The Community Psychologist

From the President

Susan McMahon

DePaul University

Reflections on the Past Year

It was an amazing Biennial Conference! I always feel rejuvenated following our conference – in my view, it is the best conference in the world. What makes it so great? Our values, passion, actions, tools, research – they are all inspiring, yet I value the people most of all.

From the Editors
Daniel Cooper and Tiffany McDowell
Adler University, Chicago

Welcome to Spring! As we transition into the next season it is a good time to reflect on the great work happening in our field. The Spring issue features several projects from community psychologists working in a variety of settings. Olya Glantsman and Nicole Freund provide us with an overview of the Practice Council and upcoming initiatives to support practitioners over the next year. From CERA’s column on negotiating intersections of identity to mentor students, to Gloria Levin’s profile of Kyrah Brown, we see the multiple ways that community psychologists challenge and shape the contexts in which they work. Coming off the EC midwinter meeting, we hope to provide more opportunities for you to share the great research and practical work you are doing. We look forward to seeing you all at the upcoming Biennial!

Dan and Tiffany

Committee on Cultural, Racial, & Ethnic Affairs

Written by Geri Palmer, gpalmer@adler.edu, Adler University and Jesica Siham Fernandez, jsfernandez@scu.edu, Santa Cruz University

Greetings from Geri and Jesica!

Geraldine (Geri) Palmer, Chair

“My father always said, “When you see a good fight, get in it.” – Vernon Johns

I am delighted to have been elected Chair of the Cultural, Ethnic and Racial Affairs Committee of SCRA! It seems social and racial justice has always been a part of my world, in some facet. I grew up in the village of Robbins, an African American community south of Chicago’s inner city, still unknown to many. Robbins was once the home of a tiny airport that served as a landing pad for the legendary Tuskegee Airmen. Robbins is the birthplace of Nichelle Nichols, one of the first African American women to play a major role on television (Star Trek), and where simply, I learned to respect my elders, where voting was never an option and service in the community was as normal as breathing. To this end, I am clear about why I am a community psychologist---and the impetus behind that decision. As community psychologists we must work to replicate healthy communities, and we can only do that by laying aside words and deeds, unintentionally or intentionally, which oppress rather than liberate. We cannot demand justice, when we don’t demand, and expect it, from our own ranks.

Council of Education Programs

Edited by Raymond Legler
rlegler@nl.edu
National Louis University

The 2016 Survey of Graduate Programs in Community Psychology: Findings on Competencies in Research & Practice and Challenges of Training Programs

Written by Mason G. Haber, Department of Psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School & Judge Baker Children’s Center; Zachary Neal, Michigan State University; Brian Christens, Victoria Faust, and Lisa Jackson, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Laura Kohn Wood, University of Miami; Taylor Bishop Scott, University of North Carolina at Charlotte; Raymond Legler, National Louis University; and the Members of the Society for Community Research and Action Council of Education

Committee on Women

For this issue’s interview I once again asked committee members for recommendations. Below is my conversation with Nidal Karim, PhD, Project Director at CARE USA about her background, experience and the work she does. – Eylin Palamaro Munsell, Chair, SCRA Committee on Women

Regional Network News

Edited by Scot Evans, Regional Network Coordinator

s.evans4@miami.edu

As we ease into summer, we’re starting to build out the regional web pages on the SCRA website. Check out the pages under construction here and let me know if you have any suggestions for these regional sites (http://www.scra27.org/who-we-are/regional-activities/). We hope to host all of the regional conference pages here (http://www.scra27.org/event/regional-conferences/) so send me your regional conference information and any other info you want posted. Check out what is going on in the SCRA Regions around the world!

Transformative Change in Community Mental Health Interest Group

Edited by José H. Ornelas

Current Moments in Service User/Survivor Scholarship

Written by Jijian Voronka, PhD, jiji.voronka@mail.utoronto.ca, University of Windsor

Introduction

Mental health literatures have paid substantive attention to the impetus for including peers in research, as well as outlining best practices on how to do so (Phillips, 2006; Rose, 2003). In theory, the benefits of collaborative research include improving the quality of the research, building capacity across researchers, and offering representation of marginalized communities under study (CAMH Community Advisory Committee for Research, 2016). In practice, this means that peer researchers are often hired into pre-existing research projects to contribute to pre-determined research frameworks and outputs. In this way, peer researchers are invited in to partake in research agendas that have not been developed by them. The complexity of collaborative endeavors as articulated by services users/survivors have been well documented, yet this scholarship remains largely unengaged by traditional mental health researchers (Wallcraft, Schrank & Amering, 2009).

TCP 50(3) Summer 2017