Community Psychology

What is Community Psychology?

• "Concerns the relationships of the individual to
communities and society. Through collaborative
research and action, community psychologists
seeks to understand and enhance the quality of
life for individuals, communities, and society."

Core Principles of Community Psychology

Prevention Rather than Treatment.
• Community psychology takes a proactive
approach rather than reactive role.
• Focuses on social issues, social institutions,
and other settings that influence groups and
organizations the goal is to optimize the well
being of communities and individuals with
innovative and alternate interventions
designed in collaboration with affected
community members and with other related
disciplines inside and outside psychology.
 Core principles of Community
Psychology
• The ecological Perspective
-Brofenbrenner’s (1975) 5 levels of analysis:
 individuals
 Microsystems (families, classrooms, residence halls)
 Organizations (schools, churches, neighborhood
associations)
 Communities (some geographic locality – small towns,
urban blocks)
 Macrosystems (the societal level)

All of these levels influence each other, and more of them

can be understood in isolation.
5 levels of analysis
What do Community Psychologists do?
• Depending on one’s training, experiences, and
preferences, community psychologists can
work as educators, professors, program
directors, consultants, policy developers,
evaluators, and researchers in community
organizations, universities, or government
agencies to promote mental health and
community well-being.
 Specifically,
• They seek to expand “helping” beyond traditional
psychotherapy to promote wellness.
• They engage in action-oriented research to
develop, implement, and evaluate programs.
• They build collaborative relationships with
community members, groups, and organizations
to solve social problems.
• They analyze government, civic life, and
workplace settings in order to understand and
improve fair and diverse participation.
 Where do Community Psychologists
Work?
• Academic settings such as community colleges,
small undergraduate colleges, and larger
universities
• Health and human service agencies of city,
county, state, and federal governments
• Schools, community-based organizations,
advocacy groups, religious institutions, and
neighborhood groups
• Public policy organizations and nonprofits
• Research centers, independent or consulting
groups, evaluation firms, and private practice
 LEVELS OF PREVENTIVE
INTERVENTION
• PRIMARY PREVENTION
Attempts to prevent a problem before it
occurs at the earliest possible moment. It refers
most generally to activities that can be undertaken
with a healthy population to maintain or enhance
its health, physical, and emotional.
• SECONDARY PREVENTION
Attempts to treat a problem at the earliest possible
moment before it become severe or persistent. At-risk
individuals are already manifesting some symptoms or
problems.
• TERTIARY PREVENTION
Attempts to reduce the severity of a
problem once it has persistently occurred. In
other words, at risk individuals are already
manifesting some symptoms or problematic
behaviors.
 Alternative models of prevention
Classifies prevention intervention into one of three
types:
• Universal preventive interventions target the
entire population; these interventions may be
costly because they are given to everyone.
• Selective preventive interventions target
individuals or subgroups of the population that
have a higher average likelihood of developing
the disorder
• Indicated preventive interventions target high
risk individuals identified by their manifestation
of sub threshold symptoms of the disorder or by
biological markers indicating a predisposition to
develop the disorder.
• Prevention occurs before a disorder develops;
treatment is administered to those who meet
diagnostic criteria for a disorder, and
maintenance involves interventions for
individuals with a diagnosis of mental disorder
whose illness continues to warrant attention
Prevention Research
1. Identify 2. With an 3. Design, 4. Design, 5. Facilitate
problem or emphasis on risk conduct, and conduct, and large-scale
disorder and and protective analyze pilot analyze large implementation
review factors, review studies and scale trials or and ongoing
information relevant confirmatory and the preventive evaluation of the
to determine information – replication trials intervention preventive
its extent both from fields of preventive program intervention
outside intervention program in the
prevention and program community
from existing
preventive
intervention
research
programs

Recommended steps for

designing, implementing, and
evaluating prevention
programs.
 DIVERSITY

Another important concept of community psychology and

clinical psychology more generally is the diversity.

9 dimensions of human diversity

• Culture
• Race
• Ethnicity
• Gender
• Sexual orientations
• Ability / disability
• Age
• Socioeconomic status/social class
• Religion and spirituality
Respect for diversity people have the right to be
different, and different does not mean inferior. If
difference is accepted as a fact of life then the
resources ought to be equitably distributed to
all these different people
 METHODS OF INTERVENTION AND
CHANGE
Consultation
the process whereby an individual (the
consultee) who has responsibility for providing
a service to others (the clients) voluntarily
consults another person (the consultant) who is
believed to possess some special expensive
which will help the consultee provide a better
service to his or her clients
 Types of mental health consultation

1. Client-centered case consultation. Here the focus is on

helping a specific client or patient to solve a current
problem
2. Consultee-centered case consultation. The aim is to help
the consultee enhance the skills that he or she needs to
deal with future cases.
3. Progra-centered administered consultation. The notion
here is to assist in the administration or management of a
specific program.
4. Consultee-centered administrative consultation. The aim is
to improve skills of an administrator in the hope that this
will enable her or him to function better in the future.
 Intervention in early childhood
• Head start programs. Primary prevention, early
childhood programs designed to prepare early
childhood programs from disadvantaged
backgrounds for elementary school by focusing on
their basic learning skills, among other things.
• Self-help. Informal groups that provide support
individuals facing specific problems and may stave
off the need for professionals’ intervention.
Functions off self-help groups include providing
important and relevant information to members,
providing role models, providing emotional support
and ideas for coping, and giving members an
increased sense of mastery and control over their
problems.
• Paraprofessionals. Persons with no formal
clinical training who have been trained to
assist professional mental health workers. The
use of paraprofessionals has been growing in
community psychology and in the mental
health field as a whole, and the results of
meta-analyses suggest that paraprofessionals
may be effective for in some case even more
effective than professionals.