Background: Worldwide, stigma is recognized as a barrier limiting access to psychiatric care. The scope of the stigma varies across cultural contexts and contributes to the social inequalities in health observed in many low- and middle-income countries. Aim and methods: In this paper, we explore the way mental disorders are stigmatized in Bobo-Dioulasso (Burkina Faso). We conducted 7 focus groups and 25 individual interviews with patients, family members, caregivers, and key informants. Interviews focused on stereotypes and attitudes toward individuals identified with mental disorders. Results: A set of stereotypes is socially conveyed about people with mental disorders. The perceptions that these individuals are fragile, useless, dangerous, marginal, and adopt strange behaviors are common. These stereotypes could be related to emotional reactions, such as sadness, compassion, indifference, fear, disgust, and shame that justify, in some cases, discrimination and unequal treatments. Discussion: This study suggests that affective reactions are crucial to understand stigma in Burkina Faso. The notion of shame seems to be rooted in a set of cultural norms and values, and fear seems to be related to structural stigma. Our results offer some insights for future anti-stigma programs in a context where resources are limited and where cultural characteristics must be considered.
Millions of individuals around the globe have been displaced from their countries due to disasters, including persecution, war, disease, famine, and weather events. Many forced migrants (FMs) experience mental health concerns that warrant treatment but often face significant barriers to care, including a limited pool of mental health practitioners (MHPs) who are competent, willing, and able to serve them. In Alaska, the Working Alongside Refugees in Mental Health (WARM) program was developed to address this need. After conducting the first WARM workshop, our team sought to understand how MHPs in Alaska are recruited and retained in working with forced migrants to further develop and maintain our program. We examined MHPs’ motivations to work with FMs through 13 qualitative semi-structured interviews with MHPs who engage in such work. Experiences with FMs and awareness of FMs in their communities, competence, and connections with other practitioners increased MHPs’ motivation and led to service delivery. Community psychology is well positioned to enhance services for FMs through both practitioner-level interventions and systemic interventions. Strategies for increasing and sustaining MHPs’ motivations to work with FMs include: forming connections with other MHPs and trusted individuals and organizations, increasing competence to work with FMs via specialized training networks, integrating experiences working with FMs into training programs, and engaging in advocacy to address systems-level barriers to care.
Community engagement and partnerships are at the core of public health. To address long-standing disparities, there is an urgent need to partner with community members and community-based organizations to co-create health interventions and programs. Community-academic partnerships (CAPs)—one model for community partnerships—can increase the capacity and implementation of evidence-based and culturally responsive public health practices. While effective, there is a need to address gaps in understanding perceived motivations and gains among and between partners, particularly in the context of engaging marginalized communities. This mixed methods project explored motivations to join and continue to engage in a CAP designed to advance health equity in Flint, Michigan. Using a survey and qualitative interview, twenty-five community and academic partner representatives were invited to participate. Motivating factors were categorized as individual, interpersonal, organizational, and community level contexts. Overall, findings demonstrate how motivational factors are interactive and multi-dimensional with varied contexts, emphasizing intrinsic drives in individual contexts, social support and external organizational resources through interpersonal and organizational contexts, and demonstration of concrete outcomes in community contexts. Findings from the study can be used to improve design of community partnerships that seek to advance health equity by attending to key factors that drive motivations to engage with marginalized communities.
Aims: This cross-sectional study examined the relationship between childhood trauma and psychological distress (i.e., depression and anxiety symptoms) and the moderating role of resource use during and after the deadliest wildfire in California among a sample of college students. Methods: Participants (N = 473) completed well-validated measures six months after the 2018 Camp Fire exploring retrospective childhood trauma, current psychological distress, and resource use during and after the fire. Results: Multiple regression and moderation analyses revealed that greater exposure to childhood trauma predicted increased depression and anxiety symptoms following the fire. However, using community-based (off-campus) mental health services during and after the fire buffered the effects of childhood trauma on depression and anxiety symptoms. Conclusion: Youth exposed to childhood trauma are more susceptible to depression and anxiety symptoms post-disaster, yet using community-based mental health services may protect against the development of aggravated symptoms with greater childhood trauma.
The process of reintegration into society for individuals impacted by incarceration is intricate and multifaceted. While rehabilitative programs strive to mitigate recidivism through financial and psychological support, many encounter challenges in readjusting to their communities. Acknowledging that these individuals are not isolated but embedded within the broader social frameworks of their families, communities, and the workforce is imperative. Therefore, understanding the psychological determinants influencing justice-involved individuals is pivotal for aligning their conduct with societal norms, as solely attributing their actions to internal factors neglects the array of external environmental influences beyond their control. Given these challenges, we introduce the evidence-based C.A.R.E. model (Collaborate, Amend, Reintegrate, Empower) as a strategic approach. This model, extrapolated from a comprehensive re-evaluation of qualitative research, offers a holistic comprehension of the post-release milieu and advocates for reallocating resources to enhance the interactions between justice-involved individuals and their communities. This manuscript delineates the C.A.R.E. model as a blueprint for reentry programs, underpinned by the tenets of dynamical systems theory, to enrich these interactions.
