Overview

Editor:

Daniela Stehlik
Alcoa Research Centre for Stronger Communities
Curtin University, WA

Human Services and Rural Communities, a special issue of Rural Society, considers the paradigm shift that has occurred over the past decade in the way human services are delivered in rural communities, focussing on these changes and their impacts - as well as identifying signposts for future practice - including:

• The changing role of women and the importance of local leadership and volunteering
• The capacity for resiliency and the need for resilience to be recognised by social policy
• The increasing need for diversity and inclusion in communities that aspire to be sustainable and self-reliant
• The relationship between practitioners and building community capacity
• The impact on practitioners, and the need to begin to develop curriculum that will enable future practitioners to have the necessary skills for complex rural practice.

Health and social workers are vital to the maintenance of rural and remote towns and communities. Over the past decade they have struggled with economic policy and environmental change. The analyses in this issue should help to prepare relevant policy and practices to address the current ravages of climate change and drought.

This special issue is essential reading for policy makers, HR practitioners, local and government employment agencies, local business centres, adult educators, trainers, regional development agencies, general practitioners, nurses, directors, managers, administrators, local government actors and social workers, as well as researchers and teachers in the field of rural management, education, social work and social policy.

Available separately as a book, Human Services and Rural Communities provides research, analysis, experienced commentary, forecasts and insights into the challenges facing rural health and social workers, and their communities.

Table of Contents

Guest Editorial
Daniela Stehlik

Where have all the flowers gone
Myra Pincott

Coping with a crisis: human services in times of drought
Margaret Alston & Jenny Kent

The return of community to rural human services?
Margaret Lynn

Rural and remote social welfare practice: differences and similarities in the Australian context
Rosemary Green & Raeleene Gregory

It's more than the money: the relationship between social values and demographic change in sustaining a rural general practitioner workforce
Helen Cheney, Juliet Willetts & Erin Wilson

Educating practitioners for integrative rural practice
Lesley Chenoweth

Meeting the needs of rural families in times of crisis
Sandy Paton & Caroline Cuckson

Book Reviews