5 pages research project，community psych

1 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

The

Community

Psychologist

From the President

Notes from the President

Written by Bianca L. Guzman, California

State University, Los Angeles

“The wound is the

place where the Light

enters you.” ~Rumi

Last night at about

11:30 PM there was a 4.6-

point earthquake whose

epicenter was the city of El

Monte, in Los Angeles

County, California. I live 4

miles from this epicenter. My first reaction was to

call my mother to make sure she was okay. What

she said to me was this “hija la tierra esta ardiendo

de dolor” as a rough translation she said the earth

is burning with pain. Her words have stuck with me

as I think about how to move forward as a

responsible human being.

How do we move forward during a time of such

great worldwide turmoil? Politically our country is in

dire need of reform. How can we continue to ignore

the brutal treatment and killings of our Black

community members? How do we dismantle

structural racism that has been deliberately

constructed to keep out communities of color?

Contents From the President .......................................... 1

From the Editor ................................................ 4

Special Feature: Racial Capitalism, COVID-19,

and Compounding Inequalities ........................ 5

Community Psychology Practice in

Undergraduate Settings ................................. 24

Early Career .................................................. 25

International Committee ................................ 27

Prevention and Promotion ............................. 31

Public Policy .................................................. 36

Regional News .............................................. 40

Research Council .......................................... 43

Rural Interests ............................................... 46

Self Help and Mutual Support Interest Group 48

Student Issues ............................................... 51

SCRA Member Spotlight ............................... 54

From Our Members ....................................... 55

SCRA News .................................................. 71

SCRA Membership ........................................ 72

TCP Submission Guidelines .......................... 72

Volume 53

Number 4

Fall 2020

A PUBLICATION OF THE SOCIETY FOR COMMUNITY RESEARCH AND ACTION

Division 27 of the American Psychological Association

Bianca L. Guzman

2 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

These structures are so embedded and

pervasive in our society that when a pandemic

arrives we see that large cities where there are

large groups of people of color become the places

where COVID-19 spreads more rapidly and has

more devastating consequences. For example,

California, the state where I live, has become the

leading state in the nation with the most COVID-19

cases (LA Times, 2020). In the county of Los

Angeles, Blacks and Latinx individuals are

contracting and dying of COVID-19 at a rate three

times higher than of our white communities. If all

healthcare and social services were of equal

access and quality, why would this issue arise?

As a community psychologist my first

thought is: “How do we begin to heal from

these wounds? What is our role?”

Within our own organization, we find ourselves

at a great time of crisis and opportunity. As many of

you know, members of African descent (as

described in the letter: African, Caribbean, and

Black) put forth an open call letter demanding that

SCRA as an organization take action against anti-

Blackness, white supremacy and oppressive

acts/behaviors. (See full letter here:

https://www.scra27.org/files/8915/9735/2183/SCRA

_CALL_TO_ACTION_ON_ANTI-BLACKNESS.pdf)

This letter outlined four demands which are:

1. Put tangible resources back into Black

communities.

2. Acknowledge our complicity and maintenance

of white supremacy and white supremacy

culture in SCRA.

3. Develop a deep and critical understanding of

anti-Blackness and white supremacy.

4. Engage in collective action to dismantle anti-

Blackness and white supremacy in SCRA and

Community Psychology.

When I heard and read these demands I took

time to understand and acknowledge that SCRA

needs to work in better ways so that all of our

members feel that our community is a place of

refuge. The demands seem reasonable and

appropriate given the history that SCRA has had in

upholding racist structures that continue to favor a

white middle class academic society. As an

immigrant Latinx woman who has been part of this

organization since graduate school, I have felt and

experienced my share of racism, discrimination and

humiliation in this organization; that said, I do not

purport to understand what Black members have

felt.

I also left the organization to see if I could find

another professional home. Every time I went to

another professional organization, I observed that

they too had many of the same issues that SCRA

has related to racism, discrimination and the fear of

allowing individuals of color to have positions of

power in the organization. What was always

missing for me in these other organizations was the

values and the people that I knew in SCRA. There

are so many individuals that I have known over the

years that continue to be my colleagues, friends

and mentors who belong to SCRA. I also felt a

deep need to continue to connect with the people of

color in the organization that could relate and

advise me about how to move forward in my

professional and academic roles.

For me the earning of my degree was such a

prideful moment; the accomplishment was so

difficult and part of what my family felt was the

obtaining of a piece of the American dream. I like

other immigrants have always felt the full weight of

my community upon me as I make professional

decisions. I wanted a professional home that was

something that was established, honorable and

worthy of my time.

I believe that the members of SCRA do believe

in social justice and a movement to liberation. My

thought about this has not changed. I returned to

SCRA because the people I care about are here. I

was elected president. Then the pandemic hit and

everything in our world changed. As humans we

began to see that the earth indeed was radiating,

burning and hurting from the centuries of

mistreatment, killings and prohibited opportunities

that we continue inflicting on our Black community

members. In the summer of 2020, I was no longer

president-elect, I was president. By this point the

country was speaking up about the injustices

committed against Black men and women by the

police. As never before we witnessed a grass-roots

3 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

mass social media campaign centering on police

brutality and the brutal killings of George Floyd and

Breonna Taylor and so many other Black

individuals. Suddenly, perhaps in part by the

peaceful protests that occurred, the re-framing of

the way our society thinks about the police became

possible. Many cities across the country began to

talk about how dollars could be re-allotted to

community services instead of expanding police

budgets. These events and many others

encouraged me to think about what SCRA could

do.

As an organization it seemed plausible that we

could deem my presidential year the year dedicated

to Black Lives. I wanted and continue to want to

make a difference. I also realize that SCRA is a

volunteer-driven non-profit based organization with

an executive committee making decisions. In my

mind I always want to move at lightning speed. I

also realize that we have a governing board and

decisions and implementing sustainable change

take time.

One of the things that I thought I could do as

president was to turn to my SCRA colleagues,

friends and sisters for advice. Talking with these

women made me quickly realize that the APA

convention could be a platform where we could

discuss the issues occurring in our reality, primarily

the COVID-19 pandemic and the country’s anti-

Blackness campaign which some of them termed

the 1619 pandemic. This led to us creating a panel

discussion entitled “Subverting white supremacy,

Centering Black Lives Amidst Two Public Health

Crisis: Anti-Black Racism and COVID-19.” Although

many of our members may have not attended APA,

we made the video available for everyone to view

(link: https://vimeo.com/442572845/e3f60d3e71). This

panel was made up of seven women of color who

are community psychologist. They are: Ireri Bernal,

Khanh Dinh, Yvette Flores, Jesica Fernandez,

Laura Kohn-Wood, Rhonda Lewis, and Pamela

Martin. Susan Torres-Harding, president at the

time, and I moderated and these amazing women

shared insights with us about what it is like to be

intersectional Black, Asian and Latinx women in the

field. We also had a talk-back session in which

many of our SCRA members attended, and we all

shared in community. There were so many lessons

from these panel discussions. What I took away

was that, as difficult as it is to be a woman, faculty

member and/or practitioner in the field, we felt a

personal responsibility to the next generation to

continue to struggle and make a difference.

In addition to this panel, the executive

committee of SCRA has embarked on many

activities related to the addressing the open letter

we received from our Black members. We as a

body drafted an extensive document detailing how

we could respond to the demands. We also put all

the information related to the call for action, the

EC’s response, and related activities on the SCRA

website that you can reference here:

https://www.scra27.org/resources/call-action/. This

response did include the following proposed actions

(among others):

1. Leveraging Conference Space: Training,

Scholarship, and Climate

2. Investing in Sustainable Anti-Racist, Anti-

Oppression Organizational Change

3. Promoting Dialogue on Racism and white

Supremacy Outside of Conferences

4. Revising Community Psychology Research and

Practice Core Competencies

5. Promoting Black, Non-Black POC, and Anti-

Racist Scholarship and Practice

6. Revising Recognition and Leadership

Development Policies and Practices in SCRA

7. Establishing Anti-racist Policies and Practices in

Councils, Committees, and Interest Groups

This plan was a starting place; as a member-

driven organization, the leadership team was eager

to receive feedback and improvements from our

members. We realized we needed to review the

sections of the plan with the membership in a clear,

open and transparent manner. Therefore, we set up

a series of information sessions to discuss that plan

that would be done over Zoom, inviting the whole

membership to participate. So far, we have

completed one session that primarily dealt with item

number 1: leveraging conference space and, more

specifically, a discussion about our Biennial

Conference. All the feedback and related

4 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

information can be found at

https://www.scra27.org/resources/call-action/.

