It is increasingly recognised that instead of relying on top-down commands or leaving individuals to their own devices, communities should be given a role in tackling challenges exacerbated by global crises. Written by a team of leading experts with in-depth knowledge and on-the-ground experience, this book sets out why and how people's lives can be positively transformed through diverse forms of community involvement. This book critically explores examples from around the world of how communities can become more collaborative and resilient in dealing with the problems they face, and provides an invaluable guide to what a holistic policy agenda for community-based transformation should encompass.

It is increasingly recognised that instead of relying on top-down commands or leaving individuals to their own devices, communities should be given a role in tackling challenges exacerbated by global crises. Written by a team of leading experts with in-depth knowledge and on-the-ground experience, this book sets out why and how people's lives can be positively transformed through diverse forms of community involvement. This book critically explores examples from around the world of how communities can become more collaborative and resilient in dealing with the problems they face, and provides an invaluable guide to what a holistic policy agenda for community-based transformation should encompass.

As local communities and public services reel under the impact of global economic turmoil, it is vital to find more creative ways for the services to work together with those who depend on them and who also, as citizens, ultimately govern them. Community practice is the name for that growing part of the relationship by which service providers and local residents collaborate flexibly and economically to meet needs, boost community strengths and service effectiveness, and link participative and representative democracy. Combining re-examination of theory with practical tools and approaches, Chanan and Miller provide a new framework for local involvement strategy, for policy-makers and practitioners alike. They show how this innovative but still amorphous movement can become more coherent, both on the ground and in public policy: reforming community development, building new kinds of neighbourhood partnership, measuring outcomes objectively, and combining the best innovations of the past three decades into a new synthesis. This is an important new perspective for all local public service agencies, all practitioners working in communities, and academics and students concerned with these fields.

As local communities and public services reel under the impact of global economic turmoil, it is vital to find more creative ways for the services to work together with those who depend on them and who also, as citizens, ultimately govern them. Community practice is the name for that growing part of the relationship by which service providers and local residents collaborate flexibly and economically to meet needs, boost community strengths and service effectiveness, and link participative and representative democracy. Combining re-examination of theory with practical tools and approaches, Chanan and Miller provide a new framework for local involvement strategy, for policy-makers and practitioners alike. They show how this innovative but still amorphous movement can become more coherent, both on the ground and in public policy: reforming community development, building new kinds of neighbourhood partnership, measuring outcomes objectively, and combining the best innovations of the past three decades into a new synthesis. This is an important new perspective for all local public service agencies, all practitioners working in communities, and academics and students concerned with these fields.

"A Degree of Swing" will bring back many memories for those who grew up in the early 1960s and experienced the radical changes to popular culture through music and fashion. It questions whether the supposed excesses of the 'swinging sixties' were as widespread as social history suggests. The period 1958-64 saw radical changes to the lives of most young people and the beginnings of a culture for the young based around popular music and fashion. Colin Miller's memories of his life as a working class student in the city of Leicester help to illustrate these changes, as well as highlighting the many personal and social challenges that confronted young men on the threshold of adulthood at that time. He also recalls the people and events that shaped his musical development and eventual involvement in the beat music scene of the city and its university. This book will bring back many memories for people who grew up in the early 1960s and will help later generations to appreciate how very different personal experiences and expectations were for young men and women fifty or so years ago. It also questions whether the supposed excesses of the 'swinging sixties' were as widespread as popular history suggests.

Colin Miller was born in 1940 in Rollesby, a village near Great Yarmouth in the heart of Broadland Norfolk. In Rollesby, as in so many other rural communities at this time, drinking water was from a well, the lavatory was a bucket in an outside privy, transport was a bicycle or a bus, and entertainment was provided by the radio, whist drives at the village hall or a rare visit to the cinema. As the 1940s and '50s progressed this way of life changed dramatically, some would say disappeared - and Colin Miller chronicles these developments through the eyes of a Norfolk schoolboy and teenager. Developing themes such as school days, health, work, entertainment, sport and leisure, this honest and thoughtful account also includes brief extracts from the local newspapers, reporting local events and illustrating the social change experienced by the author.