The papers in these two Global Journal special issues focus on the 18 Community Psychology Practice Competencies proposed by the Society for Community Research and Action (SCRA) in 2012. In this commentary, I articulate some of my enjoyment in reading the articles in these special issues, share some thoughts on the history of the practice competencies, and propose some ideas for conversations that may be useful in their development over time. The SCRA practice competencies have been useful in opening conversations about how to articulate what community psychologists can do in working with community members, and about how to provide educational practices to prepare students for that work. These special issues build on the volume on community psychology practice edited by Scott and Wolfe (2015) and the earlier Global Journal special issue on international competencies (Wolfe, Scott, & Jimenez, 2013). The practice competencies can be useful only if we consider them to be inevitably incomplete descriptions of community psychology practices – practices that are inherently dynamic, contextual, and value-laden. They can be useful only if we continually re-examine and revise them, and adapt them as needed for work in specific contexts.
The challenges faced by our Australian colleagues raise a range of questions about the future of Community Psychology (CP) in contexts that have become increasingly focused on the legitimizing of academic programs and professions by bureaucratic governmental entities whose understanding of the disciplines and professions they seek to legitimize may be limited at best. More importantly, their struggle points to challenges within academic psychology, as CP continues to struggle for a place at the table of organized psychology. Perhaps the greatest lesson in the narrative of this struggle was how some of the tools of the discipline were used to resolve what was perceived to be a crisis threatening the very survival of CP in Australia.
The present study combined Ajzen Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1991) and Schwartz’s Value Theory (1992) with socio-demographic factors to analyze their impact on intention to recycle. The variables were classified into two categories, namely individual level determinants and contextual level determinants and utilized a hierarchical analysis to determine whether greater predictive power was obtained when combining individual level predictors (personal values, perceived behavioral control and attitude) with contextual level predictors (subjective norms and demographics). Our findings indicate that socio-demographics, personal values, perceived behavioral control and attitude all predict recycling behavior with significantly greater predictive power obtained when combining individual level and community level predictors of recycling behavior. Implications for community psychology are discussed.
We are very pleased to offer this Special Issue of the GJCPP for the 2011 SCRA Biennial Conference. All of the papers, presentations and materials in this Special Issue were peer reviewed, or contributed by special invitation of the conference organizers. This is a very rich issue, with video, narrated slide presentations, posters, and other materials from the conference. We also have several of the invited addresses from Award Winners. We hope that you will learn from all the materials presented. Please do not hesitate to contact the authors, or leave comments at the end of each submission.
Welcome to the special issue devoted to the 2nd International Conference on Community Psychology, held in Lisboa Portugal during June 2008. We are pleased to provide a vehicle for the dissemination of the proceedings from the conference. Contained in this issue are papers from the conference, organized by the Table of Contents.
A generous thank you to everyone that helped make the three issues of Volume 1 a success! Reviewers for the first three issues International Editorial Board Donors and Funders We very much look forward to Volume 2 and all the issues we will publish in the future.
Below I provide a brief overview and commentary on each article in these special issues of the Global Journal of Community Psychology Practice. In describing each article below, I have noted the practice competencies highlighted by the authors, and also listed in brackets any other competencies that seemed to me to be especially involved in their work. I also listed any Proposed Competencies specified in each article.
This paper is a commentary on the Australia experience of advocating for the place of Community Psychology within the field of Psychology more broadly. In it, Dr Montero describes her experience, and the experience of others in Community Psychology in Latin America.
Emergency responders/healthcare workers face significant mental health burdens associated with their integral roles within society. Alongside the need for more mental health support, a major contributing factor to this burden are barriers to accessing suitable support. The aim of this study was to build consensus on the barriers/facilitators to a proposed surf therapy intervention supporting this population, the Blue Light Surf Club (BLSC). Where possible the study also explored pragmatic solutions from the perspectives of potential participants. Given the primary aim of building consensus, a Delphi method was utilised alongside 18 emergency responders/healthcare workers from a range of different roles in central Scotland (7 males and 11 females; mean age = 38.2 years; standard deviation = 11 years; range 19-54). Participants were surveyed about their perceptions of barriers/facilitators to accessing the proposed BLSC surf therapy programme. Four rounds of questions were required before a priori defined consensus was reached across all generated items. The outcome of the research was a set of recommendations for the implementation of the BLSC grouped around three themes: Intervention Access, Intervention Delivery and Intervention Structure. These recommendations offer insight and practical suggestions for overcoming established barriers to accessing mental health support for this population. The findings of this study have direct implications for the design stage of the BLSC surf therapy intervention while also supporting a wide range of similar interventions aimed at the emergency responder/healthcare population. These pragmatic recommendations are of value both in terms of their contribution to academic discussion around supporting this population, and the direct support they offer to comparable community-based organisations.
The struggle to have community psychology endorsed as one of the recognized psychological specialization among the health professions could not happen in Italy in quite the same form, since in our country the most prestigious professions (doctors, lawyers, architects, engineers etc.) are regulated through “professional orders” , which are instituted through specific laws passed in Parliament. University graduates aspiring to practice one of these “legalized” professions must pass a special examination (similar to the bar exam for lawyers in the United States) to become members of the professional order. Different professions can create scientific or professional associations, which have less prestige and power than professional orders. In fact, many requests by professional associations to become an order often remain in the form of proposed laws for years in the Italian parliament. In Italy, a big battle, which required most of the same lobbying described by our Australian colleagues, actually took place in the seventies and eighties to obtain the passage of this kind of law.
