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As a registered psychotherapist and art therapist, my clinical training was primarily based on North American clinical approaches influenced by traditional Euro and western‐centric clinical theories of human behavior. I completed my training feeling certain that traditional clinical mental health practices were not an appropriate fit for racialized communities and could have negative implications for their healing and well‐being. As clinicians, it is our moral obligation to support and enhance the quality of life for marginalized groups. We can do this by challenging our values and knowledge that have been defined and influenced by structures (i.e., education, training, etc.) embedded in these colonial teachings. For this paper, I used a heuristic self‐inquiry research method to investigate these concerns. I interviewed other racialized psychotherapists practicing in Turtle Island (currently mostly occupied by the political entities of Canada and the United States) with the aim to learn how and if decolonization can be used in therapy practice. With this research, I (1) identified a gap in care for racialized communities, (2) questioned if or how a decolonizing approach to care should be considered, (3) explored my discomfort with practitioners in the field that claim their position on decolonizing therapy, practice, and approaches, and lastly (4) propose other ways of knowing that can inform new ways of practicing therapy. The results of this research helped to problematize the language and use of decolonizing therapeutic practices while learning about other concepts that may be relevant yet distinct, such as principles of coloniality/decoloniality. Those of us, therapists or researchers, wanting to disrupt the current practice of therapy need to work together, share knowledge, and challenge each other, so that we can transform the way we practice as psychotherapists. This paper is my contribution to this conversation. Highlights: I interviewed racialized psychotherapists to learn how and if decolonization can be used in therapy.Traditional psychology can lead to ineffective mental health care for racialized communities.I propose other ways of knowing that can inform new therapy practices for racialized communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a review of empirical studies published with a decolonial epistemic approach in psychology. Our goal was to better understand how decolonial approaches are being practiced empirically in psychology, with an emphasis on community‐social psychology. We first discuss the context of colonization and coloniality in the research process as orienting information. We identified 17 peer‐reviewed empirical articles with a decolonial approach to psychology scholarship and discerned four waves that characterize the articles: relationally‐based research to transgress fixed hierarchies and unsettle power, research from the heart, sociohistorical intersectional consciousness, and desire‐based future‐oriented research to rehumanize and seek utopia. Community‐social psychology research with a decolonial approach has the potential to remember grassroots efforts, decolonizing our world. Highlights: This paper reviews 17 empirical studies published with a decolonial epistemology in psychology.Authors discuss colonization and coloniality in the research process as orienting information. We discerned four waves within the empirical work with the potential to uplift decolonial efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper, a first‐person account, describes a community psychology‐aligned intervention into a precalculus mathematics class at an Hispanic Serving Research Institution. The intervention was designed because the standard precalculus mathematics class had a high failure rate, especially for Latinx students, which was serving as a barrier for declaration of a Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics major. The high failure rate indicates a structural problem that requires a structural intervention. The paper is coauthored with the teaching team, undergraduates who had taken the course, a graduate student who evaluated the class, and a community psychologist. We describe the ways that the new course, the College Math Academy, transformed the social environment through capacity building, providing access to valued resources for historically marginalized groups, facilitating opportunities to critique dominant power structures, prioritizing perspectives and experiences of people of color, and promoting understanding of how various social forces shape culture and values. The course also decentered white educational norms via adapting decoloniality and liberatory practices. In turn, each person describes their experience of the course. We draw on the first‐person accounts to show how they illustrate a transformative, decolonial, and liberatory social environment. We end with implications for how community psychologists can work in their universities to support structural change. Highlights: Changes to Precalculus class to better serve Latinx students.First person account of how structural course change shifted the classroom experience for students.Integration of a decolonial social enviornment intervention into a college math class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2018, in response to increasingly oppressive and widespread federal immigration enforcement actions in the United States (U.S.) and around the globe – including family separation, immigration raids, detention, deportation of people who have lived in the country for much of their lives – the Society for Community Research & Action produced a statement on the effects of deportation and forced separation on immigrants, their families, and communities (SCRA, 2018). The statement focused exclusively on the impacts of deportation and forced family separation, documenting the damage done by oppressive U.S. policies and practices. We felt it was imperative to document this harm, and yet were uncomfortable producing a narrow paper that focused solely on harm. There are multiple ways immigrants and their