Table of contents

Book & CD. "Community Psychology" contains a rich diversity of insights and critical debates on the key theoretical, analytic, teaching, learning and action approaches in community psychology. The book offers an incisive examination of a range of contextual factors that influence the practice of community psychology in South Africa

Meet the challenge posed by South African society for community psychology! Prevention and Intervention Practice in Post-Apartheid South Africa presents theoretical, methodological, and training frameworks for violence prevention and interventions in oppressed South African communities following the end of apartheid. Researchers and practitioners examine psychological practices that empower these communities--historically marginalized and lacking in resources--to define and transform the sociopolitical and economic conditions that perpetuate the problems, risk factors, and needs associated with injustice and inequality. The book addresses violence prevention in low-income communities, injury prevention reform, non-traditional leadership alternatives, training procedures, and the use of schools as settings for community-based prevention. Prevention and Intervention Practice in Post-Apartheid South Africa strives to extend effective mental health services to all South African citizens, broadening the definition and scope of intervention for practitioners who respond to public health needs. The book challenges traditional psychological paradigms, putting prevention before curative interventions. Topics covered include: violence prevention in low-income communities using case studies to influence injury prevention reform training women for leadership using school as a setting for community-based prevention using rapid assessment procedures in training practitioners and much more! Prevention and Intervention Practice in Post-Apartheid South Africa is an essential resource for health care and helping professionals working to advance new methods of service delivery and new models of mental health practice within the community.

Improve decision-making skills for community organizations and their leadersfrom a participatory perspective! This book will show you how (and why) participatory communities come into being and what they can accomplish, regardless of the current political climate. It also examines leadershipand the skills community leaders need to develop to be most effective. You’ll find ethnographic and psychosocial perspectives on the relationship between families and community organizations, leadership interventions designed to facilitate more effective decision-making, and moreall from organizations making a very real difference in a country that has had a strong community work tradition since the 1960s. This book presents an essential overview of the dynamics of urban low-income communities in Venezuela. With examples drawn from organizations designed to help a population that has been neglected by its government, Leadership and Organization for Community Prevention and Intervention in Venezuela is a unique source of inspiration and practical know-how. The intensive training workshops and restructuring projects documented in this book have proven to be positive and effective tools, strengthening Venezuelan communities despite the political unrest that has plagued the country. In Leadership and Organization for Community Prevention and Intervention in Venezuela, you’ll learn how community organizations are: providing shelter for people displaced by natural disasters providing essential services when the government can’tor won’t establishing community leadership rolesand helping community leaders to work more effectively transforming the perspectives of community leadersfrom narcissistic to altruistic and much more! With this book, you’ll examine the interaction between community organization and leadershipusing the liberating, dialogic, reflective, and conscientization approach developed by Latin American community psychology. The book’s approach is grounded and realistic. It highlights the outcomes of the authors’ participatory research and action in urban Venezuelan communities, focusing on organization, participation, modes of leadership, decision-making and meta-decision-making, the moral developmentand moral dilemmasof community leaders, and the interrelationship between family systems and community in Venezuela.

Increase the effectiveness of prevention programs by altering community and social settings! Understanding Ecological Programming: Merging Theory, Research, and Practice contains vital information to help you become a better community-based program designer using ecological programming. Focused on the basic concept of the ecological progra

Discover different dimensions of the meaning of home across political, cultural, and geographic boundaries! Psychological, Political, and Cultural Meanings of Home brings a unique multidisciplinary, multicultural approach to address the interconnection of diverse experiences with the meaning of home. Filled with useful insights from respected authorities, this book shows you that the meaning of home can be incredibly varied, especially when viewed in the context of community psychology and social work. Explore the multiple facets of the meaning of “home,” and discover how our personal, professional, cultural, and political background contributes to how we envision or experience home. From physical dwellings such as a convent or a prison, through political frameworks that confirm or challenge the status quo, on through the related meanings of home that cross cultural and geographical boundaries, Psychological, Political, and Cultural Meanings of Home presents an added dimension of what home truly can be. You will learn that home is a volatile mix of yearning and loss, of being at home or searching for it, and that this very mix is the framework that reflects each differing belief. With Psychological, Political, and Cultural Meanings of Home you’ll explore: the changing meanings of home for Taiwanese employers of foreign domestics under globalization the opportunities and critical success factors for work and career in the home the complexities and restrictions of convent life as home how women detainees in a large urban county jail form altered definitions of “home” how novelists can give a powerful voice to the homeless by creating an inner image that contains all essential elements of home the cultural constructions surrounding the ambiguous lyrics of “Sweet Home Chicago” the role of childhood immigration in the construction of self-identity the relationship between country of origin and the ability to create a sense of home in other countries and cultures the recreation of home in diverse places by the nomad, who carries home as an essential psychological belonging within Psychological, Political, and Cultural Meanings of Home is a fascinating, eye-opening book for those in community studies, psychology, sociology, culture studies, literature, and women’s studies.

Program evaluations are more relevant when conducted by the people directly involved in the programs and members of the communities they serve. Learn how empowerment and participatory evaluation can help community programs deliver more effective services! With this book, you’ll examine theoretical models, empirical investigations, and case studies that highlight important aspects of empowerment and participatory evaluation in community programs. The first half of the book presents frameworks and tools for empowerment and participatory evaluation, with an emphasis on transferring skills and building capacity. The remaining chapters examine specific efforts to implement empowerment and participatory evaluation with a range of stakeholders, highlighting the ways in which community members collaborated with evaluators and were actively engaged in the evaluation process. Covering various types of evaluations across a range of urgent social issues, this book offers practical steps for implementing evaluations and presents theoretical models as well as applied examples. The issues that Empowerment and Participatory Evaluation of Community Interventions addresses include: challenges faced by community-based organizations in conducting evaluations of their initiativesand solutions to those challenges, including the creation and implementation of an appropriate outcomes model ways to build capacity for participatory evaluation within community initiatives ways to promote the success and accountability of community programs how collaborative process evaluation can improve HIV prevention services evaluation techniques that illustrate the benefits of a collaborative approachwith a case study of the Conflict Resolution in Schools Programs a pilot study in which empowerment evaluation principles are used to evaluate the American Red Cross of Greater Chicago’s Youth Leadership Training Series (a program designed to train youth volunteers) Presenting important information on program evaluation, community-based interventions and community empowerment, empowerment/participatory evaluation, community psychology, collaborative partnerships, program improvement, utilization-focused evaluation, consultation, and more, Empowerment and Participatory Evaluation of Community Interventions is a resource that everyone involved in community psychology should have!