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Commentary on the papers of the special issue identifies and discusses four themes: 1) strategies to bridge the gap between science and practice, 2) sources of community science questions of interest, 3) choice and quality of methods, and 4) epistemology and useful language for community science. The commentary identifies some limitations in the models proposed by the special issue authors, and proposes renewed attention to ecology, context and process in community change initiatives, calling for a common set of community level measures as one strategy to advance a community centered science agenda.

Positive youth development (PYD) frameworks suggest that a critical response to investigating the challenges young Black men living in resource poor communities experience involves identifying contextual resources in young men's lives and personal assets that promote success. The following study examines heterogeneity in proactive coping assets trajectories, parental practices as predictors of developmental trajectories, and associated outcomes of each trajectory. The study sample consisted of Black emerging adult men living in rural Georgia (N = 504). At baseline, men were between the ages of 19 and 22 (M age  = 20.29; SD = 1.10). At wave four, the participants' mean age was 27.67 (SD = 1.39). Results of growth mixture modeling from waves 1 to 3 discerned three developmental trajectory classes of emerging adults' proactive coping assets: a high and increasing class (n = 247, 49%), a low and stable class (n = 212, 42%), and a moderate and decreasing class (n = 45, 9%). Trajectory classes were linked to baseline levels of parental support, coaching, and expectations. Analysis revealed that parental support and parental coaching predicted proactive coping asset trajectory class identification. Links were then investigated between emerging adults' proactive coping asset trajectory classes and wave four physical health, depression, and alcohol use. Results revealed significant associations between class identification, alcohol use, and physical health. Study findings provide evidence supporting the impact of parenting on emerging adult Black men, underscoring the need to expand resources that support parenting and emerging adult relationships., (© 2024 The Author(s). American Journal of Community Psychology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Community Research and Action.)

In this paper, we examine citizenship crisis in the Northeast Indian state of Assam through the lenses of structural and cultural violence. In 2019, close to two million people in Assam were disenfranchised by updating the National Register of Citizens (NRC). The vast majority of those disenfranchised are Miya people who have been subjected to legacies of persecution and violence since the early 19th century during British colonial rule. We map the contours of the citizenship crisis by centering the struggles of Miya communities who are most deeply impacted by violent citizenship regimes. Using a structural and cultural violence lens, we elucidate the linkages between colonial histories, (post)colonial policies, and institutional practices on the one hand and Miya people's everyday struggles on the other. Across these analyses, we demonstrate how current citizenship regimes operate as a form of state-sanctioned violence against Miya people. The implications of these analyses for rethinking contemporary notions of citizenship and belonging for community-engaged scholarship are discussed., (© 2023 The Authors. American Journal of Community Psychology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Community Research and Action.)

Family caregivers of people with severe mental illness (SMI) have been increasingly observed to experience social isolation and/or loneliness (SI/L) which are risk factors for ill health. This scoping review aimed to map existing evidence and identify knowledge gaps in studies on SI/L in this population using the Arksey and O'Malley's framework. Parallel searches (2011-2021) conducted in 10 databases identified 51 publications from 18 countries fully meeting the inclusion criteria. Over half of the included studies were quantitative. We found that the definition of loneliness reached a consensus, while the definition of social isolation varied across studies. Risk factors and correlates of SI/L were grouped into sociodemographic factors, illness-related factors, health and wellbeing, and stigma. The evidence showed a lack of comprehensive measurements assessing SI/L, few longitudinal studies, and little knowledge of interventions specifically addressing SI/L. Future studies are recommended to address these knowledge gaps and explore effective interventions on SI/L in family caregivers of people with SMI., (© 2023 The Authors. American Journal of Community Psychology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Community Research and Action.)

