Product Description
Bridges Out of Poverty is a unique and powerful tool designed specifically for social, health, and legal services professionals. Based in part on Dr. Ruby K. Payne's myth shattering A Framework for Understanding Poverty, Bridges reaches out to the millions of service providers and businesses whose daily work connects them with the lives of people in poverty. In a highly readable format you'll find case studies, detailed analysis, helpful charts and exercises, and specific solutions you and your organization can implement right now to: Redesign programs to better serve people you work with; Build skill sets for management to help guide employees; Upgrade training for front-line staff like receptionists, case workers, and managers; Improve treatment outcomes in health care and behavioral health care; Increase the liklihood of moving from welfare to work. If your business, agency, or organization works with people from poverty, only a deeper understanding of their challenges-and strengths-will help you partner with them to create opportunities for success.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 5 reviews)

must read for teachers

If only I had read this book during the 18 years I taught in a poor rural
school. I'm now retired, and because of that teaching experience and
the needs of which it made me aware I'm volunteering in a community program
geared to help people move out of poverty. I had good intentions, but if I had been
aware of many of the specifics mentioned in the book I could have been more
effective during those teaching years.
August 15, 2008

Bridges Out of Poverty

Very insightful reading. Would be a great read for anyone working in social services. It is interesting to realize that there is some level of poverty mentality within most people. Truely the best book I have read on the subject of poverty.
July 03, 2008

Payne as a Culture of Poverty Theorist

I have been reading "Bridges out of Poverty" for a social work class I am taking at The Ohio State University. I am a senior in psychology and sociology, and I find this book academically lacking and socially irresponsible. This text is classic culture of poverty--the theory that those in poverty are there because of character flaws and bad behavior. Payne never confronts the structural barriers which bar the poor from increasing their economic position. Education, full-time employment (at a living-wage), and inadequate social safety-nets are stronger correlates to poverty than language and perspective as Payne would suggest. Payne suggests, though never directly, that the family is the primary socializing force in the development of an individual. Schools, and the staff and educators who operate them; neighborhoods and their relationship to the city as a whole; and the national and political culture, defused to homes through the media, are all prominent factors in the socialization of every individual.
Thus, when one receives messages of worthlessness and derogation from the whole of society, when your existence is viewed as a cause to herald and correct, when you are bombarded by a consumerist culture in which you cannot participate, the logical end is an attitude of hopelessness and dissociation. Instead of a steadfast defense of "middle-class ideals," I propose a more critical analysis of this society. A society with more wealth than any other nation in the world, but also with a poorly performing education system (which is blamed on the student and not the lack of funding), a service focused economy which will force us to sell to each other the products of distant lands, and an obsession with consumption which is destroying our planet.
When it is proposed that a critical look be taken toward a particular group, we must first look at ourselves. Before we espouse the lifestyle and ideology of one group onto another, we must first determine if that lifestyle is "correct." In my opinion, there is no certificate or qualification which a person can obtain that gives them the power to do that. It is hypocritical to ask of the poor what we would not ask of ourselves. Ruby Payne, and "academics" like her, have become unable to see the forest for the trees.

April 28, 2008

Bridges out of Poverty

This book is for anyone who wants to prepare his or her community for addressing poverty in a comprehensive, systemic way. We have been working with communities for ten years to help them establish our Circles approach to helping families out of poverty. Whenever we come to a community that has been doing Bridges, everything goes faster and better. It is an excellent text for understanding the hidden rules of class.

Scott Miller
Author of "Until It's Gone, Ending Poverty in our Nation, in our Lifetime"
March 28, 2008

Bridges Out of Poverty

As an educator I strongly urge anyone working with "helping" services, including education, to read this book. It is an easy read that can provide invaluable insights. This book sheds much light on the inhibiting assumptions and obstacles that seperate the varying socioeconomic classes. I have begun to change my approach to educating as a result of Dr. Payne's work. Do yourself and those you are trying to help a favor...read this book!
August 26, 2007

SIMILAR PRODUCTS

A Framework for Understanding Poverty
by Ruby K. Payne

Bridges Out of Poverty Workbook
by Philip DeVol, Terie Dreussi Smith Ruby K. Payne

Working With Parents
by Ruby K. Payne

Hidden Rules of Class at Work
by Ruby K. Payne; Don L. Krabill

Working with Students: Discipline Strategies for the Classroom;
by Ruby K. Payne