Moreover, the executive committee did embark on

a self-assessment and we are still in the process of

evaluating what we have learned. We are also

committed to hiring a diversity, equity and inclusion

consultant(s) to assist us in refining and carrying

out the action plan.

Finally, I return to Rumi’s quote and

continuing to understand its meaning and

application. The wound is indeed where we need to

be in order for the light to hit us so that we may

continue to move through and process our own

pain as an organization. As president, I want to

reiterate that I hear, acknowledge, and want to

move SCRA so we are closer to embodying our

principles surrounding social change, diversity,

empowerment, etc. We cannot fulfill these

principles unless we examine and implement the

aforementioned proposed actions.

As a final word, I find mindful meditation a

powerful way to manage my life and pain. I have

been certified in mindful meditation, and, as a

humble contribution, I continue to offer weekly

meditations which I announce via the SCRA

listserv. I invite you to join me and others, in brief

community. Lastly, I look forward to growing

opportunities for learning and healing, as an

individual and as part of this society, throughout my

presidential term.

Bianca L. Guzmán

California State University, Los Angeles

References

LA Times (2020). Accessed at:

https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-

coronavirus-cases-tracking-outbreak/

From the Editor Written by Susan M. Wolfe, Susan Wolfe

and Associates, LLC

It’s hard to believe that

this is already my final issue

as Editor of The Community

Psychologist. The past three

years have seen some

changes. Our biggest change

was that we went to an

online/emailed PDF format. While many people (me

included) mourned the loss of that paper version

coming in the mail, there were more benefits than

drawbacks. We saved SCRA some money that

could be put to better use. The greatest drawback

to the printed version was that we had page limits.

After we removed them, we were able to accept

more articles from members.

I’ve been a member of SCRA and received

TCP for many years now. I always looked forward

to browsing through each issue when it arrived. As

editor, I had to carefully read through all the articles

that were submitted. I learned so much from each

one of them, that in the future I will continue to read

every article.

As my editorship comes to an end, I’m a little

sad, but optimistic. After working with Dominique

Thomas for the past three years, I know TCP will

be in good hands. I am excited to hand this off to

Dr. Dominique Thomas and Dr. Allana Zuckerman,

the new Associate Editor, as I turn my focus to my

role as President Elect.

Susan M. Wolfe

TCP Editor

Susan M. Wolfe, Editor

5 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

Special Feature: Racial

Capitalism, COVID-19, and

Compounding Inequalities Edited by Dominique Thomas, TCP

Associate Editor

As I write on the week

of Indigenous People’s Day,

I am constantly reminded of

the legacy of that fateful

year of 1492. For millions

across Earth, it was the

onset of an apocalypse.

People stolen via the

transatlantic slave trade and

land stolen from colonialism

and imperialism. Disease,

war, and enslavement decimated, ravaged, and

displaced entire peoples. The people, land, wealth,

and knowledge stolen served as the foundation of

empires, whose descendants live on as settler-

colonial nation-states today. Colonialism, racial

capitalism, it is an old story with new names and

faces.

Hurricane season is also still happening. Being

from Mississippi, I’m well aware of how long these

seasons can be, but they feel like they’re getting

longer and more intense. Big storms are an integral

part of our history on the Gulf Cost. Hurricane

Camille in 1969 was the one my grandmother

always talked about. That was the big one for

us…before Katrina. My hometown of Gulfport has

rebuilt and revitalized, but ghosts of hurricanes past

remain 15 years later. My uncle has said several

times recently that dealing with hurricanes is

enough without having to navigate a pandemic as

well. I worry about him and my younger siblings

who still have to go out and work. Who among us

have the advantage to make an income from our

home? Who has to work to close the stores and

transport money and resources in preparation for

an oncoming storm? Does essential equal

expendable?

The pandemic also put many people out of

work, leaving millions without income, health

insurance, and the ability to pay their rent. The

evictions have resumed, making it almost certain to

be an increase in people without secure housing.

I’ve lived this experience and have interviewed

people on the street who had similar experiences. I

know many people would rather not talk about such

heavy topics, but if we are silent, how will anyone

know something is wrong? Is the comfort we feel in

our ivory silos worth silencing those with the most

to lose? Does the arrogance from our academic

credentials and social circles blind us to what

actually matters—who actually matters?

Mississippi is changing their state flag and the

proposed new flag design included input from the

Choctaw, one of the Indigenous peoples located in

the land of the Mississippian culture/civilization.

“Before the

commission

voted, they

discussed

various aspects

of the Magnolia

Flag, including

whether it

should have 20 or 21 stars. The 20 white stars

represents Mississippi being 20th state to join the

United States. The 21st gold star represents the

Native Americans who were originally here

(Bologna, 2020).” This is the outcome of protests

and organizing past and present, local, and

national. “Back in 2002 when we had the issue with

the Confederate flag, when Jason Whitfield took it

on his own to protest and go sit out on Eight Flags

on the beachfront, I didn’t witness it, but when I

came, when I would come around, we would have

stories where snakes were thrown where he was at

and everything. (Marsh, 2012)” I remember when

Jason sat on the beach in protest of the

Confederate flag that flew on the sands of the

coast. And it came down. Statues and symbols fall,

but social structures are enduring. This is why we

persist. Social structures only endure because we

do, but this means we can change it when we

commit our minds and resources to it. This special

Dominique Thomas, Associate Editor

6 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

feature is dedicated to those conversations and

actions moving forward. We present strategies to

protect and sustain and conversations.

“In the debates on the ‘Anthropocene,’ global

warming, and climate change, voices of the South

and of minorities – the prime victims of these

phenomena’s consequences – have developed an

analysis that brings together race, capitalism,

imperialism, and gender (Vergès, 2017, p. 72)”

With the climate crisis, environmental racism is an

existential site of struggle and resistance. Christa

M. Sacco discusses how the Black-owned Lola

Housing Development, Inc seeks to create Zero

Waste residential communities with the input of

multiple stakeholders for the benefit of residents

and creating a new normal.

The complicity of universities in these

structures cannot be ignored in the contexts of their

decision making regarding their reopening, during

the COVID-19 pandemic, their responses to

protests against racism and police brutality, and in

some instances, the raising of tuition prices. Racial

justice or racial capitalism? That is the question

posed by Geraldine Palmer in Racial Diversity

Initiatives on College Campuses. She presents

suggestions for moving forward in advancing true

racial justice in higher education.

Racial justice has been a goal since the time of

Ida B. Wells-Barnett’s crusade against the lynching

of Black men in the United States. It’s been a goal

since the Haitian Revolution established the first

Black republic in the Western hemisphere. Racial

justice comes from resisting colonial/capitalist

structures. BIPOC communities are more policed,

surveilled, and incarcerated, a historical legacy of

Slave/Indian patrols and other forms of carceral

and colonial social control. Protests against police

brutality have spurred a conversation on whether

police should be reformed or abolished. Andrea L.

DaViera and Alexis Grant continue this discussion

as it relates to first order and second order change.

Whether we view these instances form the

vantage point of the individual or the social

structure, we are talking about ideologies that

become psychologically internalized. Respectively,

Kristina Yarbrough and the team of Megan Dunn,

Andrea Cladek, Humza Khan, Hannah

VanLandingham, Christopher Gonzalez, Erin

Matthews, Nima Novak, and Rachael L. Ellison

discuss how the master class psyche and systemic

racism in mental health services reproduce

ideologies rooted in white supremacy and

eugenics. Dunn and colleagues present a pilot

intervention for mental health professionals.

We hope that you find this special feature

enlightening and that it inspires you to think of ways

we can engage with people to find solutions to the

myriad and interlocking structural problems we

must disentangle and dismantle.

References

Bologna, G. (2020, September 2). New

Mississippi state flag: Commission has made its

final selection, now it’s up to voters. Clarion Ledger.

Retrieved from

https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/politics/2

020/09/02/new-mississippi-state-flag-commission-

final-design/3455475001/

Marsh, R. K. (2012). Oral history with Richard

K. Marsh/Interviewer: Ruth White. Mississippi Oral

History Program, University of Southern

Mississippi, Hattiesburg

Vergés, F. (2017). Racial capitalocene. In G. T.