Despite US federal legislation mandates institutions to provide meaningful access and participation to students and families in educational settings, culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) families and caregivers of children in special education experience cultural and linguistic barriers. A Community Advisory Team (CAT) of parents, advocates, community interpreters and translators, researchers, and teachers explored CLD families' experiences and advocacy efforts. Critical bifocality and circuits of dispossession, privilege, and resistance informed the documentation of inequities and resistance to understand the linkages of structural arrangements of power. Focus groups with families (n = 21) speakers of Spanish, Portuguese, and Cantonese were conducted. Findings indicate perceived discrimination, poor and inadequate interpretation and translation services impact children's access to special education services, hinder family's communication with schools and reduce the perceptions of schools as trustworthy institutions. Families advocate relentlessly for their children and recommend schools listen to families and hire culturally and linguistically competent interpreters and translators. Community psychologists can make significant contributions to promote language justice in education settings through participatory approaches to inquiry that value CLD families' knowledge and expertise., (© 2022 Society for Community Research and Action.)

The field of participatory research with children developed largely thanks to shared learning between different cultures, places, and disciplines. However, grand narratives and power relationships in academia inherited from colonialism and imperialism can threaten to obstruct the transformative value of this approach. In this article, we present the case of Think Big, a multinational collaboration for participatory research with children that involved adult and child coresearchers from Australia, Chile, Colombia, and the United Kingdom. Our aim was to explore how this project helped build solidarities between adult researchers from different countries and disciplines. We applied a methodology of diffraction to explore the processes and outcomes of this collaboration and presented our insights using the metaphor of a tree to explain the roots (knowledges and frameworks), trunk (ongoing collaboration and communication between the teams from different countries), branches (local projects), and fruits (research outcomes) of our work. Based on our experience, we proposed that multinational collaborations for participatory research offer important opportunities for adult researchers to collaborate with children to generate more democratic knowledge about their lives and to generate more egalitarian relationships between adult researchers from different places and backgrounds. However, it is important to anticipate that multinational collaborations are more likely to be affected by social and political upheavals, and language barriers must be overcome to decentralize academia. Also, the organizations involved in these collaborations need to develop strategies that facilitate funding, ethics clearance, and international research agreements., (© 2022 Society for Community Research and Action.)

Current discussion on coloniality dismantles structures embedded in neoliberal capitalism that maintain and perpetuate social pathologies. Theories and praxes emerging from Abya Yala (North, Central, and South America) provide academic and nonacademic contributions to co-construct community psychologies de otra manera (otherwise). These accountable ways of knowing and acting in cultural context and local place, become ways of making counterculture to inform decolonial community psychologies. The epistemologies of the Global South have produced invaluable teachings for transformative revisions of community psychology within frameworks that go beyond liberation and toward decoloniality. Activist women and decolonial feminists from the Global South, contest patriarchal rationality and universalism and co-construct new ways of being, thinking-feeling, sentipensar, and acting. Decolonial paradigms weave networks of solidarity with communities in their struggles to sustain Indigenous cosmovisions, delinking from western-centric ideologies that are not anthropocentric and promote sustainability, epistemic and ecological justice, and Sumak Kawsay/Buen Vivir (wellbeing) that includes the rights of the Earth. This paper deepens into decolonial community psychologies from Abya Yala that are making the road caminando (walking) de otra manera by applying methodologies of affective conviviality with communities, sentipensando, and co-authoring collective stories that weave pluriversal solidary networks within ecologies of praxes into colorful tapestries of liberation. These are the proposed coordinates to sketch pathways toward decoloniality., (© 2021 Society for Community Research and Action.)

Youth participatory action research (YPAR) is an approach widely utilized in various social science disciplines (e.g., community psychology, social work, public health), which requires researchers to share power with youth co-researchers and to collaborate across identities to work equitably. Understanding what approaches and practices support YPAR adult facilitators' ability to share power is a vital area of knowledge that can support greater freedom in how researchers approach YPAR. Mindfulness offers a powerful set of tools for adult researchers to track their reactions and equitably collaborate with youth co-researchers. Drawing on insights from our youth participatory research, the present study employed a collaborative autoethnography to integrate our unique experiences as YPAR facilitators. We reflected on a core research question: How does mindfulness inform and support our YPAR work? Two major themes emerged that relate to power-sharing in YPAR: (1) Mindfulness supports our ability to overcome barriers to being present in facilitating YPAR groups; (2) Facilitator presence fosters deeper connection with youth co-researchers and stronger collaboration. Mindfulness can provide researchers a holistic, strengths-based approach in youth collaboration, and may also provide skillful tools for researchers to counter the pressures of White supremacy culture in academia., (© 2024 Society for Community Research and Action.)

