The Handbook of Community Practice

About

Marie O. Weil DSW ACSW is Berg-Beach Professor of Community Practice at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.   Michael Reisch is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Maryland. A former Woodrow Wilson Fellow and Fulbright Senior Scholar he has held faculty and administrative positions at five other major U.S. universities and has been a visiting professor and lectured widely in Europe Asia Latin America and Australia. Based on his interdisciplinary educational background in law history political and social theory and social work he has authored or edited 35 books and monographs 150 journal articles and book chapters and over 450 conference papers. His scholarship focuses on such topics as poverty and inequality welfare and welfare reform the history and philosophy of social welfare social justice social policy and social work practice and the impact of economic globalization on social welfare.  His many books include From Charity to Enterprise: The Development of American Social Work in a Market Economy (with Stanley Wenocur); The Road Not Taken: A History of Radical Social Work in the United States (with Janice Andrews); Social Work and Social Justice: Concepts Challenges and Strategies (with Charles Garvin); Macro Social Work Practice: Working for Change in a Multicultural Society; Social Work Ethics in a Changing Society; and the Routledge International Handbook of Social Justice. He has also co-edited two editions of the Handbook of Community Practice and the 4th edition of his book Social Policy and Social Justice will be published in spring 2021. Translations of his scholarship appear in 10 languages. With Dr. Yoosun Park he is currently working on a book tentatively titled From Americanization to Integration: A Discursive History of Social Work with Immigrants and Immigration. Dr. Reisch has held leadership positions in national state and local advocacy professional and social justice organizations with a particular focus on the issues confronting low-income children and families welfare recipients immigrants and refugees and unemployed or homeless persons.  His op-eds have appeared in numerous newspapers and he has been a frequent guest on public interest radio programs. Reisch has directed and consulted on political campaigns at the federal state and local levels in four states and been honored for his work by the Maryland General Assembly the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and numerous nonprofit organizations professional associations and universities. In 2013 he received the Social Work Educator of the Year Award from the Maryland Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.  In 2014 he received both the Teacher of the Year Award from the University of Maryland and the Significant Lifetime Achievement Award from the Council on Social Work Education. In 2017 Reisch became a Fellow of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare and in 2019 he received the Career Achievement Award from the Association for Community Organization and Social Action.  Mary Ohmer has over twenty years of experience working in community organizing and development around the country with national and local nonprofit and community based organizations foundations and government.  Dr. Ohmer has taught consensus organizing approaches as part of macro practice and community organizing social work courses.  She received her Ph.D. in social work from the University of Pittsburgh in August 2004 and she is currently an assistant professor at the School of Social Work at Georgia State University.  Dr. Ohmer is also currently working with the United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta to help them develop and implement an evaluation of the community training.