Practicing social work in deprived communities. Competencies, methods, and techniques

Among the aims of social work is implementing measures which lead to improving people’s living conditions. The reviewed book, part of the European Social Work Education and Practice series and edited by Ana Opačić, is contributing to this aim by exploring and proposing solutions for community social work in the context of deprived communities. ‘The goal of this publication is to identify the relevant aspects of a deprived community, how they come to be and the processes underlying them, as well as illustrate practical models for social work in such communities’ (p. v.). The book responds mainly to the professional needs of social work students and early career social work practitioners and to more experienced social work practitioners, researchers and educators with a focus on interventions in deprived communities from a community development perspective. The book is divided into four parts and totals 13 chapters. It is the result of international collaboration there are 19 authors, some of them contributing to more than one chapter. The main ideas of each chapter are presented below. The first part of the book comprises three chapters. Two of them are written by Ana Opačić: