This book explores the intersection of community development and local capacity building as a basis for effective disaster mitigation and the alleviation of suffering in times of crisis. Beginning with the Community Development section, the process, context, and methods for community, engagement, and development can be viewed from different structural and logical approaches. This section explores some of the more relevant historical arguments, as well as more contemporary examinations. The second section looks at Critical Human and Community Considerations and sheds light on some of the key concepts that are often overlooked (poverty, race, inequality, social justice, mental health, social division) when framing community responses to disaster. The third section focuses on Fundamental Elements of Caring Communities. This section explores the importance, practical, and measurable impacts of social support, empathy, inclusion, and conflict resolution in creating effective and caring community responses. Finally, the last section focuses on practice and brings together research and theory into applied programming, examples, and evidence from on-the-ground efforts to establish caring communities that respond to local needs in times of crisis and beyond. By addressing these objectives, this book provides a more complete understanding of the essential role that community can play in disaster mitigation. Doing this will provide a better focus for ongoing research endeavors, and program and policy initiatives at the community level that seek to prepare for, respond to, and recover from natural and other disasters. As a result, this book contributes to wider and more sustainable development of our communities beyond disasters, while furthering dialog among community scholars and practitioners.

The deaths of Michael Brown and George Floyd at the hands of white police officers uncovered an apparent legitimacy crisis at the heart of American policing. Drawing on interviews with officers, offenders, practitioners and community members, this book explores policing changes in the ‘post-Ferguson’ era and informs future policing practice.

Psychological Crisis Intervention: The SAFER-R Model is designed to provide the reader with a simple set of guidelines for the provision of psychological first aid (PFA). The model of psychological first aid (PFA) for individuals presented in this volume is the SAFER-R model developed by the authors. Arguably it is the most widely used tactical model of crisis intervention in the world with roughly 1 million individuals trained in its operational and derivative guidelines. This model of PFA is not a therapy model nor a substitute for therapy. Rather it is designed to help crisis interventionists stabile and mitigate acute crisis reactions in individuals, as opposed to groups. Guidelines for triage and referrals are also provided. Before plunging into the step-by-step guidelines, a brief history and terminological framework is provided. Lastly, recommendations for addressing specific psychological challenges (suicidal ideation, resistance to seeking professional psychological support, and depression) are provided.

Leading governments undertook extraordinary measures to offset the 2008 economic crisis, shoring up financial institutions, stimulating demand to reverse recession, and rebalancing budgets to alleviate sovereign debt. While productive in and of themselves, these solutions were effective because they were coordinated internationally and were matched with sweeping global financial reforms. Unfortunately, coordination has weakened after these initial steps, indicating one of the crisis's adverse effects will be a significant reduction in development cooperation. Urging advanced nations to improve their support for development, the contributors to this volume revisit the causes of the 2008 collapse and the ongoing effects of recession on global and developing economies. They reevaluate the international response to crisis and suggest more effective approaches to development cooperation. Experts on international aid join together to redesign the cooperation system and its governance, so it can accept new actors and better achieve the Millennial Development Goals of 2015 within the context of severe global crisis. In their introduction, José Antonio Alonso and José Antonio Ocampo summarize different chapters and the implications of their analyses, concluding with a frank assessment of global economic imbalance and the ability of increased cooperation to rectify these inequalities.

Community Development in an Uncertain World is an essential resource for students and professionals in the human services.

International Community Development Practice provides readers with practice-based examples of good community development, demonstrating its value for strengthening people power and improving the effectiveness of development agencies, whether these be governmental, non-governmental or private sector. The chapters focus upon the making of the community development profession and the eight core competences required of the professional practitioner, as outlined by the International Association for Community Development (IACD), whatever their job title or host agency, in order to be able to undertake community development. These are concerned with the ability of the practitioner to: Put ethics and values into practice Engage with communities Ensure participatory planning Organize for change Support learning for change Promote diversity and inclusion Build leadership and infrastructure Develop and improve policy and practice From a policy perspective, the book will reassert the role of community development approaches as related to a wide variety of global challenges, including poverty amelioration, climate change, human rights, peace building and social, environmental, political and economic development. From a practice perspective, the book will reassert the importance of high levels of professional competence building upon decades of experience in the field around the world by development practitioners working in community work, social work, health, adult education, environmental protection, local economic development, urban design, cultural work and other disciplines concerned to support effective community development.

Culture is a living thing. In social settings, it is often used to represent entire ways of life, including rules, values, and expected behavior. Varying from nation to nation, neighborhood to neighborhood and beyond, even in the smallest localities, culture is a motivating factor in the creation of social identity and serves as a basis for creating cohesion and solidarity. This book explores the intersection of culture and community as a basis for locally and regionally based development by focusing on three core bodies of literature: theory, research, and practice. The first section, theory, uncovers some of the more relevant historical arguments, as well as more contemporary examinations. Continuing, the research section sheds light on some of the key concepts, variables, and relationships present in the limited study of culture in community development. Finally, the practice section brings together research and theory into applied examples from on the ground efforts. During a time where the interest to retain the uniqueness of local life, traditions, and culture is significantly increasing in community-based development, the authors offer a global exploration of the impacts of culturally based development with comparative analysis in countries such as Korea, Ireland, and the United States. A must-read for community development planners, policymakers, students, and researchers.