TCP 52 (1) Winter 2019
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A Publication of the Society for Community Research and Action |
Volume 52 Number 1 Winter 2019 |
From the President
Bradley Olsen
bradley.olson@nl.edu
National Louis University Chicago
Dear SCRA Members,
Given that National Louis University is hosting the 2019 SCRA Biennial I thought it would be good to introduce you here to the university itself, and to our Community Psychology PhD program. The program is close to my heart, where I have worked for almost 10 years, and where, despite our large size (over 50 alumni and 70 active students) we are still a lesser known program. Seymour Sarason, in his book On the Creation of Settings and of Future Societies, guides us on how to look at more hidden aspects of context around a new setting: its history, pre-existing settings, and the current organizational surroundings.
From the Editors
Susan M. Wolfe, Susan Wolfe and Associates, susan@susanwolfeandassociates.com and Dominique Thomas, University of Michigan, tdominiq@umich.edu
Neither of us were able to attend the 7th International Community Psychology Conference in Santiago, Chile, but by the time we finished reading the articles submitted the Special Feature, we felt a little like we had. To begin the special feature and set the stage, Jaime Alfaro Inzunza, Irma Serrano-Garcia, and Christopher Sonn provide a history of the International Community Psychology Conference. Susan McMahon shares reflections of her conference experience. Sam Keast describes the sense of voyeurism experienced, reminding us that even when we are attending conferences in other countries and putting our community psychology lens on as we experience the culture, we are still basically tourists. Yolanda Suarez-Balcazar and Fabricio Balcazar present a political view of their experience, and Chris Keys presents his experience from a human rights perspective. Finally, Joselyn Rosado-Martinez presents a student’s perspective of attending and presenting at an international conference.
Special Feature: The 7th International Conference of Community Psychology (ICCP) – Santiago, Chile, 2018
Edited by Susan Wolfe
I was fortunate to have the opportunity to attend the International Conference of Community Psychology in Barcelona, Spain in 2012. It was an unforgettable, positive professional and personal experience that was valuable in expanding my learning and perspective. I am excited to offer this special feature section of TCP with a set of articles from conference attendees at the 7th ICCP held in Santiago, Chili in October 2018. The feature begins with an article by Jaime Alfaro Inzunza, Irma Serrano-Garcia, and Christopher Sonn, who share the history of the ICCP’s. Jaime Alfaro Inzunza presided over the 7th ICCP; Irma Serrano-Garcia participated on the organizing committee of the 1st ICCP, and Christopher Sonn will preside over the 8th ICCP which will take place in Australia in 2020.
Special Feature: UMASS Lowell Center for Women & Work: Community Psychology in Action
Written by Meg A. Bond, Director of the Center for Women & Work, Professor in the Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts Lowell
The Center for Women & Work (CWW) at UMass Lowell is marking our 20th anniversary this year – and thus this is a great time to reflect and share our work with colleagues. Thank you to the editors for the encouragement to write this column.
Read more...
The Community Practitioner
Edited by Nicole Freund, Wichita State University Community Engagement Institute Center for Applied Research and Evaluation
Community Psychology in the Cloud: How One CP Practitioner Uses the Practice Competencies to Work in Everyone’s Community
By Nicole Freund, Wichita State University with Jessica Drum, Facebook
Dr. Jessica Drum took what might be considered by some as a non-traditional road when she graduated from Wichita State University’s Community Psychology Doctoral Program in 2016, but it has been an extraordinary opportunity to use community psychology practice and principles on a stage that can hardly get any larger: Facebook. Facebook is simultaneously no one’s community and everyone’s community, and that platform has given Dr. Drum a unique opening to empower its users and bring otherwise unheard voices to the eyes and ears of decision-makers.
Criminal Justice Interest Group
Edited by Jessica Shaw, Boston College of Social Work
The Criminal Justice Interest Group Column features the work and ideas of our members. We encourage readers to reach out to the authors if they are interested in learning more or exploring potential opportunities for collaboration. We also invite readers to join one of our upcoming Learning Community Series presentations in which Criminal Justice Interest Group members share their work virtually to foster a learning community. More information, and recording of prior presentations, can be viewed at https://www.scra27.org/who-we-are/interest-groups/criminal-justice-interest-group/.
The Education Connection
Edited by Simón Coulombe, Wilfrid Laurier University
Giving It Away: The Undergraduate Challenge
Written by Leonard A. Jason, Olya Glantsman, Jack O’Brien, Kaitlyn Ramian, & Lauren Hochberg, DePaul University
Many undergraduate psychology students have never heard of Community Psychology, and this is at least in part due to the underrepresentation of our field in Introduction to Psychology textbooks. A recent study indicated that only 14 (26%) of 53 introductory psychology textbooks referred to Community Psychology, and 5 of these only mentioned the term “Community Psychology” without providing any definition or explanation (Bauer, Glantsman, Hochberg, Turner, & Jason, 2017). Clearly, many undergraduates taking introductory psychology classes are not being exposed to our field. To possibly remedy this situation, SCRA members could adopt introductory psychology textbooks for their classes that adequately represent our field, and this could be one way of using our economic resources to reward those authors who adequately cover our field (see Bauer et al., 2017 for the authors and titles of textbooks that do an excellent job in describing Community Psychology).