The number of young people living in the margins of society reflects one of the most pressing social inequities of our time. Opportunity youth often face many complex challenges perpetrated by a range of systemic issues. These trajectories can be positively disrupted by surrounding youth with a cohesive web of relational and instrumental supports and spaces where their strengths and potential are seen. Opportunity Reboot, a technical assistance and program enhancement model, was developed to leverage the existing capacity and strengths of community programs to more effectively create pathways to school, career, and life success for opportunity youth. The impact of Opportunity Reboot was tested using a single-group, non-experimental design and a quasi-experimental design with propensity score matching. Findings established associations between opportunity youths' experiences of three core Opportunity Reboot features and growth in select positive identity, social-emotional competencies, and skills for systems navigation outcomes. Opportunity Reboot youth were also more likely, on average, than comparison youth to be employed in the four quarters after endline data collection; this finding was even stronger when comparing youth of color in the Opportunity Reboot and comparison groups. This evaluation strengthens the evidence that program enhancement models like Opportunity Reboot hold promise for positively disrupting the lives of opportunity youth., (© 2021 Society for Community Research and Action.)

Access to fresh and healthy food within a neighborhood has been identified as a social mechanism contributing to community health. Grounded in the understanding that challenges related to equity within a food system are both structural and systemic, our research demonstrates how systems thinking can further understandings of food system complexity. Within systems thinking, we provide an illustration of how system archetypes offer an analytic tool for examining complex community issues. We map semi-structured interview data from community stakeholders (N = 22) to the "Fixes that Fail" system archetype to illuminate systemic challenges, such as incarceration and poverty, that structure food system inequity in urban communities. Within our research, the "Fixes that Fail" archetype provided a narrative interpretive tool for unveiling complexity within the food system and interdependencies with racialized systems such as criminal justice and labor markets. This system archetype provided an accessible approach for generating narratives about systemic complexity, the production of inequity through racialized forces, and opportunities for transformation., (© 2021 Society for Community Research and Action.)

Aboriginal Australians experience disproportionately high rates of mental health problems as the result of European colonisation, and Western evidence-based treatment has been strikingly ineffective in improving the situation. Cultural Therapeutic Ways is a culturally specific healing and wellbeing practice framework developed by the Victorian Aboriginal Child and Community Agency that focuses on culturally based practices, trauma awareness, and self-determination. Despite wide recognition of the importance of these elements in Indigenous healing and wellbeing programs, its measurable empirical impact is currently unclear. This paper summarises findings from a systematic scoping review to ascertain the published knowledge base for Cultural Therapeutic Ways and the gaps in knowledge that can inform future evaluation. Forty-two studies of programs that applied Cultural Therapeutic Ways with Indigenous participants from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States of America were identified from the literature search. Services based on Cultural Therapeutic Ways contributed to healing and wellbeing because they create safety, strengthen cultural connections, develop empowerment and provide opportunities to release emotion, and increase social and spiritual support. As the review set out to determine the published evidence base for Cultural Therapeutic Ways, other effective approaches may have been overlooked. To develop the evidence base for Cultural Therapeutic Ways, service design must clearly describe target groups, whether the program is delivered by Aboriginal people, the processes of Cultural Therapeutic Ways utilised in service delivery, and how they are blended with Western approaches. Research efforts could also productively be focused on identifying or constructing culturally appropriate outcome measures., (© 2024 The Author(s). American Journal of Community Psychology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Community Research and Action.)

Adolescents are sexually assaulted at remarkably high rates. Adolescents are also unique given the specific dynamics of adolescent sexual assault, their current stage in human development, their limited legal standing and rights, and their experiences navigating postassault services and resources. While literature exists within each of these domains, it is somewhat disconnected and overlooks how adolescents are often relegated to the margins in research and practice. The purpose of this integrative review is to (1) provide a more complete understanding of adolescent sexual assault and survivors' nuanced needs; (2) frame adolescent survivors as a too-often-overlooked oppressed group that researchers and responders must consider and center in their work, lest contribute to their further marginalization; and (3) inspire and orient social justice-minded scholar activists to various action steps to take to center and prioritize adolescents in research and practice. Through our intersectional feminist approach, we offer specific action steps for social justice-minded scholar activists to recenter adolescents in their research and practice., (© 2024 The Authors. American Journal of Community Psychology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Community Research and Action.)

