Loretta Pyles – författare

As novel, complex social problems increase, especially those involving vulnerable people who reside in challenging places, the limitations of conventional research methods implemented by just one or two investigators become apparent. Research and development alternatives are needed, particularly methods that engage teams of researchers in real world problem solving while simultaneously generating practice- and policy-relevant knowledge. Research methods that effectively tap the expertise of everyday people, especially those impacted by these targeted social problems, are a special priority because academic researchers often lack experiential knowledge that stems from direct, everyday encounters with these vexing problems.Participatory action research (PAR) responds to these manifest needs. It provides a methodological structure and operational guidelines for preparing and deploying people from various walks of life as co-researchers, and it provides a proven strategy for generating practice- and policy-relevant knowledge as problem-solving in real world contexts proceeds.

In the context of multiple forms of global economic, social, and cultural oppression, along with intergenerational trauma, burnout, and public services retrenchment, this book offers a framework and set of inquiries and practices for social workers, activists, community organizers, counselors, and other helping professionals. Healing justice, a term that has emerged in social movements in the last decade, is taught as a practice of connecting to the whole self, what many are conditioned to ignore -- the body, mind-heart, spirit, community, and natural world. Drawing from the East-West modalities of mindfulness, yoga, and Ayurveda, the author introduces six capabilities -- mindfulness and compassion; critical thinking and curiosity; and effort and equanimity -- which can guide practitioners on a transformative and empowering journey that can ultimately make them and their colleagues more effective in their work. Using case studies, critical analysis, and skill sharing, self-care is presented as an act of resistance to disconnection, marginalization, and internalized oppression. Healing justice is a trauma-informed practice that empowers social practitioners to cultivate the conditions that might allow them to feel more connected to themselves, their clients, colleagues, and communities. The book also engages critically with self-care practices, including investigation into the science of mindfulness, cultural appropriation, and the commodification of self-care. The message is clear that mindfulness-based practices are not a panacea for personal, inter-personal, or political problems. But, they can put practitioners in a more authentic and powerful place to work from, which is particularly important in a world where there is more connection to technology, ideologies, and people who share one's beliefs, and less connection to the natural world, people who are different, and the parts of oneself that one tends to reject. The book also offers suggestions for how to share self-care practices with community members who have less access to wellness.

This text offers innovation and a call to action for educators -- engage fully to engage students fully. With stories from the classroom, Holistic Engagement invites and challenges social work, human services and counseling educators to seek meaning in their methods and content in the processes of teaching. Empirically grounded, the authors propose a new model for advancing pedagogy to draw from many ways of knowing and wisdom across traditions. Through rich analysis of globalization, higher education and the social work profession, as well as first person accounts, they co-create a story of holistic pedagogies being employed across the globe. Aiming toward transformative social work practice, the authors discuss the ways that they engage with the whole person (body, mind, heart, culture and spirit) and reveal how such participatory pedagogies strengthen presence, attunement, empathy, professional self-care and the integrative capabilities of social work students and human service professionals. Drawing from a wide range of literature and traditions, from Freire's critical pedagogy to the neuroscience of mindfulness, these engaging essays have much to offer both seasoned and new social work educators, while creating an integrative and realistic conceptual home for them. The authors discuss the uses of theatre, the arts, ritual, mindfulness, critical dialogue, yoga and many other methods that upend the traditional social work classroom. These approaches are used at the undergraduate and graduate levels in a range of courses, including policy, theory and practice. The auto-ethnographical nature of many of the essays will invite educators to reflect on their own pedagogies as they consider the rewards and risks of going beyond the cognitive and engaging the whole person.

Now in its third edition, Progressive Community Organizing: Transformative Practice in a Globalizing World introduces readers to the rich practice of progressive community organizing for social change while also providing concrete tools geared toward practitioner skill building. Drawing from social movement scholarship and social theory, this book articulates a transformative approach to organizing that embraces emergent strategies and healing justice. It emphasizes framing processes and the power of stories using story-based strategy and digital activism. Embracing intersectional organizing, the book addresses topics such as identity politics, microagressions, internalized oppression, and horizontal hostility with attention to recentering and allyship as a growth-oriented journey of solidarity and liberation. Readers will engage with case studies focused on issues such as poverty, racial justice, immigration, housing, health and mental health, and climate crisis. This new edition includes: Expanded content on transformative change approaches including healing justice New content on the role of digital technology and social media in organizing Case studies of the Poor People’s Campaign and Extinction Rebellion Emphasis on the power of stories and story-based strategy for organizing and issue framing Transformative organizations with attention to feminist and decolonized organizational structures and cultures Expanded chapters on strategies and tactics focusing on power analysis and a range of tactics from direct action to resilience-based organizingThe book will be of interest to students and practitioners who want to become more skilled in structural analysis, praxis, and self-reflexivity through critical and transformative engagement with historical and current social problems, social movements, and social welfare.

Now in its third edition, Progressive Community Organizing: Transformative Practice in a Globalizing World introduces readers to the rich practice of progressive community organizing for social change while also providing concrete tools geared toward practitioner skill building. Drawing from social movement scholarship and social theory, this book articulates a transformative approach to organizing that embraces emergent strategies and healing justice. It emphasizes framing processes and the power of stories using story-based strategy and digital activism. Embracing intersectional organizing, the book addresses topics such as identity politics, microagressions, internalized oppression, and horizontal hostility with attention to recentering and allyship as a growth-oriented journey of solidarity and liberation. Readers will engage with case studies focused on issues such as poverty, racial justice, immigration, housing, health and mental health, and climate crisis. This new edition includes: Expanded content on transformative change approaches including healing justice New content on the role of digital technology and social media in organizing Case studies of the Poor People’s Campaign and Extinction Rebellion Emphasis on the power of stories and story-based strategy for organizing and issue framing Transformative organizations with attention to feminist and decolonized organizational structures and cultures Expanded chapters on strategies and tactics focusing on power analysis and a range of tactics from direct action to resilience-based organizingThe book will be of interest to students and practitioners who want to become more skilled in structural analysis, praxis, and self-reflexivity through critical and transformative engagement with historical and current social problems, social movements, and social welfare.

Natural disasters have long been seen as naturally generated events, but as scientific, technological, and social knowledge of disasters has become more sophisticated, the part that people and systems play in disaster events has become more apparent. Production of Disaster and Recovery in Post-Earthquake Haiti demonstrates how social processes impact disasters as they unfold, through the distribution of power and resources, the use of discourses and images of disaster, and the economic and social systems and relations which underlie affected communities. The authors show how these processes played out in post-earthquake Haiti to set in motion the mechanics of the disaster industrial complex to (re)produce disasters and recovery rather than bring sustainable change.The book reveals that disaster and recovery rhetoric helped create fertile conditions for neoliberal disaster governance, militarized and digital humanitarianism, non-profiteering, and disaster opportunism to flourish while further disenfranchising marginalized populations. However, the Haiti earthquake, as is the case with all disaster sites, was ripe with mutual aid, community building, and collective action, all of which further local resilience. The authors seek to re-construct dominant discourses, policies, and practices to advance equitable, participatory partnerships with local community actors and propose a praxis for a people’s recovery as an action-oriented framework for resisting the transnational disaster industrial machinery. The authors argue for new synergies in policymaking and program development that can respond to emergencies and plan for true long-term, sustainable development after disasters that focuses as much on humans and the natural world as it does on economic progress.Production of Disaster and Recovery in Post-Earthquake Haiti will be of great interest to students and scholars of disaster studies, humanitarian studies, development studies, Haitian studies, geography and environmental studies, as well as to non-governmental organizations, humanitarians, and policymakers.