Search

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here, the broad goal was to introduce CBPR thinking into the organizational culture and the conduct of community interventions in a Nicaraguan organization with an ongoing history of community change efforts. As participatory collaborative research perspectives such as Community-Based Participatory Research have evolved, key concepts, processes, and goals have become increasingly deconstructed and interrogated. In so doing, the papers show how CBPR can be seen not as a "value-added" perspective on community intervention, but as an alternative vision of how to integrate science, community change, and social justice. [Extracted from the article]

In Canada, there is a lack of research that addresses the sexual health and well‐being of African, Caribbean, and Black young women. This paper aims to gather perspectives of young Black women to address the social contexts of how young Black women navigate issues related to sex and sexual health. Young Black women experience unique dynamics in navigating their sexualities and sexual healthcare. The nuanced experiences stem from social contexts with historical underpinnings, such as the perception of Black women's bodies, Black identity, gender roles, and sexual double standards. This Community‐Based Participatory Research study (N = 24) utilized focus groups to examine young Black women's experiences navigating sexual health. Employing a thematic analysis, participants identified four themes representing their narratives of navigating sexual health. The themes included the perceptions and hypersexuality of Black women's bodies, navigating sexual double standards and gender roles as Black women, diverse Blackness, and migration experiences concerning sexual health and surveillance of Black women's bodies. This paper is intended to add to scholarly discourse and will include practical strategies for use by researchers and community practitioners in sexual health within the Black community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

Historically, atrocities against Black, Indigenous, and Women of Color's (BIWoC) reproductive rights have been committed and continue to take place in contemporary society. The atrocities against BIWoC have been fueled by White supremacy ideology of the "desirable race" and colonial views toward controlling poverty and population growth, particularly that of "undesirable" races and ethnicities. Grounded in Critical Race Theory, this paper aims to provide a critical analysis of historical and contemporary violations of BIWoC reproductive rights; discuss interventions based on empowerment and advocacy principles designed to promote women's reproductive justice; and discuss implications for future research, action, and policy from the lenses of Critical Race Theory and Community Psychology. This paper contributes to the special issue by critically analyzing historical and contemporary racism and colonialism against BIWoC, discussing implications for future research and practice, and making policy recommendations. Highlights: Historically, reproductive rights of Black, Indigenous, and Women of Color (BIWoC) have been violated and continue today.Atrocities against BIWoC have been fueled by White supremacy ideology of the "desirable race."Advocacy and empowerment interventions can support the reproductive rights of BIWoC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As we planned this special issue, the world was in the midst of a pandemic, one which brought into sharp focus many of the pre‐existing economic, social, and climate crises, as well as, trends of widening economic and social inequalities. The pandemic also brought to the forefront an epistemic crisis that continues to decentre certain knowledges while maintaining the hegemony of Eurocentric ways of knowing and being. Thus, we set out to explore the possibilities that come with widening our ecology of knowledge and approaches to inquiry, including the power of critical reflective praxis and consciousness, and the important practices of repowering marginalised and oppressed groups. In this paper, we highlight scholarship that reflects a breadth of theories, methods, and practices that forge alliances, in and outside the academy, in different solidarity relationships toward liberation and wellbeing. Our desire as co‐editors was not to endorse the plurality of solidarities expressed in the papers as an unyielding methodological or conceptual framework, but rather to hold them lightly within thematic spaces as invitations for readers to consider. Through editorial collaboration, we arrived at the following three thematic spaces: (1) ecologies of being and knowledge: Indigenous knowledge, networks, and plurilogues; (2) naming coloniality in context: Histories in the present and a wide lens; (3) relational knowledge practices: Creative joy of knowing beyond disciplines. From these thematic spaces we conclude that through repowering epistemic communities and narratives rooted in truth‐telling, a plurality of solidarities are fostered and sustained locally and transnationally. Underpinned by an ethic of care, solidarity relationships are simultaneously unsettling dominant forms of knowledge and embrace ways of knowing and being that advances dignity, community, and nonviolence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many young people who experience social marginalization (such as young people of color, who identify as LGBTQ, and who have experienced housing instability, among others) have often faced significant trauma exposure and social oppression and may endure subsequent adverse impacts on their well‐being. Conversely, many such young people exhibit adaptive responding—the ability to maintain well‐being through and despite such contextual constraints. This theoretical paper illustrates a conceptual model for how third places—public settings which offer sociability and community connection—may foster adaptive responding through the mutually constitutive (i.e., mutually reinforcing and interrelated) mechanisms of psychological sense of community and social capital. As prior work on third places has not considered the social marginalization which many young people face, especially in public settings, this theoretical model also considers how social policing in third places potentially moderates the mutually constitutive relationships between participation in third places, social capital, and psychological sense of community. This paper ends with a proposed research agenda, which may empirically test this theoretical model and its assumptions through future model development. Lastly, key considerations for policy and practice are offered, with particular attention to how young people may be affirmed and welcomed in third places rather than socially policed. Highlights: Third places (public settings that foster sociability) may support young people who experience marginalization.Social capital and psychological sense of community may thrive in third place settings.Social policing (via informal social control) may inhibit young people from feeling welcome and safe.Future model development should empirically test if third place settings support adaptive responding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) classrooms can work to shift the dialog and structure of schools to better fit the needs of students and disrupt dominant narratives that have marginalized students of Color. As scholars have shown, this work is not devoid of tensions. This paper examines the tensions that arose during the first 2 years of a high school PAR class. Written from the perspective of the 23 students in Soy Yo, the students use testimonios to narrate their collective experience as they analyze three tensions that could have ended Soy Yo and their YPAR project before it began. As a decolonial method, testimonios allow students to reclaim their stories by shedding light on their struggles, tensions, and transformative moments that adult collaborators might overlook. These testimonios illustrate the potential for YPAR classrooms to becoming a third space that allows for campus change and personal transformation. The paper concludes with lessons learned