School-based law enforcement (SBLE) have become increasingly common in U.S. schools over recent decades despite the controversy surrounding their presence and lack of consensus around their associated benefits and harms. Drawing on the history and evidence base regarding SBLE, we advocate for an end to SBLE programs. Grounding our argument in principles of Community Psychology and positive youth development, we outline how the presence and actions of SBLE negatively affect individual students as well as school systems, with particularly harmful outcomes for students with minoritized and marginalized identities. Research on SBLE and school crime does not provide consistent evidence of positive impacts, and many studies find null effects for the relationship between SBLE and school crime or increases in crime and violence in schools. Though funding for SBLE is often prompted by high-profile acts of gun violence in schools, evidence suggests that SBLE neither prevents these incidents, nor lessens the severity when they do occur. Thus, we advocate for removing law enforcement from school settings and redirecting resources into inclusive, evidence-informed responses that are generally safer and more effective than SBLE. We close by outlining the policy landscape governing SBLE programs and ways communities can lobby for change., (© 2023 The Authors. American Journal of Community Psychology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Community Research and Action.)

Community psychology is expressly concerned with social justice. Such concern necessitates attention to race. Yet, nearly absent from the field's literature is explicit and critical attention to whiteness. Thus, community psychology's contribution to promoting social justice remains incomplete. In this article, we examine how a critical construction of whiteness can be useful for community research and action. After a brief history of the construction of whiteness in the United States, and a summary of key insights from critical whiteness studies, we present a scoping review of the nascent body of community psychology literature that addresses whiteness. That work implicates whiteness in the emergence of the field itself, frames whiteness as social location, problematizes whiteness, addresses White supremacy and institutional racism, interrogates White privilege, and employs whiteness as a theoretical standpoint. We conclude with three propositions for scholars to broker the relationship between community psychology and critical whiteness studies: (a) community psychology should become more critically conscious of whiteness, (b) community psychologists should promote critical awareness of the ways that whiteness operates as a complex system, and (c) greater critical awareness of whiteness should be applied to the development of multilevel interventions aimed at dismantling whiteness as a system of domination., (© 2020 Society for Community Research and Action.)

Comprehensive community initiatives (CCIs) represent a popular method for creating systemic change, yet there is a dearth of evidence on their effectiveness (Zaff, Pufall Jones, Donlan, Lin, & Anderson, 2016). This article presents a systematic review of the evidence on the population-level impact of CCIs, focusing specifically on documented effects from studies using an experimental or quasi-experimental design. Of 1,947 articles identified through a database and hand search, 25 articles examining six different CCIs-most of which employed prevention science frameworks-met the review inclusion criteria. The results of this review show that CCIs can strengthen protective factors and reduce risk factors, delay initiation of and reduce substance use, and reduce the likelihood of, and delay engagement in, violent and/or delinquent behaviors. Impacts have been documented as soon as one year after initial intervention, and as early as 7 th grade, with effects sustained as long as seven years post-intervention, and as late as a year post-high school. However, relative to the prevalence of CCIs as a practical intervention, the evidence base is small, potentially dated, and focused on a narrow set of outcomes and populations. Recommendations for interpreting the evidence base are discussed, including methodological limitations and implications for future work., (© 2019 Society for Community Research and Action.)

Mattering is an ideal state of affairs consisting of two complementary psychological experiences: feeling valued and adding value. Human beings can feel valued by, and add value to, self, others, work, and community. To make sure that the need for mattering is fulfilled, we must balance feeling valued with adding value. Moreover, we must balance adding value to self with adding value to others. Unfortunately, the dominant neoliberal philosophy does not support the values required to ensure the experience of mattering. Whereas a healthy and fair society would require equilibrium among values for personal, relational, and collective well-being, the dominant philosophy in many parts of the world favors personal at the expense of relational and collective values. Neoliberal economic and social policies have resulted in diminished sense of mattering for millions of people. Some people respond to cultural pressures to achieve higher status by becoming depressive or aggressive. Some marginalized groups, in turn, support xenophobic, nationalistic, and populist policies in an effort to regain a sense of mattering. To make sure that everyone matters, we must align the psychology, philosophy, and politics of mattering. The political struggle for a just and equitable distribution of mattering takes place in social movements and the policy arena. The perils and promises of these efforts are considered., (© 2019 Society for Community Research and Action.)