allies resist deportation and other forms of oppression. This resistance is done individually, collectively, and in settings that vary in size and scope, including community‐based, faith‐based, direct care, and educational settings, as well as entire municipalities and transnational organizing settings. Settings facilitate resistance in many ways, focusing on those who are oppressed, their oppressors, and systems of oppression. In this statement, we describe the unique and overlapping ways in which settings facilitate resistance. We situate this review of the scientific and practice literature in the frameworks of change through social settings, empowering settings, healing justice, and decolonization. We also document recommendations for continued resistance. Highlights: Oppression of immigrants is organized, unrelenting, and embedded into all aspects of societies.Immigrants and allies resist oppression individually and collectively in overt and covert ways.Settings varying in size and scope can facilitate resistance through their structures and practices.Settings can focus on systems of oppression, oppressors, and those being oppressed.To facilitate resistance, settings must start by dismantling oppression within their own systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: An example of decolonial pedagogy connected to community psychology values.Illustrates the potential outcome of praxis assignments connected to social justice.An example of how class projects can raise student awareness and activism. This article explores how decolonial pedagogy can develop a sense of student activism (Portillo, 2013; Tejada & Espinoza, 2003; Villanueva, 2013). Decolonality in the classroom requires decentering dominant groups to make space for marginalized voices and experiences (Cruz & Sonn, 2011). Aligned with community psychology values (Amer, Mohammed, & Ganzon, 2013), this paper argues for the importance of employing decolonial pedagogy in undergraduate learning through praxis projects. Centering the analysis on one college course in United States, the author showcases how a large‐scale class project can engage students in decolonial thinking and foster an interest in social action. The Practical Activism Project, a 45 student collaborative project, explores how class projects can work to decolonize the classroom environment and further push students toward social action and activism. Co‐authored with some undergraduate students from this course, this article will examine how decolonizing‐informed class projects can lead to campus activism that has spearheaded institutional change for marginalized students. Integrating both perspectives, the authors conclude with lessons learned from this project and advice for future educators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community psychology has long stood as a social justice agitator that encouraged reformation both within and outside of the academy, while keeping a firm goal of building greater well‐being for people in communities. However, community psychology's historically Euro‐centric orientation and applied, interventionist focus may inadvertently promote colonial agendas. In this paper, we focus on the example of Indigenous Pacific peoples, drawing upon experience working among Indigenous iTaukei Fijian communities and with Indigenous frameworks for promoting student success in Aotearoa New Zealand and Canada. We outline how community psychology curricula can strive toward decolonization by (a) teaching students to respectfully navigate complexities of Indigenous knowledge and traditions that contest colonial ways of being and doing, (b) act as facilitators who build toward collaborative community projects and model this research practice to students, and (c) boost Indigenous student success by fostering relationships with instructors and fellow students that are embedded within the relational model of self that is often absent in individualistic‐oriented Western academic settings. Highlights: Examples of work toward decolonizing via indigenizing through work with Pacific peoples. Examples of teaching and research practice in Aotearoa New Zealand and Turtle Island Canada. Suggest pedagogy challenging colonial narratives, responsive research, and indigenous student support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community psychology's history has traditionally been described within the context of U.S. history, silencing contributions from people of color from the Americas, Asia, the Pacific Islands, and Africa. In a MA/PhD specialization in Community Psychology, Liberation Psychology, Indigenous Psychologies, and Ecopsychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute, we are attempting to steer into critical dialogues about modernity, coloniality, and decoloniality, closely examining our curriculum and pedagogy, including our approaches to fieldwork and research. Turning to Indigenous psychologists, decolonial and critical race theorists, and cultural workers within the U.S. and from the Global South, we are attempting to challenge coloniality in the social sciences, community psychology, and in our own thinking and teaching to unmask hegemonic assumptions and open space for decolonial theory and practice. In this paper, we explore ways in which we are working with our graduate students and faculty to co‐construct a decolonial curriculum that integrates decoloniality so that knowledges from historically silenced locations, as well as anti‐racist and other decolonial praxes can co‐exist and thrive. Highlights: Critical community psychology educators must confront injustice. Injustice in the forms of colonialism, neoliberal globalization, coloniality, and capitalism. Developing decoloniality in education requires clarity of intention and critical dialogue. Key is solidarity with those who live and practice decolonial forms of resistance. Doctoral education is a paradox, accompanying communities with humility as we move toward justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we discuss the ongoing colonial relationship between Indigenous and non‐Indigenous peoples in Canada with a consideration of how