Theme 2: Principles And Intervention Models Of Community Psychology Flashcards
What are some functions of a community psychologist
Be an advocate an advisor and negotiator on behalf of the oppressed or disempowered community
Being a consultant to community to help with difficulty like teen pregnancy or domestic violence.
A researcher to conceptualise understand and assess incidences and prevalence of phenomena.
What is community psychology
Is a developing field of study that focuses on understanding individual in social context. It aims to enhance quality of life health and wellbeing of people.
Give possible definition of community psychology
Community psychology concerns the relationship of individual with communities and society by integrating research with action it seeks to understand and enhance quality of life for individuals community and society
Community psychology is an emerging branch of applied psychology concerned with understanding people in context of their communities using different interventions to facilitate change and improved mental health.
What are some key characteristics of community psychology
Social relavance: refers to socially responsive psychological praxis and deals with issue people experience.
Ecological nature: focuses on people in interaction with their social and physical environment.
Multilevel perspectives
Promotion of wellbeing
Focus on diversity: accepts diversity of people and respects rights of all.
Democratic participation
Define community in terms of community psychology
Community can refer to people in a specific geographic area and time it can refer to a social system to a construction of the way life or to sociopolitical organisation.
Ferrinho defines community as the specific system of action which arises when a human population settled in a given territory establish structural arrangements to organise itself in order to live and survive as a group. It develops interactive relationships among its components and defines shared ways of thinking feeling and acting which are internalised by all members of the population and with which each individual identifies to a degree according to personal Living experience.
What are some functions of communities
Socialisation
Role fulfilment
Goal achievement
Support
Community can be defined as a network of people who share some common characteristics or values and interests.
Community membership depends on
Membership: a feeling of belonging
Influence: extent of mutual influence between person and group
Fulfillment of needs: sharing of values and resources to satisfy needs
Shared emotional connection: people feeling connected through emotional experience.
What lead to the development of community psychology
Developed to give wider scope to psychology by focusing on community processes and intervention tools to deal with problems at various levels of the community.
What are some values and goals of community psychology
Promotion of health and wellbeing:
Prevention of Physical and mental health problems
Caring and compassion: promoted by creating shared emotional connections and feelings of belonging.
Self determination and participation: promote level of empowerment in community.
Respect for diversity and human dignity:
Social justice:
What are some principles of community psychology
Multilevel ecological perspective:
Interaction between people over time and the social and physical environment play role contributed to acceptance of an ecological perspective. People and their settings influence each other.
Microsystem: the immediate system to which the individual is part.
Organisation: consists of various microsystems
Community: consists of various organizations
Macro contexts: as a nation or governmental policy economic system ideology and belief system.
Research methods
Approach to services
Innovative and alternative services
Empowerment:
Refers to the development of a personal sense of control over one’s life.
Respect for diversity:
Refers to mutual respect for human diversity as it recognises the right to be different and to respect fact that human problem eminate from person and environment.
What are some intervention models of community psychology
Mental health model:
Mental health prevention provided to individuals and groups in a community setting.
Social action model:
Strategy to mobilize people to bring about change in structures and procedures that inhibits wellbeing.
Liberation or psychopolitical model:
Questions influence of social structures institution and ideologies on the life of the individual and society.
What areas are needing addressing when training as a community psychologist
Language
Role of the psychologist
Exposure to the community context
Concept of working in the community
Be exposed to the community
Within the mental health model prevention occurs at what 3 levels
Primary prevention:
This level of prevention uses strategies that target disorders before they occur and aim to reduce the occurrence of problem
Secondary prevention:
Aims at managing early symptoms of a disorder thus reducing the extent and duration of the disorders
Tertiary prevention:
Focuses on mitigating the impact and recurrence of already existing disorders.
What differences are there between the mental health model and the public health model
PHM follows scientific approach to disease prevention and promotion of individual and social well-being which operates beyond clinical medical ideas.
Health addressed at level of entire population not only that of individual or specific areas as with mental health model
Health interventions within PHM focus on improving health and quality of life through prevention and treatment of illness and other physical and mental health conditions.
Interventions are multidisciplinary drawing resources from multiple disciplines and social sectors.
What is the social ecological model
Allows individual to conceptualise their interactions with surrounding community that they exposed to and emerged in 1960s because psychologist wanted to move beyond face to face individual treatment but become more involved in the improvement of the community setting.
One of the most important assumption of social ecological model is that behaviour is results of interaction between individuals and contexts they are exposed to.
What are the principles of the social ecological model
Interdependence:
Holds belief that change in one part of system will cause change in various other parts in the system or context.
Distribution of resources:
According to social ecological model all communities have different sets of resources and can be able to understand how community function by analysing the definition distribution utilisation and development of these resources.
Adaptation:
Refers to how people tend to adjust to their changing environment.
Succession:
Suggests community is not static but in constant process of change.