Johnson & A. Lubin (Eds.), Futures of Black

radicalism (pp. 72 – 82). New York: Verso.

Repurposing Normal: Proceeding

with the Blueprint for California’s

Zero Waste Communities

Written by Christa M. Sacco, Lola Housing

Development, Inc.

Lola Housing

Development, Inc. is a

Black-owned and operated

housing and development

corporation founded in

2020. They combine some

of the top technologies in

sustainable energy and eco-

design while also stimulating

new markets and ecological entrepreneurism by

Christa M. Sacco

7 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

using repurposing to develop equitable and

abundant affordable living communities throughout

California. Lola is a West African name or suffix

that means wealth. It is also an ancestral family

name of the corporation’s founder, honoring his

grandmother who taught his generation the

profound value of creating loving and healing home

places. Lola’s mission is to build and construct

affordable zero waste housing developments using

prefabricated panelization units made from recycled

plastics combined with renewable energy

technologies, and other eco-building materials.

Future housing on the chosen site in San

Bernardino County, California will expand the range

of living options in the neighborhood, the city, and

the county with a focus on green single-family

buildings and tiny homes, disability accessible,

veteran and senior living, mobile houses, and multi-

family residential units. The housing should vary in

size and price, meeting the needs of people in

different stages of life. A developed Zero Waste

Community should be a 21st Century community

that builds on the assets of the neighborhood and

the people power inherent in residents coming

together for a shared purpose, creating equity

meaning a livable and accommodating space for

everyone in the community, while showcasing the

best of clean green modern living.

Mission for Lola’s Zero Waste

Residential Communities

In order to make 100% recycling a reality, we

propose using current green technologies to create

an “upcycle” in which rather than just continuously

recycling plastics into packaging, we permanently

repurpose them as marketable commodities for

sustainable projects, generating additional revenue

and employment and contributing to integrated

global solutions.

The on-site repurposing center is the center for

zero waste management control, complete with a

centralized command center where it can receive,

process, direct, and transform raw materials into

marketable commodities, such as electricity,

biofuel, biofuel additives, building blocks, bitumen,

irrigation systems, with seamless functionality. This

can eliminate the need for landfills and replace

them with repurposing centers and accompanied

green housing.

Lola Housing & Development is a performing

social enterprise creating integrated solutions to

complex problems such as housing, rapid growth of

developments, and waste management, by creating

entirely new commodities, markets, and

opportunities for the world of the future. This project

is the collaboration between development and

research companies, eco-tech firms and startups,

as well as non-profit actors, university partners, and

grants from government entities of the state of

California. This is a direct approach toward tackling

inequalities and linking the end of financial

exclusion and poverty directly to their financial

motivations and its evolution from thriving organic

micro-economies to the creation of new marketable

solutions, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and

pollution that most heavily impacts poor

communities, and implementing a combined

participatory social impact evaluation of these

efforts.

The end result of Zero Waste is thriving

residential communities of the future, with abundant

and diverse economies, eco-tech start-ups, and

microeconomies that act on multiple levels and

sectors from the international to the local. In

addition to goals that tie greenhouse gas reduction

to a new way of economy, the project has high

social ambitions for their sites to be designed

collaboratively and with the participation of many

stakeholders and future residents for the ongoing

development of the community and shared spaces.

8 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

The vision of equity that we hold is to extend

what Sentamans (2013) called, “a livable reality” (p.

39, author’s translation) to members of

disadvantaged communities as a way to overcome

exclusion, discrimination, and related forms of

oppression that leave us displaced or with too few

options to live. We offer people multiple ways to

participate and influence how these communities

grow into their potential to respond to our times and

create something altogether new.

Connection to the Current State of

Affairs

As I write this, I am taking breaks to steam my

nostrils to delay the onset of an inevitable allergy

headache by the end of the day and drastically

limiting outdoor times. I wear my mask all the time

now, not just in public, because I am living in an

unincorporated area in Riverside County where the

smog is thick, and ash falls from the sky in the

evening. It is not within the scope of this article for

me to impress upon readers the intensity of the

ecological struggle, nor can I say that I am without

suspicion of what is really behind the wildfires. But

for those of us who have been listening to the earth

and watching the skies for some time now, it is

apparent that the struggle for humanity is quickly

escalating. I say the struggle for humanity because

it should not be confused with the struggle for

Earth. Earth is healing itself from centuries of racist

intolerance and treachery towards it. It will go on.

What is at stake more and more is human presence

on the planet, as well as the quality of our

humanity. It is time for us to re-examine the human

character and elevate. How will we “meet the

moment” and “create our new normal”, if we cannot

elevate beyond self-hatred, racial genocide,

becoming socially distant robots, decimating

ecosystems, hoarding wealth, and creating scarcity

on the planet? What will be left of our humanity? All

these thoughts are coming to mind as I try to move

to the last phase of this article which is to discuss

what this process has been like in moving forward

with imagining and taking solid steps towards the

creation of Zero Waste Communities in California,

and to propose how these could be part of a

strategy to interrupt racial capitalism.

I came into this project early on as a

consultant. It spoke to my deep need to create

spaces and communities for shared healing and

healing the earth. It also re-ignites a long time

vision of mine to create a residential community

and cultural center in which long term residents are

able to take part in a range of healing activities,

services, employment, and entrepreneurial

activities, such as cultivating our own food and

medicinal herbs and inviting in the local community

and eco-tourists to share our produce and goods in

farmer’s markets, a café, community events, and

spaces for respite and rejuvenation. I could see that

this type of placemaking was possible with the

technological and economic infrastructure and the

spirit of abundance found in Lola’s plan for Zero

Waste Communities in California.

When our group was writing our initial proposal

and letters of intent, I was facing directly the nexus

of racism, housing exclusion, trauma, pollution of

earth, gentrification, and cycles of poverty in the

form of housing instability. At one point, I was even

living in a shelter. Now, as we have grown this

project, and in the light of current events such as

COVID-19 and quarantine or stay at home orders,

social distancing, the murder of George Floyd and

ongoing protest of murderous and villainous police,

the wildfires in California, other conditions of

extreme climate, and seeming economic standstill,

suffice it to say that the Now has changed

considerably since this project was first conceived.

As noted in a recent Harvard study, where air

9 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

pollution is highest, the number of coronavirus

deaths is increased as the virus is able to cling to

the particulate matter in the air and because people

in communities with high pollution often already

have chronic immune conditions (Friedman, 2020).

Thanks to the work of scholars like Dr. Mindy

Thompson Fullilove’s (2004) book Root Shock:

How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts

America, and What We Can Do About It, we can

see the racist urban development policies that

ensured that Black and poor communities bore the

brunt of pollution, thus systematically exposing

these communities to greater risks of illness, and of

course, this also applies to the corona virus.

Repurposing Normal, Repurposing the

Earth

In regard to “the new normal,” it feels difficult

for me to embrace social distance as the new

normal, but I also believe that we cannot go back to

the old normal. In light of all the crises and global

urgency of the current moment, we cannot return to

a world founded on divisions, hatred, racism, white

supremacy, slavery and mass incarceration. We

cannot proceed into the future with half of the

population in our cities going homeless. We cannot

proceed with most of inner city and urban youth of

color being incarcerated and never attending

adequate post-secondary education. We cannot

proceed into the future of the new era we are

embarking on if we continue to use our technology

against the citizens, against the people, and

against the Earth.

Over the last few months, to combat feeling

constantly under siege and desperately uncertain

about the future, I have turned to spiritual

processes of prayer, meditation, chanting, singing,

stomping, listening deeply to the land, mourning,

watching the skies, waiting for right timing, and

becoming open to receive messages from the

spiritual realm, myth, deep history, and other

spaces of deep knowing. We have practiced shared

visioning and vision quests and modelled

abundance. We have called upon those

professional colleagues that truly hold us and our

work in love and we have had to eliminate the

voices of the naysayers, the haters, the doubters,

the liars, the distractors, the time-wasters, and

other pollution of the psyche.

In this current convergence of hopes, dreams,

visions, realities, and turmoil, in which the norm is

rapidly melting down to its most raw forms and

materials, we are called upon collectively in

different ways to energetically discard the normal.