Youth in out-of-home care are at high risk for suicide-related thoughts and behaviors (STB), yet there are no known efficacious interventions that reduce STB for this population. Fostering Healthy Futures for Preteens (FHF-P) is a 9-month community-based mentoring and skills training preventive intervention for children in out-of-home care. A randomized controlled trial enrolled 156 participants aged 9-11 years who were placed in out-of-home care over the prior year. Participants were 48.9% female, 54.1% Hispanic, 30.1% Black, and 27.1% American Indian. Follow-up interviews, conducted 7-12 years postintervention (85.2% retention rate), asked young adult participants, aged 18-22, to self-report lifetime STB as indexed by non-suicidal self-injury, suicidal thoughts, plans, and/or attempts. There was a nonsignificant reduction in the odds of STB for the intervention group at follow-up (OR = 0.74; CI, 0.32, 1.69). However, FHF-P significantly moderated the effect of baseline STB; control youth who reported baseline STB had 10 times the odds of young adult STB (OR = 10.44, CI, 2.28, 47.78), but there was no increase in the odds of adult-reported STB for intervention youth. Findings suggest that FHF-P buffers the impact of pre-existing STB on young adult STB for care-experienced youth. Further research is needed to identify mechanisms that may reduce STB in this population., (© 2024 Society for Community Research and Action.)

Digital mental health applications, also known as mHealth apps, are designed to help users manage their mental health using technology such as mobile devices and smartphones. However, there has been little critical engagement surrounding their impact on marginalized communities, and Black people in Canada. This article aims to explore how state and private actors conceptualize the digitalization of mental health access, leading to the creation and implementation of these apps. It is important to consider the links and interconnections between the platform and the app, and to be cautious and curious before adopting yet another app that claims to manage and mitigate moods and address mental health needs. We should be considering the implications of what comes with this access and apparent ease of use., (© 2024 The Authors. American Journal of Community Psychology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Community Research and Action.)

Despite increased societal focus on structural racism, and its negative impact on health, empirical research within mental health remains limited relative to the magnitude of the problem. The current study-situated within a community-engaged project with members of a predominantly Black and African American church in the northeastern US-collaboratively examined depressive experience, recovery, and the role of racism and racialized structures. This co-designed study featured individual interviews (N = 11), a focus group (N = 14), and stakeholder engagement. A form of qualitative, phenomenological analysis that situates psychological phenomena within their social structural contexts was utilized. Though a main focal point of the study was depressive and significantly distressing experience, participant narratives directed us more towards a world that was structured to deplete and deprive-from basic neighborhood conditions, to police brutality, to workplace discrimination, to pervasive racist stereotypes, to differential treatment by health and social services. Racism was thus considered as atmospheric, in the sense of permeating life itself-with social, affective, embodied, and temporal dimensions, alongside practical (e.g., livelihood, vocation, and care) and spatial (e.g., neighborhood, community, and work) ones. The major thematic subsections-world, body, time, community, and space-reflect this fundamental saturation of racism within lived reality. There are two, interrelated senses of structural racism implicated here: the structures of the world and their impact on the structural dimensions of life. This study on the atmospheric nature of racism provides a community-centered complement to existing literature on structural racism and health that often proceed from higher, more population level scales. This combined literature suggests placing ever-renewed emphasis on addressing the causes and conditions that make this kind of distorted world possible in the first place., (© 2023 Society for Community Research and Action.)