for future scholars and educators to explore. Highlights: Contributes to the growing literature on tensions within Youth Participatory Action Research projects in schools.Highlights the use of testimonios as a decolonial method to be used in community based work.Illustrates how classrooms can become third spaces for students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. Highlights: Theories of systemic racism could be enhanced by infusing a systems thinking orientation.System paradigms, structures, elements, and feedback loops interact to reinforce systemic racism.Shifting multiple system leverage points can promote the emergence of racial equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Harmful narratives circulate about Black youths in North America. Deficit narratives portray them, their culture, and their communities as problems, narratives about policing encourage their control and punishment, color‐evasive narratives ignore how race shapes their experiences, and essentialist narratives erase their distinct and often intersectional experiences by presenting them as monolithic. Community psychology and allied fields do not escape these trends, which in turn infuse practice, research, and teaching involving Black youths. The present paper highlights four principles that community psychology and allied fields can adopt to support Black youths in resisting these negative and narrow narratives. They are: (1) emphasizing Black youths' and Black communities' strengths, (2) supporting their agency, (3) adopting culturally relevant practices, and (4) developing critical consciousness through reflections on and deconstruction of these narratives. We hope that the reflections shared in this paper will expand the perspectives infused by researchers and practitioners in community psychology, social work, urban studies, and allied fields who work with Black youths. Highlights: Black youths are depicted with harmful deficit, policing, color‐evasive, and essentialist narrativesThese narratives infuse practice, research, and teaching involving Black youthsSupporting Black youths in resisting these negative and narrow narratives requires intentionEmphasizing Black youths'/Black communities' strengths and supporting their agency are essentialAdopting culturally relevant practices and developing critical consciousness are also essential [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this Virtual Special Issue (VSI), we curate and discuss a set of 28 articles previously published in the American Journal of Community Psychology (AJCP) focused on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) communities. The purpose of this VSI is to bring visibility to this body of scholarship in AJCP and to reflect on how the strengths of our field have been used throughout this work in pursuit of supporting LGBTQ wellbeing. In this VSI, we first discuss articles that help to set the historical background for publications in AJCP. We then discuss papers under the broad themes of HIV/AIDS, identities within ecological context, and social activism among LGBTQ communities. We then reflect on opportunities for our field to further leverage our strengths in contributing to LGBTQ scholarship. Overall, this VSI celebrates the contributions to LGBTQ research already present in AJCP, and we hope inspires future contributions to the pages of AJCP and beyond. Highlights: In this Virtual Special Issue (VSI) we curate and discuss 28 articles already published in AJCP.These articles bring visibility to LGBTQ focused scholarship in AJCP.We reflect on how the strengths of our field have and can contribute to LGBTQ scholarship.We discuss opportunities to expand our field's contributions to LGBTQ scholarship.We hope this VSI inspires application of our field's strengths to LGBTQ scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The American Journal of Community Psychology (AJCP) was founded in 1973 and has since its inception has been the flagship journal for the Society of Community Research and Action. AJCP publishes leading scholarship in community psychology and social action research. This special issue celebrates the 50 years of scholarship in AJCP by curating and assembling previously published articles in virtual special issues (VSIs) with accompanying commentaries. Nine VSIs were compiled as part of this special issue. Each of these VSIs were organized around themes that are of critical importance to community psychology and each VSI summarizes what has been learned from their included articles and future directions for the field. In this paper, we introduce this special issue on this collection of VSIs, discussing how each of these VSIs endeavor to push the field forward. Highlights: This special issue celebrates 50 years of the American Journal of community psychology.Nine virtual special issues (VSI) curated previously published papers in AJCP.We summarize these VSI introductions and discuss how each calls for future directions for the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mixed methods research (MMR) combines multiple traditions, methods, and worldviews to enrich research design and interpretation of data. In this virtual special issue, we highlight the use of MMR within the field of community psychology. The first MMR studies appeared in flagship community psychology journals over 30 years ago (in 1991). To explore the uses of MMR in the field, we first review existing literature by identifying all papers appearing in either Journal of Community Psychology or American Journal of Community Psychology in which the word "mixed" appeared. A total of 88 publications were identified. Many of these papers illustrate the pragmatic use of MMR to evaluate programs and to answer different research questions using different methods. We coded articles based on Green et al.'s classifications of the purpose of the mixing: triangulation, development, complementarity, expansion, and initiation. Complementarity was the most frequently used purpose (46.6% of articles), and nearly a quarter of articles mixed for multiple purposes (23.86%). We also coded for any community psychology values advanced by the use of mixed methods. We outline three themes here with corresponding exemplars. These articles illustrate how MMR can highlight ecological analysis and reconsider dominant, individual‐level paradigms; center participant and community member experiences; and unpack paradoxes to increase the usefulness of research findings. Highlights: Community psychologists have increasingly conducted mixed methods research (MMR).MMR can be used in ways that align with the values and aims of community psychology (CP).MMR in CP can be used to understand context, honor marginalized voices, and unpack paradox. [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]

Highlights: Deepen and refine our understanding of workforce development across multiple settings and sectorsProvide a conceptual model of interactive ecological factors that influence professional developmentSuggest a framework for further scholarship on workforce best practices in low‐resource communities The professionals and paraprofessionals who work daily with youth in low‐resource, marginalized communities are integral to youth wellbeing; yet, their professional development, and the factors that promote it, are not well understood. In this introduction to the special issue, Understanding and Strengthening the Child‐ and Youth‐Serving Workforce in Low‐Resource Communities, we focus on understudied practitioners operating in an array of sectors and settings, such as home visitors, mental health paraprofessionals, early childhood assistant teachers, teachers in low‐income countries, school resource officers, juvenile justice staff, and after‐school and community‐based program workers. We put forward a conceptual model detailing the interactive, layered set of proximal‐to‐distal ecological factors that influence the practice and professional development of these workers, and show how papers in the current issue address these layers in their examination of workforce development. We conclude with a summary of the contributions and lessons from this work – including the value of a whole‐person