to align the principles and core values of community psychology in relation to Indigenous rights, decolonization, and social justice. In working with Community Psychology values to address issues of social justice it is necessary to recognize that empowerment alone is only one half of the solution. While our discipline focuses on oppression and the empowerment of vulnerable and disenfranchised populations we generally fail to consider the relational aspects of power and justice. Specifically, in recognizing power inequities the focus is often placed on empowerment among vulnerable or subjugated communities while neglecting the requisite counterbalance of consciousness‐raising and de‐powerment of dominant populations. The authors provide three personal accounts from a non‐Indigenous faculty member, an Indigenous doctoral student, and a recently graduated non‐Indigenous Masters student. We share our experiences of conscientization and decolonization within the post‐secondary and graduate education systems. We describe an educational context, a pedagogical praxis, and our efforts to bridge the theories of Settler colonialism and community psychology. From our individual and collective reflections of engagement with decolonization in the education system we present an emergent framework that highlights four principles for decolonization. In implementing these principles we discuss the co‐creation of safe(r), decolonized spaces within post‐secondary institutions through deconstructing dominant narratives and illuminating Indigenous narratives of self‐determination with attention to the de‐powerment of non‐Indigenous faculty and students. Highlights: Provides novel standpoint reflections on decolonization by Indigenous and non‐Indigenous authors.Contributes to critical scholarship on concepts of allyship and depowerment in Community Psychology.Offers four practice principles for decolonizing the academy and the Community Psychology classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada's 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission published 94 Calls to Action including direction to post‐secondary institutions "to integrate Indigenous knowledge and teaching methods into classrooms" as well as to "build student capacity for intercultural understanding, empathy, and mutual respect." In response, Canadian universities have rushed to "Indigenize" and are now competing to hire Indigenous faculty, from a limited pool of applicants. However, it is missing the true spirit of reconciliation for non‐Indigenous faculty to continue with the status quo while assigning the sole responsibility of Indigenizing curriculum to these new hires. How can non‐Indigenous psychology professors change their teaching to ensure that all students acquire an appreciation of traditional Indigenous knowledge about holistic health and healing practices, as well as an understanding of Canada's history of racist colonization practices and its intergenerational effects? Community psychologists, particularly those who have established relationships with Indigenous communities, have an important role to play. In this article, I survey the existing literature on Indigenizing and decolonizing psychological curriculum and share ways in which I have integrated Indigenous content into my psychology courses. I also reflect upon the successes, questions, and ongoing challenges that have emerged as I worked in collaboration with first Anisinaabek First Nations and then Mi'kmaw/L'nu First Nations. Highlights: Describes how and why non‐Indigenous psychology professors should integrate directives from the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission into their teaching practices.Reflects on the successes, questions, and ongoing challenges of decolonizing and Indigenizing the teaching of psychology.The core values and practices of Community Psychology are particularly well suited to the endeavor of decolonizing and Indigenizing academia and its curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indigenous youth suicide remains a substantial health disparity in circumpolar communities, despite prevention efforts through primary health care, public health campaigns, school systems, and social services. Innovations in prevention practice move away from expert‐driven approaches to emphasize local control through processes that utilize research evidence, but privilege self‐ determined action based on local and personal contexts, meanings, and frameworks for action. "Promoting Community Conversations About Research to End Suicide" is a community health intervention that draws on networks of Indigenous health educators in rural Alaska, who host learning circles in which research evidence is used to spark conversations and empower community members to consider individual and collective action to support vulnerable people and create health‐promoting conditions that reduce suicide risk. The first of nine learning circles focuses on narratives of local people who link the contemporary youth suicide epidemic to 20th century American colonialism, and situates prevention within this context. We describe the theoretical framework and feasibility and acceptability outcomes for this learning circle, and elucidate how the educational model engages community members in decolonial approaches to suicide prevention education and practice, thus serving as a bridge between Western and Indigenous traditions to generate collective knowledge and catalyze community healing. Highlights: This study examines narrative linkages between Alaska Native youth suicide and colonial violence.Alaska Natives linked youth suicide to culture loss, social suffering, and rapid social change.Innovations in prevention practice call for decolonial and community‐based approaches.PC CARES utilizes decolonial pedagogy to support self‐determined prevention practicein rural AK.Participants expressed collective strength and aspirations to lead suicide prevention practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on some of the epistemological and activist challenges at the center of a participatory and action research teaching‐learning process developed