Scholarship on girlhood-especially for girls of Color-is often relegated to studying risk and emphasizing individual deficits over humanizing girls and centering their voices. This approach to generating scholarship renders oppressive systems and processes invisible from inquiry and unaddressed by practice, with particularly insidious consequences for youth in the legal system. Critical youth participatory action research (YPAR) is acknowledged as an antidote to these conceptualizations because it resists deficit-oriented narratives circling systems-impacted youth by inviting them to the knowledge-generating table. In this paper, we present an empirical analysis of the promises and perils that emerged as we conducted a year-long critical YPAR project alongside five system-impacted girls of Color. Our thematic analysis of process notes (30 meetings, 120 h) documents the stories posited by girls, in a democratized space, about the injustices of interconnected institutions, and unearths a complicated tension for both youth and adult coresearchers around the promises and perils of engaging in YPAR within the academy. These findings underscore the importance of using intersectional, collaborative research to challenge perceptions around how we legitimize knowledge. We describe lessons learned in conducting YPAR in academic settings and highlight recommendations to grow youth-adult partnerships within oppressive systems to share power., (© 2022 Society for Community Research and Action.)

Young children's experience of trauma is associated with a wide range of adverse events and circumstances, including abuse and neglect, domestic violence, loss of a parent, and community violence. Policymakers and practitioners are increasingly aware that trauma during the first few years of life is especially widespread, and there is growing interest in new ways to support these young children and their families. Many young children who experience trauma attend early care and education (ECE) programs, and these settings offer important opportunities to promote their well-being. This paper examines strategies currently being implemented in ECE to address early childhood trauma. The paper first examines research on how trauma affects young children's development, ECE environments, and society. We then describe the unique needs of young, traumatized children and features of trauma-informed care that can address their needs, along with emerging interventions and supports that can be incorporated into or linked with ECE settings as part of a trauma-informed approach. We conclude with a discussion of future directions for ECE and trauma research, policy, and practice, bearing in mind both the promise of new approaches and a limited evidence base to date., (© 2019 Society for Community Research and Action.)

Pediatric medical traumatic stress (PMTS) is common among injured/ill children and is associated with elevated distress, treatment non-adherence, and poor health outcomes. As survivorship of life-threatening pediatric injury and illness continues to increase alongside rapid medical advancements, rates of PMTS and negative sequelae are expected to grow; however, research on prevention and treatment of PMTS is limited. The current study sought to systematically review the literature using a developmental framework to highlight research gaps. Sixteen peer-reviewed studies were identified via a systematic literature search. Consistent with best practices for treatment of childhood trauma, caregiver involvement and CBT principles served as the foundation for most interventions. All studies reported improvements in PMTS; however, among the most methodologically rigorous, few found statistically superior reductions in PMTS between intervention and control groups. While many studies focused on a specific developmental stage and discussed developmental considerations, others took a "one-size-fits" approach. Interventions that demonstrated the most promising findings were online, self-guided, or time-limited. Future research would benefit from expanding diversity of participants, continuing to evaluate novel delivery methods, and integrating developmental considerations along with trauma-informed care (TIC) approaches, given their useful framework for understanding child traumatic stress responses and avenues for prevention and treatment., (© 2019 Society for Community Research and Action.)

In this virtual special issue, a set of 26 papers previously published in the American Journal of Community Psychology (AJCP), focused on self-help/mutual aid groups (SH/MAGs), are being curated given their significant impact in this domain. SH/MAGs constitute an important component of the community psychology's proposal to address various psychosocial and health problems. The American Journal of Community Psychology has played an important role in exploring the characteristics of self-help/mutual aid groups in various fields. These articles cover important areas of the study of self-help/mutual-aid groups. More specifically, the selected articles address issues such as the definition and key characteristics of self-help/mutual aid groups, the main fields that are applied, such as mental health, addictions, and disabilities. The article also addresses important issues such as the place of self-help/mutual aid groups in health systems, the experiential knowledge generated within these groups and the relationship of health professionals with these groups. The aim is this VSI to contribute to contemporary discussion on self-help/mutual aid groups, their challenges, and their perspectives and to highlight the crucial role that community psychology has in this field., (© 2023 The Authors. American Journal of Community Psychology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Community Research and Action.)

