electronic advocacy and other larger systems interventions. In the field of social work, community practice is often contrasted with direct practice social work, in which social workers work directly with individuals solving micro-level problems. Community Practice has been referred to in the past as Macro Practice, though Community Practice is now the standard term in the United States.
Community Practice has considerable overlap with many other applied social sciences, such as urban planning, economic development, public affairs, rural sociology and nonprofit management. Community Practice social workers typically have a Masters in Social Work (MSW). There are several MSW programs in the United States that offer Community Practice Concentrations, while many other MSW programs offer specializations in one or several types of community practice, such as social services administration or policy analysis. The professional group of community practitioners is the Association for Community Organization and Social Administration (ACOSA), which publishes the leading journal in the field, The Journal of Community Practice.
Read more about Community Practice: Schools of Social Work With Community Practice Concentrations
Famous quotes containing the words community and/or practice:
“I do not mean to imply that the good old days were perfect. But the institutions and structure—the web—of society needed reform, not demolition. To have cut the institutional and community strands without replacing them with new ones proved to be a form of abuse to one generation and to the next. For so many Americans, the tragedy was not in dreaming that life could be better; the tragedy was that the dreaming ended.”
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