Options in Community Living has been building community for 24 years. In Sharing Community, the authors share their experiences, the lessons they've learned, and some of their most meaningful efforts. This book establishes that the real, most basic reason for community-building is to find and develop opportunities for relationships, belonging, inclusion, and more meaning in the lives of all involved. The authors shows how each staff person is a resource and how community-building efforts have a snowball effect: one unexpected connection leads to another, which in turn leads to new opportunities and more connections. With this process, there is no end to the possibilities. As the authors state, "Community building teaches us that when people open up their lives to the unexpected, amazing things can happen." So, explore the experiences that the Options staff share in this book - their processes, efforts, and successes. We hope that these experiences, successes, failures, and lessons learned will inspire you to reflect and take action to build your own community.

Looks at partnerships between local small farms and nearby consumers, who become members or subscribers in support of the farm, offering advice on acquiring land, organizing, handling the harvest, and money and legal matters.

"A person can be a part of one or many different communities, or even one big world community. Being part of a community allows us to make friendships and to work together to solve problems at home, at school, and in our cultures"--

A look at how support groups have affected American society argues that, although support groups provide a warmth and security that holds society together, they can lead to an unhealthy self-absorption and a trivialized sense of what is sacred.

In an era of rapid technological change, are qualitative researchers taking advantage of new and innovative ways to gather, analyse and share community narratives? Sharing Qualitative Research presents innovative methods for harnessing creative storytelling methodologies and technologies that help to inspire and transform readers and future research. In exploring a range of collaborative and original social research approaches to addressing social problems, this text grapples with the difficulties of working with communities. It also offers strategies for working ethically with narratives, while also challenging traditional, narrower definitions of what constitutes communities. The book is unique in its cross-disciplinary spectrum, community narratives focus and showcase of arts-based and emerging digital technologies for working with communities. A timely collection, it will be of interest to interdisciplinary researchers, undergraduate and postgraduate students and practitioners in fields including anthropology, ethnography, cultural studies, community arts, literary studies, social work, health and education.

While the rate of urbanisation in the developing world has increased dramatically over the past 20 years, governments' capacity to support urban growth has, in many cases, failed to keep up with this trend. Non-governmental organisations working in the field have long advocated community management of the urban environment as the best solution to this problem, and there is now a growing consensus that the answer does, indeed, lie with local communities. Yet there is still little understanding of what constitutes meaningful and effective community participation, or how it may be achieved in such a complex operating environment. Sharing the City gives a comprehensive account of urban community participation, both in theory and practice. It first presents a wide-ranging analysis of the issues, and develops a participatory framework for urban management. Using case studies and existing examples from around the world, and drawing on lessons learned from previous experience, it then develops the theory into a practical working model. Effective participatory urban management calls for a fundamental rethink on the part of all the actors involved - from local authorities and development agencies, through local and international NGOs, to the community-based organisations and the communities themselves. In redefining their roles and relationships, Sharing the City presents a new and radically different, yet viable and effective, approach to the concept of urban management.