approach, the importance of sharing process across research stages, and the need to build on the foundation provided by community psychology and implementation science – toward the twin goals of understanding and building the skills and strengths of the workforce, and ultimately, enhancing youth development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how a younger white female graduate student and an African American female undergraduate viewed the relationship between the graduate student and older African American working class women. This relationship was formed around a community garden project. The graduate student understood the relationship to be based on gender and class background similarities; the undergraduate viewed it based on race differences and unexamined white privilege. Both interpretations are challenged as unidimensional. Through this re-telling, questions are raised about why situating ourselves via our identities is not practiced more frequently. Possible explanations of this lack of attention to situativity include a Cartesian philosophy of science that separates objectivity and subjectivity, a general unawareness of privilege by those who have it, and a dominant scientific discourse that neglects the role of the researcher. This paper illustrates why reflexivity is crucial for the work of community psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue of The American Journal of Community Psychology originated from the Society for Community Research and Action Criminal Justice interest group, with a goal of exploring the work of community psychologists intersecting with criminal justice research, practice, and policy and shaped by our shared values—equity, collaboration, creative maladjustment, social justice, and social science in the service of social justice. In this introduction, we discuss the socio‐historical context of the special issue, followed by an outline of the special issue organization, and brief summary of the included papers. Across 13 papers and an invited commentary, we see the ways in which community psychologists are: (1) delivering and evaluating services, programming, or other supports to address the needs of system‐involved people; and (2) working to improve the systems, structures, and interactions with units of criminal justice systems. Across these two sections, authors highlight the guiding role of our values to influence change within and outside of criminal‐legal systems. Highlights: The values guiding community psychologists uniquely position them to effect change.This includes effecting change within and beyond criminal justice settings.The papers here demonstrate the intersection of community psychology values and criminal justice. [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]

In this paper, we name and uplift the ways in which Miya community workers are building communities of resistance as ways to address the manifold colonial, structural (including state‐sponsored), and epistemic violence in their lives. These active spaces of refusal and resistance constitute the grounds of our theorizing. Centering this theory in the flesh, we offer critical implications for decolonial liberatory praxis, specifically community‐engaged praxis in solidarity with people's struggles. In doing so, we speak to questions such as: What are the range of ways in which Global South communities are coming together to tackle various forms of political, social, epistemic, and racial injustice? What are ways of doing, being, and knowing that are produced at the borders and liminal zones? What are the varied ways in which people understand and name solidarities, alliances, and relationalities in pursuit of justice? We engage with these questions from our radically rooted places in Miya people's struggles via storytelling that not only confronts the historical and ongoing oppression, but also upholds desire—Interweaving and honoring rage, grief, pain, creativity, love, and communality. Highlights: Reclaiming theory is a decolonial imperative for people excluded from Western knowledge societies.Miya women's praxis moves beyond "inclusion" to create non‐oppressive modes of being and knowing.Miya people resist commodification and damage‐centered narratives of Global South communities.Researchers must prioritize solidarity and honor communities' vocabulary, metaphors, and silences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. Key points: Committing to work with Indigenous communities means making community psychologies otherwise.This paper describes legacies and contributions from community psychologies in Abya Yala, epistemologies from the Global South, Indigenous psychologies, and feminist contributions.Decolonial community psychologies are co‐created with sentipensar, and affective conviviality.Building webs of solidarity with communities' struggles, sustaining their cosmovisions, and co‐authoring stories that delink from western‐centric ideologies within pluriversal ecologies of praxes.These are the proposed coordinates to co‐construct decolonial community psychologies to promote collective wellbeing that includes the rights of the Earth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present community‐anchored counterstorytelling as a form of epistemic justice. We—the Miya Community Research Collective—engage in counterstorytelling as a means of resisting and disrupting dehumanization of Miya communities in Northeast India. Miya communities have a long history of dispossession and struggle – from forced displacement by British colonial rulers in the early 19th century to the present where they face imminent threats of statelessness. Against this backdrop, we theorize "in the flesh" to interrogate knowledges and representations systematically deployed to dispossess Miya people. Simultaneously, we uplift stories and endeavors that (re)humanize Miya people, creating/claiming cultural, knowledge, and political spaces that center peoples' struggles and resistance. Across these stories, we offer counterstorytelling as a powerful mode of recentering knowledges from the margins—a decolonial alternative to neoliberal epistemes that maintain institutions/universities as centers of knowledge production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neighborhoods are one of the key determinants of health disparities among young people in the United States. While neighborhood deprivation can exacerbate health disparities, amenities such as quality parks and greenspace can support adolescent health. Existing conceptual frameworks of greening‐health largely focus on greenspace exposures, rather than greening interventions. In this paper, we develop and propose a Greening Theory of Change that explains how greening initiatives might affect adolescent health in deprived neighborhoods. The theory situates greening activities and possible mechanisms of change in the context of their ability to modify distal social determinants of health factors, stemming from macrostructural and historical processes that lead to resource inequalities, affecting both the social and built environment in which adolescents live and develop. The framework illustrates both short‐ and long‐term health, economic, and security effects of greening. We also describe how the theory informed the development of Project VITAL (Vacant lot Improvement to Transform Adolescent Lives) in Baltimore, MD, which aims to (1) build a citywide sharable database on vacant lot restoration activities, (2) evaluate the impact of greening initiatives on adolescent health outcomes, (3) conduct cost‐effectiveness analyses, and (4) develop best practices for greening programs for improved adolescent health. Highlights: Current greenspace‐health frameworks largely address greenspace instead of greening.Greening activities that engage social determinants of health might reduce adolescent health disparities.Our Greening Theory of Change informed study design for Project VITAL (Vacant lot Improvement to Transform Adolescent Lives). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public housing aims to reduce social inequalities by providing affordable dwellings as a social policy. Anchored in an ecological perspective, the paper reports on a multicase photovoice study documenting public housing tenants' perceptions of how their residential environment influences their well‐being. This design can provide a deeper understanding of the public housing environment to inform change at a programmatic level. To this end, 303 captioned photos were collected by 59 tenant‐researchers at six sites in Québec (Canada). An in‐depth cross‐case analysis of the material led to two key themes with five subthemes each. In the Residential environment perceived as mostly positive theme, the subthemes were access to nature, community resources and services, positive relations among tenants, opportunities for participation, and specific aspects of their home. In the Negative aspects focused on life in public housing theme, the subthemes were strict regulations, lack of respect for tenants' needs, lack of intimacy, lack of proper maintenance, and conflicts between tenants. Findings highlight the dynamic interplay between the residential environment and public housing tenants' well‐being. Two recurring programmatic issues are highlighted: problematic maintenance and limited opportunities for tenants' empowerment. Changes to address these concerns at the programmatic level of public housing could potentially increase tenants' well‐being. Highlights: Describes a multicase photovoice study conducted in six public housing sites in Québec, Canada.Shows the dynamic interplay between public housing residential environment and tenants' well‐being.Underlines the importance of taking an ecological approach for research in public housing.Reflects on issues at the programmatic level of public housing to increase tenants' well‐being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Black women in the United States continue to be disproportionately affected by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) epidemic. HIV/AIDS activism among Black women for Black women may be one solution to reduce the disparate rates of HIV/AIDS among Black women. However, little is known about what processes and experiences prompt Black women to participate in HIV/AIDS activism. In this paper, I aim to identify mechanisms of empowerment for Black women to engage in HIV/AIDS activism. I draw upon empowerment theory as a theoretical framework to guide analysis of the literature and to offer a strengths‐based perspective on Black women's efforts to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS. An extensive literature search was conducted to identify studies of Black women's participation in HIV/AIDS activism. The search yielded 11 studies that were included for review. Synthesis of the literature indicated the following analytic themes as mechanisms of empowerment for Black women to participate in HIV/AIDS activism: relationships and interactions with others, critical awareness, self‐reflection, and spirituality. Article limitations, suggestions for future research, and implications for social change are also discussed. Overall, findings from this study suggest that there are unique mechanisms that facilitate psychological empowerment and prompt Black women's entry into HIV/AIDS activism. Highlights: A comprehensive review of 11 articles on Black women's participation in Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) activism. Explores how Black women become psychologically empowered to become HIV/AIDS activists. Many mechanisms of empowerment for Black women engaged in HIV/AIDS activism are communal. Emphasizes psychological empowerment as not only an intrapsychic process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Informal mentoring has many demonstrated impacts on young people, including increased educational attainment, economic mobility, and both physical and mental health. Emerging work on a typology within informal mentoring suggests that "core" mentors are often extended family members and provide emotional support, while "capital" mentors are connected to formal institutions and provide valued advice and social capital. The present paper contributes to this emerging body of work by examining which qualities of a young person and their environment lead to core versus capital mentoring using a nationally representative sample of youth (N = 4226). Using both a series of regression analyses and conditional inference trees, findings demonstrate the importance of racial‐ethnic identity and socioeconomic status. Peabody Picture Vocabulary score, a likely indicator of socioeconomic resources, was consistently a robust indicator of capital mentoring. Implications for both practice and research are discussed. Highlights: Sociodemographic characteristics predict if an adolescent will have a core or a capital mentor.More resourced youth were consistently more likely to have a capital (over core) mentor.Vocabulary test scores were a consistent predictor of capital (over core) mentoring.Black participants and females were more likely to receive core (over capital) mentoring.Findings raise questions about the previously shown impact of capital mentoring on upward mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the United States, college has often served as an incubator for social change agents in the form of student activism and participation in broader social movements. Historically Black colleges and university (HBCUs) have played a pivotal role in social justice movements since their inception with the most notable example being the central role of HBCUs in the Civil Rights Movement. The role of HBCUs in cultivating exemplary leaders provides invaluable examples and frameworks for tackling the dual pandemics of COVID‐19 and the latest racial reckoning. The purpose of this paper is to provide a case study of how an all‐male HBCU contributes to the development of moral leadership and how that tradition has evolved with the current dual pandemics. We provide a historical overview of Morehouse's leadership models and provide a case study from students currently enrolled at Morehouse College, the only all‐male, historically Black college in the United States. Student participants described how leadership has evolved from previous generations, the impact of social media, and what it means to be a moral leader and how the HBCU tradition, shapes leadership. Highlights: Moral leadership is a cornerstone of many historically Black colleges and universities.The dual pandemics of COVID‐19 and the racial reckoning fueled public service amongst students.In the United States, college has often served as an incubator for social change agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Racial reckoning is defined as the subjugation of Black, Indigenous, and people of Color (BIPOC) to racial hierarchies and subordinate groups that influence multiple well‐being outcomes throughout the developmental lifespan and across generations. With the two pandemics of racial reckoning and COVID‐19 amidst a growing controversial political landscape, topics around civic engagement have been brought to the forefront of community conversation. Discussions surrounding civic engagement must go beyond addressing issues of public concern and examine the vehicle in which civic engagement may be delivered. This is becoming increasingly important as civic engagement is one of the main avenues of social change through individual and collective action, particularly regarding racial reckoning and healthcare disparities highlighted by COVID‐19. The paper focuses on civic engagement among ethnic minority youth and young adults. An integrated model of civic engagement was created based off what was learned through this review. This proposed model of civic engagement is meant to be the first step to addressing the gap in civic engagement literature for ethnic minority youth. Weaknesses and future considerations regarding the model will also be discussed, as well as any implications for ethnic minority youth and young adults. Highlights: Civic engagement is one of the avenues of social change through individual and collective action.The proposed model is a first step to addressing the gap in civic engagement literature for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC).Future studies should be more deliberate in highlighting its