We are called to repurpose Normal and transform it

for new permanent uses: vibrance, viability,

thriving, abundance, joy, diversity, equity, shared

wealth, and a spirit of place and community for

which there is no “new” centralized Normal made of

40% recycled normalcy, but only endless new

possibilities, variations, intersections, and

combinations, customizable to each new extension

of a live-able reality. We propose Zero Waste

housing developments as an alchemical container

for these transformations to occur. Unfortunately,

there is no convenient machine or technological

gismo to make this work easier for us. The best

machinery we have available to achieve

repurposing normal is the vast untapped potential

of human consciousness and human connections.

Author’s Note: Please connect with us! Lola is

open to broad connections and collaborations. If

you want to know more or have an interest in

collaborating, feel free to email the author at

[email protected].

References

Friedman, L. (2020). New research links air

pollution with higher coronavirus deathrates.

New York Times. Retrieved from

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/climate/air

-pollution-coronavirus-covid.html

Fullilove, M. T. (2004). Root Shock: How Tearing

Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America, and

What We Can Do About It. New York, NY:

Ballantine Books.

Sentamans, T. (2013) Redes transfeministas y

nuevas politicas de representación sexual. In

M. Solá and E. Urko (eds.), Transfeminismos:

Epistemes, fricciones, y flujos (pp. 31-44).

Tafalla, Navarra: Txalparta. Retrieved from

https://transfeminismos.wordpress.com/descarg

ar

10 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

Racial Diversity Initiatives on

Adademe Campuses: Racial Justice

or Racial Capitalism?

Written by Geraldine (Geri) Palmer,

Community Wellness Institute (CWI), Adler

University and National Louis University

The commodification of race has proliferated

across the globe from the transatlantic slave trade

to contemporary sports to racial diversity initiatives

on college campuses. This article is concerned with

the latter, racial diversity initiatives on college

campuses, specifically those where the underlying

motive is social and/or economic gain rather than

racial justice.

I conceptualize the term racial justice to denote

such initiatives as diversity, equity, and inclusion

(DEI), diversity and inclusion (DI), multicultural

affairs (MA), and similar work. I recognize it’s not all

that easy to

distinguish the

difference

between

initiatives with

social and/or

economic gain

as motives and

those striving

for real racial

justice.

Nonetheless, I

use a critical

race theory lens

to question and

examine this

current

phenomenon. I

am highly aware that there is a flurry of recent

movement going on in much of White America

including predominately white educational

institutions (PWI) where less than a year ago

silence was typically the norm regarding ongoing

racism in America. Yet, in record time White

Americans are devouring anti-racist and

decentering whiteness books, espousing race and

ethnicity theories, swearing off white privilege, and

the like. Seemingly the murders of George Floyd,

Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery struck a chord

that I have not seen before and I’m not sure why.

This flood of activity is hard to fathom though

because murdering Black/African Americans has

been going on for centuries and in record numbers.

Why now? It seems reasonable to be skeptical or at

minimum, question the motives.

As I seek to practice daily critical

consciousness and examine this current time, I

offer my reflections to the reader as food-for-

thought for your own interrogation and reflections. I

must admit I am comfortable thinking we might be

looking at a form of the commodification of race, at

least in some cases. There is available literature

that support my supposition.

Leong (2013) identified several examples of

racial capitalism or the commodification of race in

an article published in the Harvard Law Review.

She pointed out that when a White American

political figure casually mentions a Black/African

American’s name as a friend when giving a speech

at the NAACP, or when a White university

president, concerned that prospective students

might be dismayed at the lack of diversity on its

campus, photoshops a Black/African American

student’s face onto a marketing brochure (p. 2153),

or when university admission offices begin

aggressive recruitment processes for Black/African

American, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC)

because state budget funding is being threatened.

Yet, these same universities have been PWIs since

their establishment.

An illustration of my last point is Louisiana

State University (LSU), a flagship institution in

Louisiana. In 2018, for the first time in nearly 30

years the university elected a Black/African

American as their student government president.

When looking through documents in his new office,

the president found marketing materials for the

student government and recognized that out of the

100 plus students who had served, 100% were

White (Parks, 2019, para. 2). However, this finding

wasn’t that strange, as LSU had been the state’s

whitest public university since inception, even

Henry. C. (2020.). https://unsplash.com/s/photos/black- lives-matter

11 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

though the state is 32% Black/African American. In

2019, LSU put forward an aggressive plan to

racially diversity and today a few more

Black/African Americans and Latinx students now

grace the halls. This all sounds great, except, when

critically examining this shift, a question for me

surfaces, and that is, what’s the rush now to “color-

up” the place? Well, delving deeper, LSU’s current

university president said state-funded institutions

who are not aggressively pursuing racial diversity

are doing so at their own peril (para. 10). State

budget cuts have forced many flagship institutions

to rely more heavily on tuition and fees, while

simultaneously children of color make up the

majority of those under 18 in public schools

…perhaps seeking to attend LSU, and this group is

expected to grow even larger. Concurrent to this

publicized data, LSU’s enrollment has dropped for

the past 3 years, to a total of over 25,000 students

which translates into a huge financial loss. To this

end, the university president shared,

…If we don’t pay attention to demographic

trends, many of our institutions are going to be

left out in the cold for decades…to remain

financially viable in the long term, as well as

fulfilling its mission of serving all the state’s

residents (not sure when this became their

mission considering their history), he knows his

school has to enroll a greater number of

students who look like the student government

president… (para. 10).

When looking at this shift through the lens of racial

capitalism it is not hard for me to conclude, if LSU’s

financial stability weren’t on the line, it is highly

likely efforts to racially diversity wouldn’t be on the

table either. My premise could easily apply to other

predominately white institutions (PWI) and

organizations as well.

One reason it is not all that hard to draw such

conclusions is, it is no secret that many of these

initiatives have their root in legal obligations such

as affirmative action. Dr. Derria Byrd (2019) noted

in her article The Diversity Distraction: A Critical

Comparative Analysis of Discourse in Higher

Education Scholarship the concept of racial

diversity is “merely a new spin on affirmative

action…not a new concept, but a new rhetoric” (p.

137). Musser (2015) added that BIPOC aren’t

necessarily the benefactors of PWI racial diversity

initiatives, but that the commodification of racial

diversity serves to benefit the institution and even

faculty. Further, I believe it’s important to point out

there are also dangers in racial diversity initiatives

with wrong motives including the practice reducing

one’s identity to only their visible characteristics

and often devaluing and disregarding other

attributes. Another consideration is it often places

extra responsibility on BIPOC faculty, researchers,

students and others in college universities and

campuses. Musser calls this burden “affective

labor” which also typically goes uncompensated (p.

8). Musser’s presumption is consistent with Leong

(2013) who argued that for many BIPOC, attempts

at racial diversity does place extra work on them

and this work is expected to be done without

compensation. Why? It is often assumed this is part

of BIPOC’s identity. Musser (2015) contended as

well that racial diversity is something that is more

valuable to PWIs because in its visibility, it can be

seen and thus, sold. These themes support that

BIPOC are not necessarily valued in this space for

who they are, but what they are (Evans, 2020,

para.14). Leong (2013) warns “affiliation with

nonwhite individuals thus becomes simply a useful

means for white individuals and PWIs to acquire

social and economic benefits while deflecting

potential charges of racism and avoiding more

difficult questions of racial equality” (p. 2155).

Moving Forward

In a perfect world, all the motives of racial

diversity initiatives on colleges and university

campuses, and everywhere else…corporations and

nonprofit entities would be ones conducted towards

advancing racial justice rather than racial

capitalism. Yet, we do live in this world, fraught with

the remaining stink of colonialism and coloniality

the lasting legacy of colonialism, with its practice of

selective racialization (Martinot, 2005) and racial

capitalism. So, where do we go from here? Here

are a few suggestions for such a time as this:

1) Examine your own motives for engaging in

racial diversity initiatives. Are you doing it

12 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

because it’s expected of you to participate, or

else? You fill in the blanks of what or else

means for you. You have to ask yourself is

selling black bodies to the highest bidder who

you are? We are either the colonized striving

for liberation, or the colonizer, bent on power

and greed. You tell me.

2) Understand embedded ideologies don’t just

disappear overnight. Dismantling white

supremacy and its tenets such as racial

capitalism is hard work. Real life, soul-change

is messy and complicated…

3) Understand silence is often complicity and I

added often to this suggestion because people

are silent for a number of reasons---fear,

introversion, not sure how to say it, and more.

