Because of a mounting awareness that those most at risk in America today are the rural poor, educating for social work practice in rural areas has become an important and growing concern to many in the field of social work education. This report incorporates the findings and materials germane to developing a specific rural child welfare and family service curriculum process at California State University, Fresno. Basic to the project is the thesis that in order to be trained in the field of rural child welfare and family service, students must have adequate preparation, both practical and theoretical. They must learn: to develop a needs assessment plan; to design, plan, and implement a service delivery system; and to develop skills for service delivery and evaluation, ideally in a training setting (community) where child welfare and family services are slight, or totally nonexistent. Part I presents a report on a survey of need for rural services in the west Fresno County rural area, a preliminary step to actual curriculum development. Part II, the Proceedings of the March 1978 Rural Curriculum Development Conference contains both papers presented or made available to the conference and a summary of the Conference Task Study Group findings. Part III includes supplementary papers, provided by national resource people and addressed to the multifaceted issues and problems of implementing a rural curriculum. (NEC)