application to BIPOC communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the growing appreciation of the importance of early learning experiences for children's healthy development, attention to the cultivation and maintenance of a qualified workforce has steadily increased. Such a workforce must have not just the knowledge and skills related to child development and early learning, but also be linguistically and culturally prepared to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse child and family population. To ensure a highly qualified workforce, programs and policymakers must attend to both the "pipeline" through which new early childhood educators (ECEs) enter the workforce and the "pathways" by which ECEs work toward and obtain the necessary education and credentials for different roles within the field. In line with the aims of this special issue, this paper leverages the first‐person account style to describe barriers to and creative solutions for the development of practitioners in low‐resourced communities in Chicago, with the goal of informing practice and policy. We describe three prior and ongoing partnership programs between community‐based organizations and institutions of higher education, each tailored to support a unique population in the ECE pipeline on the pathway for increased educational attainment and credentialing. Each program is grounded in a specific community of Chicago, a diverse city with a sizable population of children raised in non‐English speaking homes. Each program addresses specific needs of the communities they serve, especially around the recruitment, retention, and promotion of bilingual ECEs. Program administrators and community members describe each programs' goals, development, and key components unique to their target population as well as key takeaways. We conclude with an overview of critical components that we identified across these programs in order to create pathways for change within the workforce and the communities they serve. Highlights: There is a national shortage of high‐quality early childhood educators.The workforce pipeline must be expanded to increase cultural and linguistic preparedness.This paper highlights three Chicago‐based partnerships to increase workforce skill and diversity.Each "grow‐your‐own" program is designed to meet the specific needs of the communities they serve.These community‐responsive examples can inform national conversation about workforce development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latinx immigrants regularly navigate adversity and oppression through resilience and empowerment; however, little research has sought to delineate when, how, and why they may engage in either process. Through the Transtheoretical Model of Empowerment and Resilience, this paper examines how Latinx immigrants living in distinct U.S. contexts interact with their communities. Seventy‐three Latinx immigrants (ages 18 to 70, M = 40.85, SD = 13.65) participated in 12 focus groups in Albuquerque, NM; Maricopa County, AZ; Baltimore, MD; and Richmond, VA. Participants had lived in the United States for less than 1 to 39 years (M = 14.19, SD = 8.72) and had varying immigration statuses. Analyses revealed that empowerment and resilience goals diverged by individuals' beliefs in the degree to which external change was vital, possible, and theirs to attempt. Beliefs coincided with the fundamental risk posed, based on the interaction of a context's conditions with an individual's characteristics and sense of community. Results indicate that while resilience is important to navigate risky settings, it may uphold oppressive power structures because it is consistent with the status quo. Interventions to spur external change should involve empowering processes, including facilitating gains in relative privilege and fostering sense of community. Highlights: Immigrants frequently adapt to and withstand adversity and oppression through resilience processes.A belief that external change is possible, needed, and one's to undertake fosters empowerment goals.Resilience and empowerment depend on personal characteristics interacting with context to form risk.An immigrant's sense of community in their new context likely facilitates empowerment processes.Resilience in the absence of empowerment may uphold oppressive power structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The epistemologies generated from colonized spaces such as Latin America and the Caribbean have been excluded from the dominant Euro‐ and US‐centric discourses of community psychology. Modern science is compartmentalized into disciplines forming silos and boundaries among them. Historically, psychology has been authored by European or North American White men, claiming superior expertise as detached researchers who study, analyze, interpret, and represent the inferior objects of study. Therefore, we should ask: what type of knowledges does psychology generate, with whom, and for what? Our praxis constitutes a political act which should question and challenge coloniality. In Latin America and the Caribbean, we became increasingly aware of the importance of generating knowledges about the communal (lo común) based on the experiences of Indigenous people in the Americas. Epistemologies from Abya Yala delink from the hegemonic, US‐Eurocentric paradigms and address the structural violence of the neoliberal system. To co‐create an inclusive and pluriversal discipline of psychology, we need to disrupt the linguistic colonization executed by the imposition of the English language legitimized as universal. We ought to convey the many examples of epistemologies and praxes from Abya Yala that contribute to the co‐construction of decolonial psychologies emerging from their own localities and cultures. We propose counterepistemologies that disrupt a monocultural, monolingustic, universal, and hegemonic epistemology. This paper reviews selected decolonial contributions from Abya Yala and sketches pathways toward the making of decolonial community psychologies anchored in pluriversal ecologies of knowledges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary manifestations of race are dynamic and elusive in the forms and shapes they take. "Colourblind" racism is effective at drawing on seemingly objective and race‐neutral discourses to obfuscate racialized forms of structural exclusion. Framed by Critical Race Theory and Critical Narrative Analysis this paper presents an example from the Australian context that examines the relationships between a grassroots initiative developed by creatives from the African diaspora and two not‐for‐profit human services organizations, to illustrate how ideologies of race are enacted and obscured by managerialist ideologies and discourses of risk. Specifically, it shows how harmful dominant cultural narratives of deficit and danger transforms racialized Africans in Australia into "risky subjects." In a managerialist organization, risk must be controlled, and thus risk becomes the rationality for the control of racialized and risky subjects. Resistance to control by those subjects produces forms of organizational defensiveness that are mobilized through managerialist discourses and practices that work to structurally exclude. These findings illustrate the ways ideologies of race work alongside and through other ideological discourses and practices which render racialized dynamics of oppression race‐neutral. Highlights: Contemporary and color‐blind manifestations of racism are evasive.Ideologies of race are obscured by discourses of risk.Risk discourses contribute to racialized forms of control and structural exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. Highlights: We examine citizenship crisis in Assam by centering struggles of Miya people who are most impacted.We use a structural and cultural violence lens to understand the citizenship crisis in Assam.Citizenship regimes can operate as a form of state‐sanctioned violence.We need to rethink citizenship and belonging beyond the normativity of modern nation‐state borders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychology is grounded in the ethical principles of beneficence and nonmaleficence, that is, "do no