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Since 1996 states have created a variety of faith‐based practices, such as adding faith‐based members to advisory boards or creating programs that help faith‐based groups write grant applications. This chapter explores the history of early implementation at the state level. The data show three main ways states have altered government culture to increase the access and information going to faith‐based groups: by creating faith‐based liaison positions, by passing faith‐based legislation, and by offering faith‐based conferences. This chapter also outlines the story behind the original implementation at the state‐level, starting with Texas and then Governor George Bush, and the subsequent spread to many states, in many different forms.

This chapter examines the issues of evaluation, evidence, and learning in community-based action research (CBAR) conducted for use in policy and practice to address health inequalities. It argues that learning and evidence can take many forms in this type of intervention and summarises the challenges in evaluating community-based initiatives to improve health and wellbeing. The chapter considers the opportunities and difficulties involved in transferring evidence from CBAR to other contexts, for example for use by communities, policy makers, service providers, and practitioners in service and policy development.

The need for affordable housing in rural areas is recognised. However, policy instruments for achieving supply of new homes have been overshadowed by the pervasive philosophy of ‘protecting the countryside’ in response to a long-standing ‘resource’ perspective of the rural areas, given new impetus by claims that protection brings about sustainability. Migration into rural areas has placed huge pressure on the rural housing stock, but it has also changed the perceptions of what rural areas are for, and for whom. Consumption interests have come to dominate many areas, hence resisting important developments and limiting responses to housing stress to those that might be classed as ‘tactical interventions’. Although the development of solutions to meet housing needs in the rural areas are characterised by remarkable innovation and initiative, these are not matched by the types of changes to mainstream policies that would allow such innovation to thrive. In the last few years, there have been signals from the government that a more fundamental shift was emerging. There has been a greater urgency in the drive to deliver affordable housing, and the rural areas as well have started to share at least some of this urgency. This chapter discusses the strategic and community initiatives of Britain's countrysides. It discusses the community initiative in Britain's countrysides in the context of national policy, focusing on the value of local actions now and in the future.

This chapter takes a look at the development and use of indicators and related reporting systems in social impact investing. It introduces the Global Impact Investment Rating System (GIIRS) and the Impact Reporting and Investment Standards (IRIS). It then studies the concept of ‘investment impact’ indicators, which are considered as important bridging and blurring devices. This chapter also identifies the advantages and costs of this system, which include a move away from local self-expression of distinct community initiatives.

Indigenous feminist discourse links the realities of multilayered violence faced by Indigenous women to questions of self-determination, self-government, and the survival of Indigenous communities. This chapter considers how Indigenous political institutions and leadership address gendered violence. Nearly all interviewees agreed that violence against women is a self-determination issue, but pointed out that existing self-government institutions do not address the problem as such (if at all). Another problem, also mentioned by some interviewees, is the limited resources. There are, however, increasing attempts to address violence against Indigenous women by Indigenous political institutions, including self-government bodies, although there is considerable variance between the three regions examined here. Building on existing considerations of gendered violence and gender justice in Indigenous contexts and using interview data, the author advances a theory of Indigenous self-determination that affirms Indigenous women’s rights and gender justice.

This chapter is concerned with the intersection of ethnicity, class, and gender, and the impact of labour market initiatives in Coventry. It is noted that Coventry went through a period of rapid structural change. The discussion studies two major themes from a structure-agency perspective: access to the labour market and the transformative potential of community-based initiatives (CBIs). CBIs are defined as outreach schemes that are based on voluntary participation aimed at improving the supply-side employability of disadvantaged people. The chapter first examines the broader structural context in Coventry, and then studies the selected initiatives and how they were perceived by the recipients.

Chapter 4 shifts the perspective to power and mobilization theory to demonstrate how workers foster community and media support to address contentious workplace issues within the transnational space. Through an exemplary case, this chapter traces the process and explores the conditions under which re-territorialization can evolve in these transnational workspaces. The case examines an alliance in the meat industry between transnational posted workers, a local civil society organization, and the trade union. From an analytical perspective, the chapter considers these coalitions as examples of re-territorialization that is a form of resistance in increasingly de-territorialized labor markets. The case demonstrates that the transnational nature of posted workers’ employment relationship and living situation requires a different approach to organizing resistance beyond the traditional institutional perspectives on German trade unionism. The case goes against arguments that German trade unions traditionally refrain from forming coalitions because of their institutional position and Germany’s strong employment law.

This chapter investigates the tension between bureaucratic expertise and situated knowledge in the context of social innovation. It addresses the frictions that emerge internally in public organisations when they attempt to respond to local demands of social innovation, citizen's engagement, and democratic participation. The chapter's contribution to a critique of contemporary technocratic urban management and planning lies in identifying the key axes of internal conflict between public professional expertise and the situated knowledge in urban neighbourhoods. It particularly looks at the actions of ‘boundary spanners’, and their narratives, to examine the role of a new professional profile within public organisations. Boundary spanners work across organisational boundaries, developing a specific expertise which is instituted to connect the internal working of bureaucracies with the external demands and needs of actors in particular urban areas.

This chapter discusses the values and principles vital for shaping how community social work practice is carried out when addressing Latino small businesses. The four key values in implementing community social work practice are social justice, self-determination, community well-being, and community assets. With regards to practice principles, five are derived from a variety of scholarly and practices sources. First, all communities, regardless of socioeconomic circumstances, possess inherent assets. Second, communities must play influential roles in the decision making process pertaining to intervention goals. Third, communities are the best experts on their conditions and circumstances. Fourth, Latino small businesses must be viewed from a multifaceted perspective that stresses economic/operational, cultural, and social capital dimensions. Finally, sustainable community-focused initiatives in support of Latino small businesses are best achieved through meaningful collaboration. These values and principles take on a synergistic effect when all of them are present and interacting with one another.

Abstract: This chapter describes models and approaches of field instruction used by the UMSSW/TAC. The chapter presents an overview of field instruction models and essential student skills; it discusses the use of traditional field instruction, use of specific student groups (e.g., Community-Based Initiative MSW students, Semester in Detroit undergraduate students), and VISTA volunteers. The chapter outlines the migration of field instruction from UMSSW/TAC staff to community governance organizations. The chapter summarizes the experience of efforts to coordinate multiple courses within the SSW and across institutional partner programs (e.g., Urban Planning and Public Policy). The limits and challenges of field instruction approaches are reviewed; benefits to community residents and the Good Neighborhoods Initiative are discussed. Lessons learned are generated from Foundation, Community Partners, Supervisors, and Students. The chapter ends with thoughts about field instruction as a strategy for community development.

This chapter reviews the available evidence about neighborhood-place effects on children's achievement outcomes, and the degree to which “place-based” policies might help improve outcomes for poor children and reduce disparities across race and class lines. It focuses mostly on those studies that exploit the substantial excess demand for means-tested housing subsidies, and in particular housing vouchers, which provide a source of identifying variation in neighborhood environments across observably similar low-income families that helps overcome the self-selection concerns with previous research in this area. There is a large literature that examines the effects of community development interventions such as urban enterprise zones or policing interventions, almost none of which examines the impacts on children's outcomes. The chapter also discusses the different behavioral mechanisms through which voucher-induced neighborhood moves might affect the academic outcomes of poor children.