However, for those who know how to raise their

voices, and stay silent, you do know your

silence speaks volumes, right?

In conclusion, I want to reiterate, this article is

meant for “fodder’. The more our eyes are open to

the ways that colonialism have impacted us all, the

more we, together can work to dismantle systems

such as racial capitalism. Dismantling these

systems include developing critical consciousness

around concepts like racial diversity in educational

institutions and examining these practices. Part of

sustaining systems of oppression is when people

are asleep or aren’t aware of navigating life through

the lens of the colonizer. To this end, I charge,

“Wake up everybody…no more sleeping in bed”

(Whitehead, McFadden, & Carstarphen, 1975). To

hear the song “Wake-up Everybody” go here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pspeIJS7XQ

Note: If you need additional information, have

questions, or need to contact the author, please do

so at [email protected]

References

Byrd, D. (2019). The diversity distraction: A critical

comparative analysis of discourse in higher

education scholarship, The Review of Higher

Education, 42, 135-172.

Evans, J. (2020). Commodifying diversity: The

danger of racial capitalism on student growth in

higher education Remake, (1)

https://remake.wustl.edu/issue1/evans-

commodifying-diversity

Whitehead, J., McFadden, G., & Carstarphen, V.

(1975). Wake up Everybody. [Recorded by

Harold, Melvin and the Blue Notes] On Wake

up Everybody [record] Philadelphia: Sigma

Sound Studios.

Leong, N. (2013). Reflections on racial capitalism:

Responding to Richard Thompson

Ford, Capitalize on Race and Invest in Justice,

Harvard Law Review, 2151-2225

https://harvardlawreview.org/2013/11/reflections

-on-racial-capitalism/

Martinot, S. (2007). The coloniality of power: Notes

toward de-colonization. The Center for Global

Justice.

https://www.globaljusticecenter.org/papers/colo

niality-power-notes-toward-de-colonization

Musser, A.J. (2015). Specimen days: Diversity,

labor, and the university. Feminist Formations,

27(3) vol. 27, 1-20.

Parks, C. (2019). For state schools, diversity isn’t

just about fairness. It’s also about the bottom

line. The Christian Science Monitor

https://www.csmonitor.com/EqualEd/2019/0405

/For-state-schools-diversity-isn-t-just-about-

fairness.-It-s-also-about-the-bottom-line

Police Reform Vs. Abolition as First

and Second-Order Change: The Case

of Chicago

Written by Andrea L. DaViera and Alexis

Grant, University of Illinois at Chicago

In the wake of George Floyd’s murder by

police officers in Minneapolis, Minnesota, protests

have erupted worldwide against police violence.

Chicago is no exception to the state-sanctioned

violence and has one of the highest rates of fatal

shootings by police across the country (Schroedter,

2015). One of the most well-known incidents in

Chicago was the murder of Laquan McDonald in

2014, where a 17-year old Black teenager was shot

16 times in the back by a Chicago police officer

who had numerous complaints previously filed

against him. The officer who murdered McDonald

13 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

was sentenced to prison for 6 years and 9 months,

while the officers who attempted to cover up the

event were fired but acquitted of any criminal

wrongdoing. Since before Laquan McDonald’s

murder in 2014 and now in the aftermath of George

Floyd’s murder, cries for police abolition resound in

Chicago and other cities across the country,

brought together by grassroots organizers. In this

article, we use the principles of community

psychology to briefly question how police reform vs.

abolition can accomplish first- and second-order

change, respectively. This analysis is apt and

timely, given the sociopolitical climate, historical

and enduring calls to abolish the prison industrial

complex and all the pieces within that system. We

write in the spirit of elevating the demands like

those made by community-based social justice

organizations and other voices calling from the

intersections of racial capitalism.

In August 2020, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot

announced a plan for police reform for the city that

includes the use of co-responders instead of police,

de-escalation policies, and building a relationship

with the community (Pathieu & Rivera, 2020).

Although this commitment towards reform appears

positive, transformative groups such as Black Lives

Matter (BLM) Chicago and the Black Abolitionist

Network (BAN) call for more than police reform.

Instead, these groups take an abolitionist stance,

which requires us to “re-imagin[e] institutions,

ideas, and strategies, and creat[e] new

institutions...that render prisons obsolete,” (Davis,

2005, p. 75). Chicago spends 40% of its budget-

over 1.8 billion dollars- on the police department,

while resources for the community remain

continuously underfunded and uninvested. In

response, BLM Chicago and BAN are calling for the

divestment in police spending by 75% and using

that money to invest in community services, such

as housing, health care, and education, amongst

other demands to remove police from schools,

close the infamous Homan square “black site,”

passing the Civilian Police Accountability Council,

and more (Black Lives Matter Chicago, 2020). As

scholar-activists working in this historical moment

where the calls for police reform and abolition are

deafening, now is the time for community

psychologists to question these opportunities as

first- and second-order change.

Settings, Systems, and Social Change

Community psychology broadly speaks to the

importance of understanding social settings to

promote social change (Tseng et al., 2002;

Seidman & Capella, 2017) and prioritizes systems-

level change (Foster-Fishman, Nowell, & Yang,

2007). Social settings are not just physically-bound

spaces, but include networks, patterns, and the

composition of relationships, resources, and

behaviors (Seidman, 2017). Systems include “the

set of actors, activities, and settings that are directly

or indirectly perceived to have influence or be

affected by a given problem situation,” (Foster-

Fishman et al., 2007, p. 198). Systematic change

may be further defined as second-order change;

change that challenges the status quo and

transforms the fundamental pieces of a system

including its dynamics, relationships, structure,

resources, rules, and norms (Foster-Fishman &

Behrens, 2007; Peirson, Boydell, Ferguson, &

Ferris, 2011). Second-order change stands in

contrast with first-order change, which is the

“natural progression of a system as it adapts to

minor and mostly predictable challenges and

events overtime,” (Peirson et al., 2011, p. 308).

Because of its capacity for transformation and

liberation, community psychology prioritizes

second-order change and, as systems include

dynamic processes that themselves change

overtime, emphasizes the transitions and “turning

points” in which this second-order change is most

needed (Tseng et al., 2002).

Police Reform Vs. Abolition

Police reform reflects the position that the

policing system can work but is currently “broken”

or in disarray. The purpose of police reform is to

make the system function as it is believed to be

intended, to “protect and serve.” Similar to Mayor

Lightfoot’s proposed reforms, these can look like a

variety of policy-driven changes, such as the

popular “8can’twait” campaign, which calls for cities

across the country to implement eight specific

policies centered around reducing the use of police

14 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

force, (Campaign Zero, n.d.). Police abolition, in

contrast to reform, does not see the system as

“broken”; it believes that the system was by design

meant to brutalize Black, Brown, and Indigenous

bodies and carries out that task well. Indeed, the

system of policing primarily stems from the days of

Chattel slavery and fugitive slave-catching and

many critical scholars and historians have traced

the how the foundation of the American economy

relies historically and currently on slave and prison

labor (Alexander, 2010). Therefore, seeing the

system of policing as inherently violent, abolition

primarily relies on strategies of disarmament and

disempowerment as mechanisms to affect change

(McDowell & Fernandez, 2018). Disarmament

refers to taking away the tools and weapons that

enable police to be lethal in the first place. Often,

police abolitionist organizers and scholar-activists

pair this mechanism with approaches to

disempower the police, through organizing against

the laws and policies that perpetuate harm (e.g.,

stop and frisk), defunding and divestment

campaigns, direct action, and building community-

driven alternatives that de-legitimize the police

(McDowell & Fernandez, 2018).

The similarities and differences between

reformist and abolitionist mechanisms of change

can be difficult to distinguish at times. For example,

as of the time of this writing, the 8CantWait website

even has a bolded header of “abolition,” which

reflects a pattern in which abolitionist language is

co-opted by reforms to appeal to populist demand.

However, how we interrogate these different

strategies is by questioning their assumptions and

goals.