harm." Yet many have argued that psychology as a field is attached to carceral systems and ideologies that uphold the prison industrial complex (PIC), including the field of community psychology (CP). There have been recent calls in other areas of psychology to transform the discipline into an abolitionist social science, but this discourse is nascent in CP. This paper uses the semantic device of "algorithms" (e.g., conventions to guide thinking and decision‐making) to identify the areas of alignment and misalignment between abolition and CP in the service of moving us toward greater alignment. The authors propose that many in CP are already oriented to abolition because of our values and theories of empowerment, promotion, and systems change; our areas of misalignment between abolition and CP hold the potential to evolve. We conclude with proposing implications for the field of CP, including commitments to the belief that (1) the PIC cannot be reformed, and (2) abolition must be aligned with other transnational liberation efforts (e.g., decolonization). Highlights: The prison industrial complex (PIC) is a White supremacist system of violence that needs to be abolished.PIC abolition would replace systems of punishment and control with care and accountability.Community psychology (CP) and abolition are aligned in commitments to social justice and systems change.CP and abolition have misalignments, but they can be shifted.Aligning with abolition will help CP follow the "decolonial turn" for which many are calling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When White people are predominantly in power and the discipline has yet to grapple with its own involvement in oppressive and racist ideologies, the concept of empowerment has the potential of being misused, or worse, abused. This is my experience and observation within Community Psychology (CP). In this paper, I interrogate the history of CP, especially the interplay of colonized knowledge production practices and the concept of empowerment, and uncover the use and abuse of well‐meaning community psychological principles by scholars and leaders without the critical racial awareness to apply them to communities to which they do not belong. Lastly, I offer a "slash and burn" approach to starting over. Highlights: The concept of empowerment has been misused and abused to support white supremacy.Community Psych was created by White people, for White people, to indoctrinate people of Color.Community Psychology and Society for Community Research and Action has a legacy of weaponizing empowerment and defensive gaslighting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. Highlights: Critical YPAR is heralded as a liberatory epistemology for social justice committed research. We conducted critical YPAR with system‐impacted girls of Color. We synthesize the promises and perils of critical YPAR in a research‐intensive university setting. We name the limits inherent in imperial logics and structures between academia and legal systems. Recommendations focus on structural changes at the nexus of academia and other systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the midst of recent protests and antiracism movements following the death of George Floyd in May of 2020 and other Black, Indigenous, and people of Color (BIPOC) murdered in the United States by police violence, protestors and advocates around the world recognized the need for Western governments and other institutions to reckon with their own imperial history—to acknowledge the linkage between the slave trade, colonialism, and racism in their countries. This recognition led to the tearing down of statues depicting racist colonial leaders and calling for museums who have perpetuated imperialism and racism through their acceptance and display of looted artifacts to return them. This article sought to answer the question posed in the call for papers, can the many manifestations of racism be effectively dealt with in our society if the status quo is unwilling to engage with the issues, address them, and relinquish power. Further the author argues that cultural looting has its roots in colonialism and racism and discusses implications of the linkage between one's stolen cultural heritage and individual and community well‐being. Answers to the question include both yes, manifestations of racism can be addressed, and no, they cannot be addressed when institutions and governments refuse to engage, address the issue and do not relinquish power. The article also includes the author's thoughts on using a living heritage approach to preserve cultural heritage and offers suggestions that community psychologists, advocates and activists can help to decolonize museums as part of the broader social and racial justice movement. Highlights: Preserving cultural heritage is important for identityMuseums should be held accountable for stolen artifactsStolen artifacts of any type should be repatriated [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has highlighted the importance of Indigenous knowledge and cultural practice in healing from ongoing histories of trauma, dispossession, and displacement for Indigenous peoples in Australia and elsewhere. Connection with culture, Country, and kinship has been identified as protective factors for Aboriginal social and emotional well‐being and as facilitating cultural healing. This paper draws on stories mediated through cultural practice specifically, Wayapa and bush‐dyeing workshops, to explore how women resignified experiences and engaged in "healing work." Our collaborative analysis of the stories shared resulted in three main themes that capture dialogs about the need for culturally safe spaces, vulnerability and identity, and culture, Country, and place. Centering Aboriginal knowledge, our analysis shows the meanings of Country, spirituality, and the coconstitution of people, culture, and the natural environment. Through Indigenous cultural practice, the women "grew strength in relationship" as they engaged in the psychosocial processes of deconstruction, reclamation, and renarrating personal and cultural identities. Highlights: Aboriginal communities continue to experience historical trauma and ongoing structural violence.Aboriginal people have expressed the need to understand the impacts of colonial dispossession.Unpacking systems of oppression and cultural reclamation is central to decolonization and healing.Embodied cultural practices allow Aboriginal women to yarn about culture and Country.Relationship building is central to empowering inquiry as healing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The capabilities approach offers a multidimensional, ecological, and agent‐centered framework that may inspire models of intervention and evaluation. A growing number of measures grounded on the capabilities approach for outcome measurement are appearing. Regarding community mental health, new consumer‐valued measures—constructed in collaboration with consumers—are here considered crucial for a transformative shift. Meanwhile, new measurements need to provide psychometric evidence to enable proper choice and application. The Achieved Capabilities Questionnaire for Community Mental Health (ACQ‐CMH) was developed in collaboration with consumers of community mental health services. It aims to assess consumers' capabilities achieved through program support. The present paper shows advancements in the measure validation through a confirmatory factor analysis within a sample of community mental health consumers (N = 225). Reliability and construct‐related validity were also observed. A structural solution composed of five factors and 43 items revealed a better model fit than that obtained in a previous exploratory study. Findings support the reliability, sensibility, and both convergent and discriminant validity of using the ACQ‐CMH in the evaluation of community mental health interventions. The ACQ‐CMH offers a consumer‐valued framework with specific dimensions and indicators of capabilities for use in a routine service evaluation setting. Highlights: Growing number of capabilities measures to evaluate health intervention has appeared.Psychometric refinements and confirmatory factor