through a student‐initiated graduate seminar at Boston College, a university in the global North. The course includes participation of students and instructors in a 2.5‐day Undoing Racism™ workshop facilitated by the People's Institute for Survival and Beyond (PISAB), a New Orleans based non‐profit. Authors, who include a university‐based co‐instructor and student and a Collaborative Community Fellow, describe the decolonial, antiracist pedagogy performed in a coteaching‐colearning process "against the grain." We report participants' feedback on how this teaching‐learning experience facilitated their understanding of critical reflexivity and its multiple contributions towards designing PAR processes with communities that elicit and value local knowledge toward collaborative activism. We summarize our experiences and challenges in developing decolonial pedagogy within a predominantly White, elite university, and how the course generates a space through which those who have walked this walk together are able to initiate diverse processes that facilitate community‐collaborative knowledge generation and actions toward redressing injustice and inequity through undoing racism. Highlights: This articles discusses teaching‐learning participatory and action research (PAR) as praxis for change.The article explores examples of decolonial praxis within and beyond a university‐based PAR course.Teachers and learners engage undoing racism and contesting White hegemonic knowledge constructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: Critical reflexivity is a mechanism for working toward decoloniality in higher education.We analyzed Indigenous and cross‐cultural psychology students' written reflections.Analyses revealed that students negotiate experiences of discomfort and uncertainty in the classroom.Findings support the value of discomfort for prompting transformations among students.We pose a commentary on the tensions inherent to accompanying our students in this uncertain space. Critical reflexivity is a mechanism for working toward decoloniality in higher education, with the potential to prompt students' to critique the contexts in which they are embedded, and facilitate transformative learning. We present a critical examination of the tensions surrounding decoloniality and critical reflexivity in an undergraduate unit on Indigenous and cross‐cultural psychology at a large Australian university. We invited students in the unit to participate in a written reflexive exercise at the beginning (N = 44) and end of semester (N = 23) and analyzed these reflections qualitatively for level (four‐category scheme for coding) and content (causal layered analysis) of reflection. Findings suggest that, while students' primarily demonstrate reflective engagement at levels preordinate to critical reflexivity, they are also engaged in active and nuanced processes of negotiating discomfort and uncertainty in this space. We pose critical commentary on the notion of safety in teaching practice, and consider the role of the academic institution in parametrizing the decolonial stance. This research holds application and transferability to higher education settings, and for the enduring project of engaging a decolonial approach to the curriculum within psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Culturally appropriate mental health services are essential for Indigenous people who suffer the greatest mental health disparities of any ethnic group in the U.S. However, few mental health professionals receive training to work with this population. To fill this gap, a 90‐minute training was created to increase knowledge of and empathy for Indigenous people and culture and therefore, improve mental health services for Indigenous patients. This training is grounded in cultural competency, cultural humility, and decolonialism. The training is presented here for mental health professionals, agencies, and administrators to use as a guide. The training aims to increase knowledge, awareness, and skills and has been implemented in a variety of settings receiving positive feedback from participants and administrators. Highlights: This brief 90‐minute training program can be delivered in a wide variety of professional settings.This program increases clinician's knowledge, awareness, and skills to work with Indigenous clients.The program is described in detail so that readers can learn from it and implement it widely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article endeavors to craft pathways that disrupt dominant modes of knowledge production and imagine nonhierarchical epistemic possibilities in teaching community psychology. The first section of the article discusses how the decolonial turn inspires new ways of advancing the critical social justice agenda of community psychology. Drawing upon decolonial frameworks and allied critical theories, I outline how coloniality is entrenched in the ways we theorize, research, and teach about "communities"—and the importance of decolonizing the construct of community in community psychology. The second section presents three vignettes capturing student responses to endeavors in the classroom to dismantle notions of community‐as‐Other. I interpret these vignettes through a decolonial perspective in order to highlight how colonial discourses of community can be produced and potentially maintained in the classroom context. The third section outlines some pedagogical and curricular recommendations as a possible pathway toward decolonizing notions of community. I conclude with some questions/provocations geared toward advancing decolonial and liberatory praxis in community psychology. Highlights: Colonial discourses of "community" are entrenched in mainstream community psychology.The decolonial turn offers possibilities for reimagining "community" in community psychology.Decolonial reading of student vignettes highlights how colonial discourses are reproduced.Provides recommendations for decolonizing community in teaching community psychology.Emphasizes the need to center subjugated knowledges and interrogate whiteness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]