פרקטיקה קהילתית ביקורתית מודעת-עוני: מסגרת מושגית

From its early beginnings as a profession and as a scientific field, social work has seen communities living in poverty as one of its main target populations, both in practice and in research. However, the profession is moving worldwide away from significant community engagement in these communities. This transformation is part of a widespread erosion process of the professional status of community practice in social work. In Israel, this process is reflected on several levels such as the decay of community work in public social work, a decrease in number of students interested in specializing in this field, a lower amount of academic community work tracks in higher education institutions, and little social work research papers and articles.The ever-expanding dimension of inequality and poverty in both Israel and the world requires the profession to return to its origins and tooffer community solutions that can help these communities deal with the roots and impacts of poverty. This article offers a unique conceptual framework for poverty-aware community practice. This framework addresses five major characteristics of poverty-stricken communities: progressive marginalization, dependency, multidimensional deprivation, internalized oppression, and lack of participation. The article presents basic principles for poverty-aware community practice: deep engagement in community life, encouraging egalitarian partnerships, constant learning from community knowledge, adherence to participatory approach, developing social rights discourse, striving for change in power relations, dealing with intersectionality, and advancing critical methodologies that incorporate micro and macro practics at the community level.