A manual, geared toward training social workers going into rural areas, provides a brief discussion of the natural helping relationships found in rural communities and a simulation game to be used in acquainting social workers, clients, and students with the rural network. Objectives of the simulation game, Nets and Links, are to train people to identify: (1) actual helping resources within the environment; (2) potential helping resources and develop a plan for their utilization; (3) sectors of conflict within the network which affect the functioning of the client system; and (4) sectors of the network in which greater coordination of helping resources is needed. A multicolored dart board is used to represent arenas of network activity (client systems, relatives, community members, clubs, union members, job coworkers, government agencies, human services and schools, religious organizations, others, and friends). Corresponding colored push pins, which are numbered, are used to represent individual members of various sectors, thus allowing simulation participants to track network members. Also included are: game directions, questions for discussion, a case example to be used for network analysis, a drawing of the game board, and an identification sheet to code arenas of interaction. (AH)