First- and Second-Order Change

From a community psychology perspective and

viewing policing as a system itself (McDowell &

Fernandez, 2018), we propose that abolitionist

mechanisms could be linked to systems-level

change, while reforms could accomplish first-order

change. Reforms target the system in ways that

indeed make “minor and mostly predictable

changes.” Reducing the use of police force does

not explicitly stop the use of police force and makes

the assumptions that police force is necessary and

that police officers and their legal protectors will

abide by the laws and policies put into place. The

second assumption is particularly concerning

because as police are granted qualified immunity,

they are essentially “above the law,” and act

accordingly. For example, as of June 2020,

Chicago has adopted seven of the “8can’twait”

policies, but that did not stop the shootings of 20-

year-old Latrell Allen or 26-year old Miguel Vega in

August. Thus, reforms rely on altering the

conditions that cause harm, while still allowing and

even expecting that harm is necessary and holding

the goal of legitimizing the prison industrial

complex.

Unlike the limitations associated with reform,

scholars like McDowell and Fernandez (2018)

position abolitionist theory and practice as having

the “radical potential” to advance racial and

economic justice, and the principles of second-

order change would concur. Disarmament

represents, both materially and symbolically, how

weapons of racial capitalist violence can be

removed from the system, quite literally causing

that system to function differently. This makes the

assumption that police can and will use force, and

thus, disabling the lethality of that force

subsequently ensures that less people will be

murdered. Disempowerment techniques, like BAN’s

demand to defund the police, would significantly

reduce the number of police officers, resulting in

less police-civilian interactions, and therefore less

violence and death. In this way, second-order

change is achieved by not just altering the

conditions related to police use of force and anti-

Black violence, but by removing them altogether.

Abolition as Presence

Abolitionists are commonly asked, what do you

replace police with, and how do you address harm

when it happens in neighborhoods, schools, or

families? Abolitionist scholar Ruth Wilson Gilmore

famously said, “Abolition is about presence, not

absence. It’s about building life-affirming

institutions,” (MPD150, n.d.). One possible way to

do so at the community-level is through practices

rooted in transformative justice, a political theory

and practice that seeks to restore harm without

15 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

prisons or police. For example, as theorized by

McDowell’s community-based research, insurgent

safety is a locally-driven transformative justice

practice that seeks to address harm without the use

of criminalization (2019). Instead of perpetuating

the harms of the carceral state, or reforming them

such that they are “less harmful,” insurgent safety

can be achieved through communication, mutual

aid and interdependency, and community joy

(McDowell, 2019). How we encourage such

community strength is through empowering people

and fostering mastery over one's circumstances.

The time is now to invest in insurgent safety and

nurture the conditions that allow for grassroots

organizing to replace carceral systems.

References

Alexander, M. (2010). The new Jim Crow: Mass

incarceration in the age of colorblindness. New

York: New Press.

Black Lives Matter Chicago, (2020). BAN Defund

CPD Demands.

https://www.blacklivesmatterchicago.com/ban-

defund-cpd-demands/

Campaign Zero, (n.d.). #8Can’tWait.

https://8cantwait.org/

Davis, A. Y. (2005). Abolition democracy: Beyond

empire, prisons, and torture. New York: Seven

Stories Press.

Foster-Fishman, P., & Behrens, T., (2007).

Systems change reborn: Rethinking our

theories, methods, and efforts in human

services reform and community-based change.

American Journal of Community Psychology,

39(3-4), 191-196, DOI 10.1007/s10464-007-

9104-5

Foster-Fishman, P., Nowell, B., & Yang, H., (2007).

Putting the system back into systems change: A

framework for understanding and changing

organizational and community systems.

American Journal of Community Psychology,

39, 197-215, DOI 10.1007/s10464-007-9109-0

McDowell, M. (2019). Insurgent safety: Theorizing

alternatives to state protection. Theoretical

Criminology, 23(1), 43-59,

https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1362480617713984

McDowell, M., & Fernandez, L., (2018) ‘Disband,

disempower, and disarm’: Amplifying the theory

and practice of police abolition. Critical

Criminology, 26, 373-391,

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-018-9400-4

MPD150, (n.d.). What are we talking about when

we talk about “a police-free future?”

https://www.mpd150.com/what-are-we-talking-

about-when-we-talk-about-a-police-free-future/

Pathieu, D. and Rivera, M. (2020). Lightfoot's CPD

reform strategy includes 'co-responder' model,

replacing officers in some situations. ABC, Inc.,

WLS-TV Chicago.

https://abc7chicago.com/chicago-police-lori-

lightfoot-cpd-reform/6368984/

Peirson, L., Boydell, K., Ferguson, H., & Ferris, L.,

(2011). An ecological process model of

systems change. American Journal of

Community Psychology, 47(3-4), 307-321. DOI

10.1007/s10464-010-9405-y

Schroedter, A. (2015). Fatal Shootings By Chicago

Police: Tops Among Biggest U.S. Cities. Better

Government Association.

https://www.bettergov.org/news/fatal-shootings-

by-chicago-police-tops-among-biggest-us-cities

Seidman, E., & Cappella, E., (2017). Social settings

as loci of intervention. In M.A. Bond, I. Serrano-

Garcia, & C.B. Keys (eds.), APA Handbook of

Community Psychology, Vol. 2 Methods for

Community Research and Action for Diverse

Groups and Issues. (p. 235-249). American

Psychological Association.

https://doi.org/10.1037/14954-014

Tseng, V., Chesir-Teran, D., Becker-Klein, R.,

Chan, M., Duran, V., Roberts, A., &

Bardoliwalla, N., (2002). Promotion of social

change: A conceptual framework. American

Journal of Community Psychology, 30(3), 401-

427.

16 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

Rummaging Through Wounds During

the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Master

Class in the Collective Psyche

Written by Kristina Yarbrough, Pacifica

Graduate Institute

The disavowed pathology of the white master

class of the Antebellum South terrorizes the

collective psyche today, perhaps most intimately

felt within the United States. By white master class,

I am referring to the owning class of the Antebellum

South-white skinned, European immigrants to the

United States who were slave holders and

landowners in the Southern United States before

the Civil War. The pathology of the white master

class here indicates the pillars of race and class in

the societal architecture specific to the US. Today

in the US, as the COVID-19 pandemic softens the

material illusion of a structurally sound society, the

contours of collective wounds are illuminated. For

many, the unreconciled pathology of the white

master class that has been policing our collective

unconscious, our psychological renderings and our

engagements with the world is more apparent. By

policing I mean

1. today’s unconscious repression, described by

Frosh (2003) as the “work of policing, in which

there is a scrutinizing and a repressing body

capable of spying out subversive elements and

constraining their activities.” (p. 19). And

2. the policing technology of a pathologically-

devised patriarchal capitalism utilized by the

white master class to maintain their domination

and repression of their pathology.

Social psychoanalysis, depth psychology and

decoloniality animate this assemblage, offering a

new path towards liberating ourselves from the

effects of the white master class’s pathology.

Bringing forth history into our present perception is

a practice of insurgency, and a decolonial practice

of reclaiming the emergent nature of time and

space (Mignolo, 2018).

The Antebellum South was ferociously violent,

dominated by a master class of whites who owned

land and black slaves. The class of poor whites in

the Antebellum South highlight the intersection of

race and class in the pathological apparatus of the

white master class. The poor white class in the

Antebellum South were heavily policed by the

master class through violence, criminalization and

disenfranchisement (Merritt, 2017). Poor whites

were threatening to the slave system in several

ways. They built underground economies of

bartering with black slaves, and at times taught

literacy to the slaves (Merritt, 2017). Not only was

the master class engrossed in policing black slaves

through direct violence, they were often

preoccupied with controlling and dehumanizing the

poor white class to protect the slave system. Merritt

(2017) notes that poor whites were “removed from

the modern world”, “not involved or invested in the

marketplace” and “were not living by America’s

capitalist work principles.” (p. 108). There are many

crucial reproductions today from the triangulation of

the white master-black slave-poor white in the

Antebellum South. For our purposes, I will highlight

only two of them.

One, the fantasy of the white master class is

shaped by an illusion of ‘earned’ power, privileges

and freedom, which is distinguished to them from

the landless and dispossessed poor whites. And

two, poor whites are seen as threatening to a

capitalist society. Poor whites often live outside of

the modern, capitalist system and at times create

interracial bonds with the master class’s racialized

‘other’. These two elements in the psyche of the

white master class influence the master class’s

pathologized race and class ideologies, which

become weaponized through patriarchal capitalism

today. Patriarchal capitalism disenfranchises those

it deems threatening to modernism and to racist

ideologies that separate the poor and working-

class, while producing both raced and classed

direct and structural violence. Maintenance of the

white master class’s ideology and pathology today

occur through a policing apparatus of unconscious

defense mechanisms, and through the infectiously

commodified iconography and imagery of the white

master class themselves.

