Community Psychology in Action by Wilson, Suzanne; Graber, Rebecca; Harris, Carl;

Short description:

This book makes the case for community psychology as a responsive tool for social justice and liberation. Using insights from both academia and professional practice, this book articulates key community psychology principles, practices and values and their role across ‘psy’ and related professions.

Long description:

Pulling together a range of responses to local and global challenges across different community settings, this book makes the case for community psychology as a responsive tool for social justice and liberation.

Using insights from both academia and professional practice, this book articulates key community psychology principles, practices and values and their role across ‘psy’ and related professions. It draws on case studies from both the global north and south to show innovative ways in which communities have collectively taken action to demonstrate resistance and resilience and describes creative psychological research methods that can be used to better understand and respond to the needs of communities. In so doing, it demonstrates the value of psychology which is both embedded within and reflective of its local community, and challenges and extends our understanding of what psychology is, how it is produced and to whom it belongs. Each chapter is supported by teaching and learning activities, including reflective exercises, discussion questions, embodied activities, stakeholder assessments, case study formulations and presentations.

Demonstrating how community psychology can support activities with local community members through meaningful examples of community action embedded in research, this is the ideal resource for psychology students. It may also interest professionals working in related fields, including clinical psychology, counselling psychology, health psychology, social psychology, social work and youth work.

Table of Contents:

List of Contributors. Acknowledgements. Introduction. Chapter 1: An invitation to Participate: Striving towards social justice and wellbeing through community, research and action. Part 1: Homes and Movement. Chapter 2: Community resilience, sense of community and participation in the context of contemporary migration. Chapter 3: "Bem-vindos a Portugal", they said. A community-engaged collaborative research on lived experiences of migrants and refugees. Chapter 4: 'Count me in': Participation and inclusion in the context of UK homelessness. Part 2: Transforming Power. Chapter 5: Participatory Action Research (PAR) as a tool for liberation in the Community Psychology from Quilombos in Brazil. Chapter 6: Claiming our Voices, Choices and Rights: Challenging Political Peripherality through Community Psychology. Chapter 7: Action for Climate Justice: Community Psychology Tackling Climate Change in an Unjust World. Chapter 8: Climate community profiling by children and youth: Fostering collective (political) hope in community contexts. Part 3: Crafting Connection. Chapter 9: Creative Relational Wealth Building in the Context of Caregiving. Chapter 10: Using creative, embodied approaches to prevention of and recovery from substance misuse: a dialogue between research and practice. Chapter 11: Surviving violence, surviving the system: secondary victimisation in the context of intimate partner violence. Chapter 12: Challenges and opportunities faced by young people in European rural communities: The roles of community psychologists. Part 4: Troubling Medicalisation: Perspectives from the UK. Chapter 13: Family Wellbeing, Community Psychology and Social Prescribing. Chapter 14: Using photo-elicitation to gain an in-depth understanding of service user and staff experience: An ethical framework for mental health research. Chapter 15: Radical Healthcare: Community action to shape person-centered health care for trans and non-binary people. Chapter 16: Promoting the use of community psychology in clinical psychology settings. Conclusions. Chapter 17: Liberation without oppression: Reimagining hope, power and solidarity. Index.