Stress-coping theory posits that exposure to stressors, such as community violence, increases risk for early alcohol initiation. The current study identified patterns of alcohol use in an ethnically diverse sample of early adolescents in rural communities, and examined relations between different forms of exposure to community violence and severity of adolescents' alcohol use patterns. Participants were 5011 middle school students (46.4% non-Hispanic White, 25.5% Latinx, and 13.4% Black; 50% female) living in rural communities in the southeastern United States. Latent class analysis identified subgroups that differed in their patterns of lifetime and past 30-day alcohol use, and subgroup differences in exposure to community violence. Five subgroups were identified: abstainers (56.5%), initiators of wine and beer (12.5%); moderately frequent wine and beer users (10.3%); moderately frequent wine, beer, and liquor users who got drunk (12.0%); and highly frequent wine, beer, and liquor users who got drunk (8.6%). Subgroups differed across sex, grade, and racial-ethnic background. Subgroups characterized by severe alcohol use reported more frequent exposure to community violence and physical victimization, while controlling for nonviolent stressors. Consistent with stress-coping theory, the results indicate that experiencing physical victimization and witnessing community violence robustly relate to adolescents' high-risk alcohol use., (© 2023 The Authors. American Journal of Community Psychology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Community Research and Action.)

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., (© 2023 Society for Community Research and Action.)

Community participation can be a potential strategy to increase the degree of the subjective wellbeing of immigrants within receiving societies. This study aims to analyze the relationship between immigrants' community participation and their subjective wellbeing, testing the two dimensions of sense of mattering (feeling valued and adding value) and psychological sense of community as potential mediators of this relationship. A total of 308 first-generation immigrants living in Northern Italy filled out a questionnaire (45.1% were members of a migrant community-based organization). We found that immigrants who are members of a migrant organization show a higher level of subjective wellbeing, sense of mattering, and psychological sense of community than those who are not members. We also found that the sense of adding value and the psychological sense of community serve as mediators of the relationship between community participation and subjective wellbeing. The findings suggest that active participation is positively related to immigrants' feeling useful and capable of contributing to society and their feeling of belonging, which, in turn, are positively related to their subjective wellbeing. Practical implications are presented, focusing on the need for generative social policies to move beyond the welfarist perspective in which immigrants only "receive" to embrace an active perspective in which immigrants can also "give.", (© 2023 Society for Community Research and Action.)

Generations of scholars and activists have argued that racial inequities emerge not only because of racist ideologies but also from a hierarchical system of racial oppression. This theoretical tradition has highlighted numerous ways in which systemic racism manifests itself, from racist policies to differential access to material conditions and power. However, given that by definition systemic racism is focused on systems, theories of systemic racism would be more comprehensive and actionable by drawing on scholarship related to systems thinking. Systems thinking is a conceptual orientation that aims to understand how different types of systems function over time. This paper builds on the work of previous scholars to propose a systems thinking approach to understand and strategically disrupt racist systems. We provide a typology of system characteristics (organized into the categories of paradigms, structures, elements, and feedback loops) that together can be used to help understand the operation of systemic racism in different system contexts. The paper also provides an approach to identify and strategically target multiple system leverage points to simultaneously disrupt the status quo of racial inequity and promote the emergence of conditions enabling racial equity. This systems thinking approach can be used to guide learning and action within an ongoing process of antiracist praxis., (© 2022 Society for Community Research and Action.)

Focusing on non-Hispanic Black women (NHBW) in North Texas, this study employed participatory system dynamics modeling to explore three hypotheses: (1) stakeholders will conceptualize structural racism is a pervasive macrostructural force that exerts downstream impacts to shape and perpetuate maternal health disparities among NHBW; (2) stakeholders will identify key causal forces and leverage points that exist across levels of influence; and (3) stakeholders will identify complex interactions, in the form of circular causality, that are present among the key causal forces and leverage points that shape NHBW maternal health disparities. Nine participants engaged in a virtual system dynamics group model-building session that focused on eliciting key variables, behavior-over-time graphs (BOTGs), causal loop diagram (CLD), and targets for action. Participants identified 83 key variables. BOTGs included an average of 6.56 notations and time horizons that, on average, started in 1956. The CLD featured 11 reinforcing and seven balancing feedback loops. Eleven targets for action were identified. Structural racism was revealed as a pervasive macrostructural force that shaped maternal health outcomes among NHBW. Key causal forces and leverage points were identified across levels of influence. Finally, feedback loops within the CLD exhibited circular causality., (© 2022 Society for Community Research and Action.)