Public Policy
Edited by Taylor Scott, Penn State University
Disseminating and Promoting Awareness of CP Scholarship and Research
Written by Regina Day Langhout, University of California Santa Cruz and Christopher Corbett, Albany, NY
Deportation and Forced Family Separation
I was contacted by a friend who is a lawyer, asking me if I knew of any policy briefs adopted by learned societies regarding the effects of deportation on individuals, families, and communities. He was working on a pro-bono immigration case and thought this would be useful. I did some searching, including reaching out to the SCRA listserv, and found nothing. I thought this was an important topic, so I emailed SCRA’s Immigrant Justice Interest Group (of which I am a member) and asked if anyone wanted to work on a policy brief with me. Sara Buckingham, Ashmeet Kaur Oberoi, Noé Rubén Chávez, Dana Rusch, Francesca Esposito, and Yolanda Suarez-Balcazar all agreed to work on the brief, and others sent along materials that might be useful. I read carefully the SCRA policy paper on detention and modeled the policy brief after it. Within a few months, thanks to the hard work and generosity of this amazing team, we had completed the brief.
Regional Network News
Edited by Scot Evans – Regional Network Coordinator
We have the better part of a full year ahead of us and as Judy Garland once said: “wouldn't it be wonderful if we could all be a little more gentle with each other, a little more loving, and have a little more empathy, and maybe, next year at this time we'd like each other a little more.” The new year is a great time to be a little gentler and a great time to check out your SCRA region information on the website and contact the regional coordinators to see what is going on in your region (http://www.scra27.org/who-we-are/regional-activities/). There are a lot of great things happening in our SCRA regions across the globe – check out the latest news from the Western and Midwest regions of the U.S.
Rural Interests
Edited by Susana Helm, University of Hawai`i at Mānoa
Rural IG Leadership Update
Cheryl Ramos and Susana Helm have been serving as Rural IG co-chairs since 2015 and 2011 respectively. As of spring 2018, both Cheryl and Susana concluded their co-chair responsibilities. Susana will continue to edit the Rural column. Suzanne Philips will continue as a co-chair (2015-present) and is managing the rural googlegroup/ listserve. Melissa Cianfrini has joined the team as our new co-chair (2018-present), and will be managing the rural web content on www.communitypsychology.com and www.scra27.org.
Self-Help Interest Group
Edited by Tehseen Noorani, University of East London
Introducing Alternatives to Suicide: An Interview with Caroline Mazel-Carlton about a New Approach to Crisis
Written by Written by Emily Cutler, College of Behavioral and Community Sciences, University of South Florida and Caroline Mazel-Carlton, Western Massachusetts Recovery Learning Community
Previous articles in this column have highlighted the role that mutual support groups can play in enabling individuals to speak about and explore stigmatized or taboo topics. The last issue featured an interview introducing a mutual aid group where people receive support regarding their use of psychedelic drugs in addiction recovery. Suicide is another highly stigmatized topic that many people fear talking about openly (and hearing about). Often, suicidal people are afraid to share their feelings due to the possibility of being blamed, or the potential for coercive consequences such as involuntary commitment (Fulginiti & Frey, 2018; Frey, Fulginiti, Lezine, & Cerel, 2018; Hom, Stanley, Podlogar, & Joiner, 2017; Sheehan, Corrigan, Al-Khouja, & Stigma of Suicide Research Team, 2016).
Student Issues
Edited by Jaimelee Behrendt-Mihalski & Erin Godly-Reynolds, University of North Carolina Charlotte
One Recipe for a Successful Critical Participatory Action Research Dissertation
Written by Natalie Kivell, University of Miami
As graduate students, most of us have heard some iteration of the following sentiments while exploring topics and methodologies for our thesis and/or dissertation - ‘wait until you’ve earned your degree (or better yet, wait until you have tenure) to do time-consuming participatory work’; ‘your dissertation is not your life’s work, finish it, and then go do your real work’. While I agree that it should not take an unreasonable amount of time to complete a doctorate, I also believed that my dissertation could be something beautiful, creative, and critical – a research project grounded deeply in my own understanding of how knowledge works, whose knowledge is valued and legitimate, and whose knowledge is seen as central enough to inform theory and practice. My graduate advisor and committee members supported my decision to undertake a Critical Participatory Action Research (C-PAR) Dissertation – a PAR that Torre (2009) argues centers around power and oppression, and which is justice oriented and politically engaged.
SCRA Member Spotlight
Edited by Dominique Thomas, University of Michigan
The SCRA Member Spotlight is a new way for us to engage our members and highlight great works! Each issue will we solicit submissions of accomplishments. We especially would like students, early career scholars, and practitioners to submit their accomplishments and work. Submission can include but are certainly not limited to:
- New jobs
- Post-docs
- Promotions
- Thesis/Dissertation Defenses
- Newly published journal articles, books, chapters
- Podcasts, blogs, news items that are by or about you
- Certifications or other credentials
- Retirement
- Grants
- Awards
- Successful/ongoing projects
- New projects of community initiatives
If you are interested in submitting for the next issue, please click this link and fill out the form. We hope to hear from you!
From our Members
Edited by Susan M. Wolfe, Susan Wolfe and Associates
USING FICTION IN THE UNDERGRADUATE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY COURSE
Written by David S. Glenwick, Fordham University, John N. Moritsugu, Pacific Lutheran University, Andrew E. Rasmussen, Fordham University, and Philip T. Sicker, Fordham University
EDITORS’ NOTE: This article originally appeared in the Winter 2017 TCP issue. The print version omitted a segment of the article. We are including the article in its entirety in this issue of TCP. The online version of the article is Winter 2017, Volume 50, Number 1 in the Education Connection column.