analysis are fundamental to enable a proper choice and application.The Achieved Capabilities Questionnaire for Community Mental Health (ACQ‐CMH) is consumer‐centered once it reflects consumers' needs and goals.This measure may contribute to the evaluation of community‐based mental health interventions.The obtained dimensions and indicators may inspire a transformative mental health system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State‐sanctioned violence (SSV) has resounding effects on entire populations, and marginalized communities have long persisted in the work toward liberation despite continued SSV. This paper aims to bridge the gap between the vast scholarship on resilience and the practical challenge of sustaining and thriving in communities targeted by SSV. We use the theoretical frame of the Transconceptual Model of Empowerment and Resilience (TMER) to articulate the process of resilience and the resources that support it: maintenance, efficacy, skills, knowledge, and community resources. As a practical frame, we ground our application of the model in the experiences of the first two authors in their own communities. Centering examples from the Black Lives Matter movement and the CeCe McDonald Support Committee, we use our theoretical and practical frames to explore the scholarship on resilience relevant to resisting SSV, and we identify mechanisms for supporting community stakeholders' efforts to move toward liberation from SSV. We discuss implications for future research and activism, and we include a toolkit with suggested strategies as an appendix for psychologists, activists, and community stakeholders to consider as they work to facilitate community resilience and build a society free from SSV. Highlights: Adapts findings from resilience literature to inform strategies for community resilience.Presents model for community resilience in communities targeted by state‐sanctioned.Presents model for resilience in communities targeted by state‐sanctioned violence.Black lives matter, Black trans lives matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Health Equity Advancement Lab (HEAL) at the University of Iowa College of Public Health began in 2012 to support students, researchers, and community members interested in tackling persistent health inequities through a community‐based participatory research (CBPR) approach. Using concepts from critical consciousness theory, we developed an approach to building students', faculty members', and community partners' capacity to engage in CBPR to promote health equity that involved immersion in developing CBPR projects. Our paper describes the evolution of HEAL as a facilitating structure that provides a support network and engages diverse stakeholders in critical reflection as they participate in research to advance health equity, and resulting political efficacy and social action. We describe one HEAL‐affiliated research project that employs a CBPR approach and has a strong focus on providing transformative learning experiences for students, faculty, and community members. We highlight challenges, successes, and lessons learned in the application of critical consciousness as a framework that engages diverse academic and community partners seeking to promote health equity. We argue that critical consciousness is a relevant theoretical framework to promote transformative learning among students, faculty, and community partners to promote health equity research in diverse communities. Highlights: This paper describes the development and evolution of the Health Equity Advancement Lab (HEAL).HEAL emphasizes transformative learning opportunities for students, faculty and community partners.HEAL is guided by community‐based participatory research principles & critical consciousness theoryHEAL creates a support network to promote health equity research in diverse communities.We describe one HEAL‐affiliated CBPR study that exemplifies transformative learning experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In jurisdictions throughout the United States, thousands of sexual assault kits (SAKs; also known as a "rape kits") have not been submitted by the police for forensic DNA testing. DNA evidence may be helpful to sexual assault investigations and prosecutions by identifying perpetrators, revealing serial offenders through DNA matches across cases, and exonerating those who have been wrongly accused. This paper describes a longitudinal action research project conducted in Detroit, Michigan after that city discovered approximately 11,000 untested sexual assault kits in a police department storage facility. We conducted a root cause analysis to examine individual, organizational, community, and societal factors that contributed to the development of the rape kit backlog in Detroit. Based on those findings, we implemented and evaluated structural changes to increase staffing, promote kit testing, and retrain police and prosecutors so that cases could be reopened for investigation and prosecution. As we conducted this work, we also studied how this action research project impacted the Detroit criminal justice system. Participating in this project changed stakeholders' attitudes about the utility of research to address community problems, the usefulness of DNA evidence in sexual assault cases, and the impact of trauma on survivors. The results led to new protocols for SAK testing and police investigations, and new state legislation mandating SAK forensic DNA testing. Highlights: Thousands of sexual assault kits have not been submitted by the police for forensic DNA testing.This paper describes a longitudinal action research project conducted in Detroit, Michigan.We also studied how this action research project impacted the Detroit criminal justice system.Participating in this project changed stakeholders' attitudes about the utility of research.The results led to new protocols for SAK testing and new legislation for SAK forensic DNA testing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introduction to a special issue of the American Journal of Community Psychiatry is the result of a symposium at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology, 2006, that brought together anthropologists and psychologists involved in community based collaborative intervention studies to examine critically the assumptions, processes and results of their multilevel interventions in local communities with local partners. The papers were an effort to examine context by offering a theoretical framework for the concept of “level” in intervention science, and advocating for “multi-level” approaches to social/behavioral change. They presented examples of ways in which interventions targeted social “levels” either simultaneously or sequentially by working together with communities across levels, and drawing on and co-constructing elements of local culture as components of the intervention. The papers raised a number of important issues, for example: (1) How are levels defined and how should collaborators be chosen; (2) does it matter at which level multilevel interventions begin; (3) do multilevel interventions have a greater effect on desired outcomes than level-specific interventions; (4) are multilevel interventions more sustainable; (5) are multilevel interventions cost effective to run, and evaluate; (6) how can theories of intervention be generated and adapted to each level of a multilevel intervention; (7) how should intervention activities at each level coordinate to facilitate community resident or target population empowerment? Many of these questions were only partially addressed in the papers presented at that time, and are more fully addressed in the theoretical papers, case studies and approach to evaluation included in this collection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduces a series of articles concerning the link between employment status and mental health, published in the September 2003 issue of the 'American Journal of Community Psychology.' European multinational study of youth unemployment; Attempt by the European Commission to understand the labor market experiences of young people; Programs to reduce the health effects of youth underemployment.