As a part of Parker’s (2019) investigation into

the role of slavery in the white imagination, she

17 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

encouraged white people to imagine themselves in

the time of slavery. Parker (2019) found that white

people could not imagine the enslaver, evidence of

disavowing the internal representations of the

enslaver. “The disappearance of the white master-

enslaver” Parker states, is a “structural and

defensive function of only seeing images of black

slaves in white minds”, which produces an “invisible

maintenance of white supremacy” by deidentifying

with the aggressor (p. 11, 12). Parker notes that

unconscious psychic splitting “both collapses

psychic space and hides what is disavowed.” (p.

15). Splitting is a split “between what is on the

surface and what is underneath, in which what is

‘underneath’, the repressed element, cannot be

spoken of and possibly is not even known.” (Frosh

2003, p. 20).

Parker’s discovery of white people’s disavowal

and splitting response to slavery is evidence of the

unreconciled pathology of the white master class.

Having never faced their pathology, the white

master class projects and introjects their pathology

into our collective lives and our collective psychic

structure. Projection is a “defense mechanism in

which disturbing unconscious material is kept

unconscious by experiencing it as if it belongs to

another.” (Frosh 2003, p. 33). The result is the

reconstitution of the pathology into a modern-day,

unconscious and material policing through

patriarchal capitalism. A technology of this

pathology-derived capitalist apparatus is to introject

the split off, or disavowed parts of the white master

class’s pathology into the poor and into the ‘slaves’

of this system today. The ‘marginalized’ today can

be understood as a psychic rendering of the

unreconciled pathology of the white master class.

Ejecting the unwanted parts of the self, the white

master class are left with a delusional sense of their

own innocence, and narcissism manifests.

In the United States today, this defensive

apparatus that implicates the collective psyche in

the unreconciled pathology of the white master

class is fatigued. The structurally violent effects of

the COVID-19 pandemic has further subjugated the

split off projections-the poor and the marginalized.

The unearned freedoms of the white master class

are being glorified in imagery on social media. The

completions of massive, unnecessary home

improvement projects are publicly celebrated and

God-like figures standing on mountain tops in

Aspen, Colorado during summer vacations are

adored. Meanwhile, unemployment rates increase,

an eviction crisis steadily gains momentum,

community non-profits serving marginalized

populations are losing funding and a racist-classist

ideology brings an overwhelming visceral tragedy

to people’s daily lives. The repression, disavowal

and unconsciously contrived apparatus of the white

master class has not only become more apparent

due to COVID-19, it is palpably pathological. The

symptoms of this pathology have become so

pervasive in our globalized, modern world that

discerning what perversion to focus on, where the

perversion lies and how to respond can be

overwhelming.

Karcher (1998) explains that everyday events

contain the psyche and collective unconscious, we

simply must know how to listen and how to pay

attention (p. 222). Unravelling the pathological

policing apparatus of unconscious defense

mechanisms and seeing through the iconography

and imagery that supports it can fracture the

fatigued assemblage. Anzaldúa (1987) explains

that la facultad “is the capacity to see in surface

phenomena and meaning of deeper realities, to see

the deep structure below the surface” (p. 60). La

facultad “is mediated by the part of the psyche that

does not speak, that communicates in images and

symbols which are the faces of feelings…behind

which feelings reside/hide.” (p. 60). It might be easy

today to notice the white master class’s unresolved

pathology in grand projections such as police

brutality on black bodies and the explicit violence of

self-proclaimed white supremacists. Though, depth

and decolonial psychologies encourage an

animation and insurgency from our deepest

capacities of perception, such as with Anzaldúa’s la

facultad.

Insurgency here is defined as “those

processes and possibilities of collective analysis,

collective theorization, and collective practice—all

intertwined—that help engender an otherwise or

18 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

relational being, thinking, feeling, doing, and living

in a place marked by the extremes of violence,

racism, and patriarchy in today’s global

capitalism/modernity/coloniality.” Mignolo 2018, p.

26). One narrative of capitalism/modernity/

coloniality is the colonization of time and space

through epistemology (p. 140). Mignolo (2018)

highlights two pillars of “the mythology of

modernity” narrative: the celebration of newness;

and the capturing of “the feelings and the imaginary

of the population” through “persuading an

audience”. (p. 140).

Engendering a relational otherwise, and what

Mignolo (2018) calls “epistemic disobedience” (p.

114) is one path towards our emancipation from the

unreconciled pathology of the white master class in

our collective psyche. In this case an otherwise is

an insurgent practice that brings history into focus,

where re-imagining our relationship with history

makes clear how the violent ideologies of the

Antebellum South are reproduced from the

unresolved pathology of the white master class.

Merritt (2017) reminds us, “Masters needed a

terroristic system of policing, surveilling, and

torturing the poor (both white and black) to

preserve their cherished institution.” (p. 253).

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a painful

rummaging of our collective wounds, and there are

no quick remedies. To become untangled from our

wounded entanglements requires discipline,

diligence, patience and seeing through. Hillman

(1997) describes seeing through as a slow insight

that “moves through the apparent to the less

apparent” (p. 429). To know the prison we are in

will wake us from an anesthetized slumber (Hillman

1992, p. 66). Upon waking, we will be flooded with

rage, outrage and compassion; then our

sensitivities will be renewed, and we will effortlessly

see the interiority of things (p. 66).

References

Anzaldúa, G. (1987). Borderlands – la frontera: the

new mestiza. San Francisco: Spinsters/Aunt

Lute.

Frosh, S. (2003). Key concepts in psychoanalysis.

New York, NY: NYU Press.

Hillman, J. (1997). Re-visioning psychology.

William Morrow.

Hillman, J. (1992). The thought of the heart and the

soul of the world. Putnam, CT: Spring

Publications.

Karcher, S. (1998). Divination, synchronicity and

fate. Journal of Religion and Health, 37(3), 215-

227.

Merritt, K. (2017). Masterless men: Poor whites and

slavery in the antebellum south. New York, NY:

Cambridge University Press.

Mignolo, W. D., & Walsh, C. E. (2018). On

decoloniality: Concepts, analysis and praxis.

Duke University Press.

Parker, R.N. (2019). Slavery in the white psyche.

Psychoanalytic Social Work, 26(1), 84-103.

Dismantling Systemic Racism in the

Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A

Pilot Intervention for Mental Health

Professionals

Written by Megan Dunn, Andrea Cladek,

Humza Khan, Hannah VanLandingham,

Christopher Gonzalez, Rachael L. Ellison,

Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT); Erin

Matthews, Nima Novak, Living in Empathy,

LLC

At a foundational level, therapists, particularly

White therapists, are trained on the need to

examine and be aware of the privilege in their lives,

and the resulting potential oppression of many of

their clients (Black et al., 2007; Sue at al., 1992).

However, more recent literature in psychology

pushes for therapists to move beyond generalized

cultural competence, to help combat systemic

injustice and racism in their clinical practice (such

as addressing clients’ racism in individual therapy;

e.g., Bartoli & Pyati, 2009; MacLeod, 2013).

Likewise, the field increasingly pushes for

therapists to take responsibility for social justice

concerns within group therapy by addressing

oppression and marginalization between group

19 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

members (Chang-Caffaro & Caffaro, 2018), as well

as interrogating their own biases. In particular,

there is increased awareness that well-meaning

therapists and other healthcare providers can

perpetuate institutionalized racism and cause

unintentional harm to patients through racial

microaggressions (i.e., brief and/or commonplace

verbal, behavioral, and environmental slights

against people of color; Foster, 2014; Sue et al.,

2008; Thompson et al., 2004), or by removing race

from the conversation altogether (Gushue &

Constantine, 2007; Okosi, 2018). It becomes

crucial to adequately train therapists to be able to

attend to their patients’ experiences with racism

both within and outside of therapy, especially as

race-based stress impacts both psychological as

well as physical health outcomes (e.g., through

alterations in stress biology, including altered stress

hormone levels and less and lower quality sleep;

e.g., Berger & Sarnyal, 2015; Clark & Clark, 1999;

Zeiders, 2017; Zeiders et al., 2015).

