Transition to Common Work : Building Community at The Working Centre / Joseph Mancini and Stephanie Mancini.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mancini, Joseph, 1958- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Working Centre (Kitchener, Ont.).

Poor--Services for--Ontario--Waterloo (Regional municipality).

Poor.

Social work with the unemployed--Ontario--Waterloo (Regional municipality).

Social work with the unemployed.

Unemployed--Services for--Ontario--Waterloo (Regional municipality).

Unemployed.

Community development--Ontario--Waterloo (Regional municipality).

Community development.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xix, 212 pages)

Distribution:

Ottawa, Ontario : Canadian Electronic Library, 2015

Place of Publication:

Waterloo, Ontario : Wilfrid Laurier University Press, [2015]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The Working Centre in the downtown core of Kitchener, Ontario, is a widely recognized and successful model for community development. Begun from scratch in 1982, it is now a vast network of practical supports for the unemployed, the underemployed, the temporarily employed, and the homeless, populations that collectively constitute up to 30 percent of the labour market both locally and across North America. Transition to Common Work is the essential text about The Working Centre-its beginnings thirty years ago, the lessons learned, and the myriad ways in which its strategies and innovations can be adapted by those who share its goals. The Working Centre focuses on creating access-to-tools projects rather than administrative layers of bureaucracy. This book highlights the core philosophy behind the centre's decentralized but integrated structure, which has contributed to the creation of affordable services. Underlying this approach are common-sense innovations such as thinking about virtues rather than values, developing community tools with a social enterprise approach, and implementing a radically equal salary policy. For social workers, activists, bureaucrats, and engaged citizens in third-sector organizations (NGOs, charities, not-for-profits, co-operatives), this practical and inspiring book provides a method for moving beyond the doldrums of "poverty relief" into the exciting world of community building.

Contents:

Front Matter

Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgements

The Working Centre Takes Root

Introduction: Beyond Us and Them

Building Community: The Working Centres Roots

Liberation from Overdevelopment

Community Engagement

The Virtues

St. Johns Kitchen: Redistribution through Co-operation

Searching for Work at the Help Centre

The Nuts and Bolts of an Alternative Organization

Toward a Philosophy of Work

Ethical Imagination: The Working Centres Approach to Salaries

Community Tools

Small Is Beautiful: Re-embedding Reciprocal Relationships in Daily Work

Conclusion: Transition to Common Work

Map of The Working Centre Buildings and Projects

Map of The Working Centre Locations in Downtown Kitchener

A Thirty-Year Chronology of The Working Centre

People of The Working Centre

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781771121620

1771121629

OCLC:

911205346