People with disabilities experience health disparities arising from social, environmental, and system‐level factors. Evidence from a range of settings suggests women with disabilities have reduced access to health information and experience barriers to screening, prevention, and care services. This results in greater unmet health needs, particularly in relation to sexual and reproductive health. Women with disabilities are also more likely to experience physical and sexual violence than women without disabilities, further undermining their health. Community‐based participatory research (CBPR) can generate knowledge and underpin action to address such health disparities and promote health equity. However, the potential and challenges of disability inclusion in CBPR, particularly in contexts of poverty and structural inequality such as those found in low‐ and middle‐income countries, are not well documented. In this paper, we reflect on our experience of implementing and evaluating W‐DARE, a three‐year program of disability‐inclusive CBPR aiming to increase access to sexual and reproductive health and violence‐response services for women with disabilities in the Philippines. We discuss strategies for increasing disability inclusion in research and use a framework of reflexive solidarity to consider the uneven distribution of the benefits, costs, and responsibilities for action arising from the W‐DARE program. Highlights: Disability inclusive community‐based participatory research can address health inequalities.Inclusion increases quality and impact of research, but has material, personal and political costs.The costs of inclusive research are disproportionately born by co‐researchers with disabilities.Participatory research can contribute to new solidarities for sustained health‐promoting action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores a partnership between an HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) and a community to understand trauma given the high rates of reported violence among youth locally. The accumulative stress of living in high‐stress, high‐poverty environments coupled with the normative developmental tasks of adolescence is thought to place these youths at risk for negative mental and physical outcomes (Murry et al., 2011). The current research uses a community‐based participatory research (CBPR) approach and developmental lens to better understand environmental stressors and subsequent trauma among Black youth. Specifically, the paper describes the recruitment, engagement, and equitable partnership between a youth advisory board (YAB), university research team, and community agencies advisory board (CAB). The current work is part of a larger research study designed to explore environmental stressors, coping, and social supports for Black youth residing in low‐resource urban communities. The broad objective of the research is to develop a trauma‐informed community intervention to improve adolescent mental health. The initial phase of this university–community research, which entails the YAB, CAB, and university discussion groups, is outlined in this paper. Community engagement and trust are key factors described in the literature when collaborating with communities of color. These themes were reiterated by research partners in this study. The research team created coding terms to identify themes from YAB and CAB transcript data, respectively. YAB themes regarding stressors centered around financial strain, anger, and loss/violence. CAB themes regarding adolescent mental health and resources centered around trauma, trust, and sustainability. Initial steps to utilize the themes identified thus far are described. The unique advantages of an HBCU and CBPR to address mental health disparities in ethnic minority communities are also highlighted. Highlights: This research uses CBPR and a developmental lens to understand stressors and trauma among Black youth.The recruitment and engagement of a youth advisory, community advisory, and university are described.Themes from discussion groups with the advisory boards are presented.The unique advantages of a HBCU and CBPR to address mental health disparities are highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper examines the issue of poverty among people with serious mental illness (SMI), positioning it as a key issue to be confronted by community mental health systems and practitioners. The paper reviews three perspectives on poverty, considering how each sheds light on poverty among people with SMI, and their implications for action: (a) monetary resources, (b) basic needs, and (c) capabilities. The paper argues that community mental health programs and systems are currently unable to address poverty as they are overly focused on individual‐level interventions that, on their own, cannot raise people out of poverty. The paper calls for a social justice value, informed by the concept of citizenship, as a necessary complement to the recovery concept that has informed community mental health practice for almost 25 years. Finally, the paper argues that community psychologists, with their concepts, methods, and values, are well positioned to contribute to this important issue. However, it also contends that addressing poverty requires collaboration from community psychologists with researchers and practitioners from other fields and domains of expertise to begin to make progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Institute of Medicine ( IOM) is one of the nation's more influential health-related non-profit organizations. It plays a large role in shaping health policy by commissioning panels to develop 'white papers' describing research and recommendations on a variety of health topics. These white paper publications are often used to help make policy decisions at the legislative and executive levels. Such a prominent institution might seem like a natural ally for policy-related collaborative efforts. As community psychologists, we strongly endorse efforts to positively influence public policy at the national level. However, while serving on influential panels and commissions like the IOM might seem to be very much part of the ethos of our discipline, there are occasions when such institutions are pursuing a mission that inadvertently has the potential to instigate divisive friction among community activists and organizations. A case study is presented whereby I describe my decision not to accept an invitation to serve on a controversial IOM panel. I explore the ethical challenges regarding maintaining my independence from this institution and its attempt to redefine chronic fatigue syndrome ( CFS) and myalgic encephalomyelitis ( ME), as well as the process of searching for alternative avenues for collaborating with community activists to influence policy related to these debilitating illnesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mental health professionals in schools and the community are often overburdened and underfunded in high‐need areas, limiting their capacity to deliver needed family‐based mental health interventions. To address this issue, paraprofessional school personnel (e.g., family engagement liaisons) can facilitate these family‐based mental health interventions alongside licensed mental health professionals, thereby increasing access to mental health services for families with mental health needs. To train professional and paraprofessional school personnel in maternal depression and interventions, we used storyboarding, a narrative storytelling method traditionally used to create films. Latinx families who had previously participated in a family‐focused program for maternal depression shared real life stories focused on themes of (a) maternal depression, (b) impact on children, (c) cultural views and role of immigration, (d) self‐harm and suicide, and (e) what families need. In this conceptual paper, we describe our engagement of families in a multistep process of storyboarding that resulted in video modules of family stories for a training website and in‐person workshop for school professionals and paraprofessionals. We conclude with how community‐engaged tools such as storyboarding can be used to increase awareness and reduce stigma of maternal depression among staff training to deliver family‐focused mental health programs in schools. Highlights: Schools are well positioned to support the mental health of students and their families.For schools to deliver mental health family programs, they need specialized training.We used storyboarding to capture the narratives of families with a history of maternal depression.Family storyboards were then used to create training videos on a website for school staff.Engaging families in training can increase school staff's empathy and knowledge, and reduce stigma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this introduction to the special issue, we describe some of the rewards and challenges of community-based arts initiatives for our discipline. We explore the inherent tensions between art and science that are reflected in community-based arts activities. We pose larger questions about researching community-based arts activities and defining the arts as a means of promoting social change. The diversity of populations, settings, and issues represented by the papers in the special issue are described and a common set of values, methods of inquiry and action are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]