on this site
As an approach to improving community health, the Southern Jamaica
Plain Health Center brought together 16 youth, half of whom identify as
white and half of whom identify as people of color, to participate in a
year-long racial healing and reconciliation process. Please take 15 mins
to watch this video and allow yourself to have, and even express, the
feelings that come up. That is their charge to us. Racial healing is the
work required for and by each of us so we can live into our full
humanity.
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Welcome to this Issue on the Australia Community Psychology Experience
Welcome to this Issue of the GJCPP focused on the Australia Community
Psychology experience in advocating for space at the broader psychology
table. In addition to the main article and the commentaries, please be
sure to listen to the audio interviews of the authors.
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featured articles from around the globe
Lobbying for Endorsement of Community Psychology in Australia
Lynne Cohen, Julie Dean, Heather Gridley, Rebecca Hogea, Ken Robinson,
Emma Sampson, Anne Sibbel, and Colleen Turner, Australian Psychological Society College of Community Psychologists
Peer Reviewed
This paper describes the intense lobbying effort coordinated by the
National Committee of the Australian Psychological Society College of
Community Psychologists and their supporters, which was sustained over
many months and led ultimately to a changed decision by the Australian
Health Ministers. The story is important for community psychology as it
demonstrates the power of collective, integrated and focussed political
lobbying, in this case to promote and to inform others of the key
contributions of community psychology to health policy, illness
prevention and primary care.
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Commentary: Invisibility and informality in Latin American Community Psychology
Maritza Montero, Universidad Central de Venezuela
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.
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Commentary: Lobbying for Endorsement of Community Psychology in
Australia and the Invisibility of Community Psychology in the United
States
Sylvie Taylor, Ph.D. and Gregor V. Sarkisian, Ph.D., Antioch University Los Angeles
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.
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Commentary: The proof of the pudding is in the eating
Francine Lavoie, École de psychologie, Université Laval, Québec, Québec, Canada.
Francine.lavoie@psy.ulaval.ca
Marie-Hélène Gagné, École de psychologie, Université Laval, Québec, Québec, Canada
This commentary is offered by two Community Psychologists from Canada
with experience in attempting to carve a niche for community psychology
in their country. Their suggested lessons learned include the need for
lobbying, the developing of friends across a variety of fields, timing
is important, and learning from the work of colleagues in other
countries.
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Commentary to “Lobbying for Endorsement of Community Psychology in Australia”
Donata Francescato Professor of Community Psychology, University Sapienza Rome, Italy
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 Francescato describes her experience, and the
experience of others in Community Psychology in Italy.
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A Rose is a Rose is a Rose... Why Community Psychology needs to
stand up for its Endorsement on an Interdisciplinary and Societal Ground
Wolfgang Stark
Australian colleagues (Cohen, Dean, Gridley, Hogea, Robinson, Sampson,
Sibell & Turner 2012), based on the struggle for endorsement of
Community Psychology (CP) in Australia, have initiated an important
debate which goes beyond the issue of professionalisation of CP. The
Australian case raises issues on the professional and political identity
of Community Psychology. Based on the German experience, in this paper
the process of traditional professionalization is challenged.
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Developing Alliances: Commentary on Lobbying for Endorsement of Community Psychology in Australia
James R. Cook
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
This article provides a good example of community psychology in action,
mobilizing resources, organizing constituents, utilizing allies and
partners, and working political systems to effect change (or, more
specifically, to prevent an adverse change). Knowing your enemy, using
social networks, tailoring your message to the values of your audience,
and working to “convince the organ grinder, rather than the monkey” are
all important aspects of good community change efforts.
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Commentary on Lobbying for endorsement of Community Psychology in Australia
Neville Robertson, University of Waikato
In their interesting and highly reflective article, my Aussie
colleagues have nicely encapsulated some of the dilemmas and challenges
which also face community psychologists on this side of the ditch. (For
readers unfamiliar with downunder colloquialisms and/or geography, the
“ditch” is the 2,000 kilometre-wide Tasman Sea which separates the east
coast of Australia from the west coast of Aotearoa/New Zealand .) Like
our cousins, we have often suffered from low visibility, we have had to
fight for recognition, and we have had to resist hegemonic models of
what constitutes psychology. Like them, it has often been our political
nous, our networking and our advocacy skills which have carried the day.
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Further Comments
Caterina Arcidiacono, Federico II University, Naples
The striking experience of the Australian psychologists tell us about
the importance of the advocacy and lobbying power in the pursuit of
political and scientific goals; the role of agency as a behavioural
attitude in social settings. This article tell also how important is the
accurate description of events, relations, and interactions in the
dissemination of a certain experience. The authors are, in fact, very
detailed in the description of all the contacts, the connections and the
networking they went through. It goes without saying that all their
actions and reports are giving trust to every sort of collective and
participatory political involvement. Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!
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These audio interviews of Lynne Cohen, Ken Robinson and Heather Gridley
provide some additional background information about the context,
lessons learned, and what it meant to be involved in advocating for
community psychology as an endorsement in Australian Psychology.
Click on the "View all media" link below to access the interviews.
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Surviving a tsunami: Dealing with disaster: Lessons from the Samoa tsunami 29.09.09
by Jowitt, A., Faasisila, J., & Dudley, W.
Review Written by: Sharon Hakim
The book reviewed, "Surviving a Tsunami: Dealing with Disaster," was
written after the 2009 tsunami that hit the coast of Samoa (Western) and
is intended as a community handbook. It is informative, accessible,
and does a great job of giving the reader a feel for Samoan culture.
Although the authors do not identify as Community Psychologists, their
work clearly builds on some of our shared principles: community
strengths, respect for culture, and prevention. Although readers of
your journal may not live in areas at risk for tsunamis, the lessons
learned and expressed in this book regarding disaster preparedness and
resilience are valuable to all communities, wherever they may be
located.
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