Community Psychology

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Community Psychology

• A Break with Traditional Treatment Approaches

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Community Psychology The Career for Champions

• Champion one who fights for another or defends
  any person or cause

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What is Community Psychology?

• Short Answer
• Community psychology is about understanding
  people within their social worlds and using this
  understanding to improve their well being (George
  Orford)

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What is Community Psychology?

• Long Answer
• Community psychology represents a new perspective
  for looking at the problems of everyday life, a
  paradigm shift. It recognizes that many of the
  problems people confront arise not from
  disturbances within their individual psyches,
  but from the failures of community systems to
  adequately socialize and support its citizens. It
  replaces the traditional clinical perspective on
  helping that sees people in terms of their
  pathology and deficits with the notion that all
  people have strengths and competencies.

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Community Psychologist Role

• We work with people and groups we try not to do.
  We try to empower others.
• Which traditional approach to helping does
  community psychology most closely resemble?

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Community Psychology Brief History

• Kennedy Bill of 1963 called for a bold new
  approach to prevent mental disorder
• Swampscott Conference (1965) regarded as the
  official birth of community psychology
• Division of Community Psychology formed
• Journals devoted to community psychology were
  established
• Text books on Community Psychology were published
• Graduate programs in Community Psychology were
  established

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Wanted Community Psychologists

• Requirements
• Out of the box thinking

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A Dilemma

• A farmer is standing on one bank of a river with
  a fox, a chicken, and a bag of grain.
• The boat will carry the farmer and one item. He
  has to make several trips.
• He cant leave the fox with the chicken or the
  chicken with the grain.
• How can he get everything across the river
  without anything being eaten?

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Solution Thinking Outside the Box

• Think of new ways to solve the problem.
• Clue Bring object back and forth instead of just
  one way

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Community Psychology Key Concepts (out of the
box)

• Blaming the Victim
• Ecological level of analysis
• Prevention
• Empowerment

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Blaming the Victim

• The break with traditional views.
• The cause of psychopathology is not the fault of
  the individual
• The individual is often the victim as a result of
  the unfair distribution of resources

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Ecological Levels of Analysis

• Individuals and society are interdependent

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Principles of Community Psychology Ecological
Influences

• Problems are an interaction between the
  individual, social setting, and system
• In Community Psychology, an emphasis is placed on
  understanding the cause of problems at the system
  level rather than the individual level

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Primary prevention during school
transitionsFelner, Gitner, and Primavera

• 65 students randomly slelected
• Transition project goal was to increase peer
  and teach support during the trnsition to high
  school
• Restructured role of homeroom teachers
• Reorganized school environment to increase the
  stability of a stable peer support system

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Felner et al. (cont).

• Project and control students were evaluated at
  midpoint and end of academic year

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Felner et al. Results

• Significant differences between Project and
  Control subjects on GPA and attendance
• While Project and Control students had almost
  identical GPAs at the end of 8th grade (prior to
  the project 2.64 and 2.61)), by the end of the
  9th grade the Project students had significantly
  higher G.P.A.s (2.78 and 2.29).

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Prevention

• Picnic and drowning people story
• Cannot rely on treatment alone
• Preventive activities will be more efficient in
  the long run

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Types of Prevention

• Universal preventive interventions
• Selective preventive interventions
• Indicated preventive interventions

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Empowerment

• Lack of control has been associated with poor
  mental health outcome (e.g., learned
  helplessness).
• Empowerment is the cultivation in a person that
  they have a sense of control over their own
  destiny

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Empowerment

• Emphasis on working with people
• Emphasis on identifying and building competencies
  and strengths
• Emphasis on recognizing the positive aspects of
  diversity
• Emphasis on understanding resilience

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Community Psychology In Action Two Examples

• Look for the key Community Psychology concepts in
  the two following examples of interventions based
  on Community Psychology principles.

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Librarian as Community InnovatorGaye Rizzo

• Book delivery service for senior shut-ins
• After school tutoring program for latchkey
  children staffed by seniors
• Rites of Passage Program
• building self esteem in teens
• Parenting skills for teen mothers
• Shut in buddy program builds telephone networks
  among isolates

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Avance

• See film 14 Ounces of Prevention