Social Work With Rural Peoples

Social workers choosing to work in smaller towns or rural communities face a different set of conditions and concerns from their city colleagues. Ken Collier wrote his now-classic text Social Work with Rural Peoples, for those social workers, whether they are just starting out or already in the field.

The gist of Collier's genuinely radical book is that for rural social workers to be effective, they must be able to identify with the struggles of the people they are trying to help -- that trying to maintain "professional", "objective" distance will merely ensure that the social worker becomes part of the problem rather than part of the solution. For the social worker in a smaller community, "Whose side are you on?" is the most important question to be answered before any effective work can be done.

It is an indictment of the slow pace of progress against the societal problems facing rural populations that a third edition of Social Work with Rural Peoples is necessary.