Racial disparities and a corresponding lack of trust have been documented within the criminal legal system. In response, criminal legal system actors have sought to strengthen the legitimacy of their agencies. However, legitimizing these agencies can be problematic. Some argue that the current criminal legal system continues the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow as Blacks are disproportionately policed and incarcerated. As a framework, procedural injustice can offer a unique backdrop and interrogate ways in which the criminal legal system engages in delegitimizing actions that provoke noncompliance and enable social control. Using a procedural injustice lens, this study examines how justice-involved Black adults experience mistreatment by justice system actors. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 84 Black adults in Newark and Cleveland. Study findings offer a comprehensive account of how participants experience procedural injustice as arrestees, defendants, and incarcerated persons. More specifically, participant narratives describe deliberately antagonistic, abusive, and dehumanizing treatment by justice-system agents-often depicted as racially motivated. Participant accounts also describe this mistreatment as occurring in a context of coercion and powerlessness and as being institutionally sanctioned. Implications for the preservation of racial hierarchies, research, practice, and community psychology are discussed., (© 2022 Society for Community Research and Action.)

A first-person narrative essay is presented through a critically reflexive auto-ethnography of a community psychologist's experiences as a member of the Society for Community Research and Action (SCRA) and (as of this writing) co-chair of the Cultural, Ethnic and Racial Affairs council. Through this methodological orientation, an analysis of some of the discourses that circulated within the SCRA listserv in relation to the murder of Mr. George Floyd, and amidst an ensuing pandemic are analyzed and discussed in relation to Anzaldúa's seven stages of conocimiento. The intentions that guide and ground this first-person account are to animate deeper reflection, accountability, and solidarity-in-action, as well as an organizational shift in the culture of the SCRA. Guided by a set of questions-What accounts for the organizational silences within the SCRA? How did the SCRA respond or engage with the murder of Mr. Floyd, anti-Blackness, Black Lives Matter, and related racial justice efforts?-the purpose is to turn a critical social analysis gaze to the SCRA in order to align its purpose, values, and mission with liberation and a decolonial feminist praxis. Anzaldúa's seven-stage framework of conocimiento is utilized to describe the possibilities for an organizational cultural shift in the SCRA that aligns with racial justice and liberatory decolonial feminist praxes., (© 2022 The Authors. American Journal of Community Psychology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Community Research and Action.)

This study examined the impact of COVID-19 stress and experiences of racism on COVID-19 adaptability and activism among Black youth. The protective role of perceived peer and adult social support were examined. Data were analyzed from 123 Black youth (M age  = 15.44, 63% girls) from a school district in the Midwest. The findings revealed that more social support from adults increased Black youth adaptability (e.g., "ability to think through possible options to assist in the COVID-19 pandemic"). Perceived lower social support from adults predicted higher engagement in high-risk activism, and higher levels of peer social support were associated with higher levels of high-risk activism. Further, Black youth reporting higher levels of racism and adult social support were more likely to report higher levels of COVID-19 adaptability. Black youth reporting higher racism and peer social support engaged in high-risk activism. Black youth who reported high levels of racism and low perceived adult social support reported higher engagement in high-risk activism. Research and practice implications that support Black youth during the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact of racism and COVID-19 stress on well-being and activism are discussed., (© 2023 Society for Community Research and Action.)

Although youth advisory structures (YASs) have proliferated internationally to facilitate the voice of young people, little is known about the practices of such groups, especially in the United States. To address this gap of knowledge, this study describes the findings of a scoping review of scholarly research on YAS in the United States. The review found that although the use of YAS is increasing, current scholarship offers little information about YAS processes or how youth are engaged. Most YAS in the review partnered with marginalized young people to inform research and programming around sensitive health topics, such as human immunodeficiency virus prevention. Youth who participated in YAS experienced positive outcomes such as leadership and skill development, healthier decision-making, and confidence. Although most studies involved youth in minimal ways, there is a growing body of literature where youth are engaged in long-term partnerships that support positive youth development. This review details other key characteristics of YAS and provides recommendations for best practices, such as building consensus around terms used to refer to YAS and promoting the dissemination of process details around YAS facilitation., (© 2022 Society for Community Research and Action.)