Customer Reviews

Bridges Out of Poverty: Strategies for Professionals and Communities

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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!

Ruby Payne offers useful insight into the poverty culture and some suggestions for helping those who live in that mindset to be better able to function in the workplace. However, the first 7 chapters of this book are virtually a word-for-word reproduction of her earlier book, A Framework for Understanding Poverty;she simply substituted "client" for "student". My real complaint is that almost all of the charts (which constitute important elements of the book) are in such tiny font that they are illegible on the Kindle and their size cannot be increased using the font key. If you need this book, I suggest buying the traditional copy.

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"

As someone who works with First Nations in the Southwest area, this book has been helpful in understanding some of the issues that those in poverty situations face. As another reviewer criticized, this book mentions systemic issues but then mostly provides tools for caseworkers, mentors, and other middle-classed people in working with those in poverty in the U.S. However, for most of these people, addressing systemic issues isn't feasible, and what they do have the opportunity to do is to help alleviate stresses and provide 'bridges' for some impoverished people to develop fuller lifestyles.

Even as a middle-class person, I found some of the advice on interpersonal relationships and some of the charts describing what happens to people as they move between social groups to be very helpful. This book, although incomplete, provides a good start to understanding poverty as not just 'that person's bad choices,' and also has tools and wisdom about coping in mainstream American life that a wide variety of people could benefit from. 4 stars.

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.

Generally very helpful and interesting. My only difficulty is that some of the vocabulary and remedies are probably understood by professionals in the field, but are not defined for an amateur (volunteer) like me as well as I would like. I would especially have liked to see more development of remedial steps for the cognitive issues identifed.

Some people complain about this book stereotying, but I found that the general analysis explains behavior and reasoning in friends I have made who are in poverty that I previously was mystified by. I think it is still easy to see the individuality of my friends.

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.

I strongly recommend this book for anyone in ANY helping profession. I have always wondered why a great country such as the U.S. can have only 1 % of its population as wealthy and the huge disparity of the population living in poverty. Be the individual that makes a difference. One person at a time.

An Excellent book especially if you are work with people in poverty. I found this book to be a real eye opener. There were quite a few things I just didn't know/understand about the different classes of people. This would be an excellent book for anybody in social services working with people of all classes. Also an excellent book for Police Departments, it really puts things in perspective and help you understand where people are coming from. The priorities and time frames used by the different classes was also a real eye opener. Excellent book, one of the best I've read in a long time.

It contains simple concepts and is very practical to implement. It's a great tool that can be adapted to individual, family, community and policymaker levels.