Religion and spirituality in the process of community development

Abstract: Community development is one of the core methods in social work, alongside the more complex method of social work. Moreover, community development is about connecting with local and municipal politics and their social policies. However, not only in the general perspective but also in the study of social work, community development is often given less attention (Dudley, 2016; Hill and Donaldson, 2012). Community development is not direct work with some particular client or some self-help group. Thus, the social worker can miss the direct contact with the clients in assessing their life situation and then in the sense of the direct intervention – standard interview, support and decision making with a particular client. This context appears to be problematic for spirituality in social work.
The chapter discusses spirituality in social work within community development work. It first sums up the core principles of community development. To include this focus in a manual on spirituality and ethics it is necessary to achieve an appropriate practice, because of the mentioned marginalisation of this method of social work. Community development will be defined as a social work activity in the development of the system of social relationships. Then, in sections two and three, two particular aspects of spirituality in community development will be discussed – religious groups (e.g., parish, congregation) as players in the process of community development and different groups of different spirituality in the community

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch

Classification and Topics

• Keyword: Spiritualität ; Sozialarbeit ; Gemeinwesenarbeit ; Kirche ; Religionsgemeinschaft ; Ortsgemeinde

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (where): Freiburg
• (who): Universität
• (when): 2022
• Creator: Opatrný, Michal

Further information

• DOI: 10.6094/UNIFR/221432
• URN: urn:nbn:de:bsz:25-freidok-2214321
• Rights: Kein Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 15.08.2025, 7:30 AM CEST