The consequences of systematic racism within

the field of mental health have been observed for

decades and have devastating impacts on access

and quality of care for minority populations. For

instance, racial and ethnic minority populations are

less likely to utilize mental health services and

more likely to receive poorer quality of care (Alegria

et al., 2008; Chow et al., 2003; Cooper-Patrick et

al., 1999; Lê Cook et al., 2013). Provider bias and

stereotyping lead to inaccurate diagnoses for racial

and ethnic minorities (McGuire & Miranda, 2008),

which is well-documented in the overdiagnosis of

schizophrenia (Barnes, 2004; Hamptom, 2007;

Jones & Gray, 1986) and underdiagnosis of mood

disorders (Barnes, 2013) among people of color

persisting from the 1970s to the present day. When

effects are narrowed to specific races, Black

individuals are found to perceive greater bias from

health care providers (Greer et al., 2014), in

addition to reporting increased anxiety symptoms

(Greer, & Spalding, 2017) and internalization of

cultural stereotypes leading to a worthless and

powerless self-perception (i.e., internalized racism;

Williams & Williams-Morris, 2000). Internalized

racism is associated with increased rates of anxiety

(Graham et al., 2016), depression, and serious

psychological distress (Mouzon & McLean, 2017)

among Black Americans.

While these challenges have lingered in the

field of mental health for decades, recent events

such as the COVID-19 pandemic increase the

urgency of providing better and more accessible

care for BIPOC (i.e., Black, Indigenous and People

of Color) individuals. COVID-19, a virus which

disproportionately affects BIPOC individuals (Kirby,

2020; Raisi-Estabragh et al., 2020; Tai et al., 2020),

has emerged as a unique and additional stressor

for mental health outcomes (Kola, 2020; Rajkumar,

2020; Rothman et al., 2020). Apart from contracting

the virus, living through the pandemic is associated

with increased anxiety, depression, and stress

(Rajkumar, 2020) as well as increased isolation and

decreased social support. While current social

restrictions have inspired a transition to telehealth

treatment (Smith et al., 2020), individuals of lower

socioeconomic status may have difficulties

accessing adequate technology, internet, and/or

private spaces for telehealth treatment. BIPOC

individuals are more likely to fall below the poverty

line; census statistics (Macartney et al., 2013)

indicate that Black Americans experience one of

the highest rates of poverty (25.8%) within the

United States. Additionally, COVID-19 has resulted

in increased unemployment rates (Montenovo et

al., 2020), especially among Black Americans

(Selden & Berdahl, 2020; Shah et al., 2020). At this

time, the BIPOC community is experiencing a surge

in mental health needs, heightening the importance

of therapists’ ability to sufficiently help and treat

BIPOC clients within the context of current,

overarching issues.

Therefore, it is crucial to examine and

dismantle the role of therapists and other mental

health professionals in upholding systematic

racism, and introduce a newly developed

intervention that aims to meet this need; namely,

“Living in Empathy,” a racial privilege and cultural

competence psychoeducation and process group

for self-identified White mental health professionals.

This profile fills a critical need in the lack of

effective “diversity/cultural competence” training

20 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

programs, especially for mental health

professionals. This comes at even a more crucial

time as the federal government aims to reduce

funding and “ban” cultural competence and

diversity training programs (BBC News, 2020; The

White House, Office of Management and Budget,

2020) aimed at addressing White privilege. Even

before the recent political events, many diversity

programs across industries (to which psychology

training programs are not immune), unfortunately

‘miss the mark,’ and may not result in creating real

change (Dobbin & Kalev, 2016). For example, one

study found most psychology doctoral trainees,

even after they completed their programs and were

on clinical internship, still experienced difficulty

defining social justice (Singh et al., 2010). Even

with moderately adequate training, for White

psychologists, membership in a dominant racial

group may make it more difficult to be aware of and

understand the consequences and effects of non-

membership. When attempting to engage White

individuals in social justice work, individuals’ affect

(i.e., their general emotional reactions to privilege

and racism), may impact willingness to engage in

social justice work, as well as the ability to engage

in a culturally competent way (Spanierman et al.,

2008). Even well-meaning White psychologists may

experience significant guilt, shame, or fear that can

perpetuate inaction.

Within psychology, Sue and colleagues (2019)

call for future research to explore if arming anti-

racist allies with microinterventions actually

increases the likelihood of action (e.g., challenging

microaggressions). They put a call to action for

more effective education and training interventions,

to help learn, practice, and rehearse skills, as well

and overcome inhibitions and create inertia for

change. These issues have been necessary for

decades, but after the assassination of George

Floyd and widespread media coverage of the

#BlackLivesMatter movement, it became socially

normative to engage in racial justice, and many

white Americans were provided with surface-level

actionable items (e.g., donating, marching).

However, beyond these actions, there is a need to

develop such interventions for White therapists to

translate this antiracist practice into the therapy

room.

In response to this call for action is a novel,

online intervention, “Living in Empathy,” a four-

session manualized intervention designed for self-

identified White mental health providers to improve

cultural competence. The four sessions of the

intervention (Whiteness, unpacking colonization,

unpacking White privilege, and cultural

appropriation), are designed to examine important

aspects of systemic racism and privilege in addition

to the role the therapist’s race and privilege plays in

client interactions. Researchers at IIT aim to

empirically assess the effectiveness of this

intervention through a randomized control trial. In

this study, to comply with social distancing

recommendations, participants will safely meet on a

virtual platform for 60-75 minutes weekly, which

also allows for a nationally representative and

experientially diverse group composition. The study

will use a delayed waitlist control group design, in

which participants will be randomly assigned into

either the intervention group (i.e., “Living in

Empathy”), or a similarly structured four-session

control group (i.e., racial privilege/systemic injustice

journal club). Due to the expected benefits and

importance of participation in the intervention,

waitlist control group participants will be offered the

opportunity to participate in the intervention after

participation in the waitlist control group if they so

choose.

Piloting and utilizing a microintervention such

as “Living in Empathy” is a crucial step in improving

upon antiquated methods of cultural competence

training. In a climate of heightened racial tensions

exacerbated by a novel and deadly pandemic, the

mental health field must take responsibility and

work to dismantle the structural racism within the

therapy room.

Please contact Rachael Ellison at

[email protected] with any questions.

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content/uploads/2020/09/M-20-34.pdf

Williams, D. R., & Williams-Morris, R. (2000).

Racism and mental health: The African

American experience. Ethnicity & Health, 5(3-

4), 243-268.

Zeiders, K. H. (2017). Discrimination, daily stress,

sleep, and Mexican-origin adolescents’

internalizing symptoms. Cultural Diversity and

Ethnic Minority Psychology, 23(4), 570.

Zeiders, K. H., Umaña-Taylor, A. J., Updegraff, K.

A., & Jahromi, L. B. (2015). Acculturative and

enculturative stress, depressive symptoms, and

maternal warmth: Examining within-person

relations among Mexican-origin adolescent

mothers. Development and Psychopathology,

27(1), 293-308.

Community Psychology Practice

in Undergraduate Settings Edited by Ashlee Lien, State University of

New York Old Westbury and Rachel

Hershberg, University of Washington

Tacoma

A Look Toward this Upcoming Year

Written by Ashlee Lien, State University of

New York Old Westbury and Rachel

Hershberg, University of Washington

Tacoma

The Community Psychology Practice in

Undergraduate Settings Interest Group is a

relatively new interest group of SCRA for those who

focus on teaching and mentoring undergraduate

students. We are fortunate to have had excellent

leadership for the interest group and are especially

grateful to the most recent co-chairs, Elizabeth

Thomas and Sheree Bielecki. On September 1,

2020, we (Ashlee Lien and Rachel Hershberg)

transitioned into the role as new co-chairs for the

2020-2021 Academic Year.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 has

brought many challenges as many colleges and

universities have transitioned to virtual remote

learning instruction. This group has provided a

sense of support for those struggling to adapt

undergraduate instruction to these settings. We are

excited about the upcoming year and hope to

expand our efforts to include new members in

conversations about undergraduate teaching. As

we look to the future, we anticipate this group

continuing to be a supportive space where we work

together to think through and reflect on how we can

meaningfully confront challenges and opportunities

in the undergraduate CP classroom related to the

ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic of

ongoing systemic racism and violence against

communities of color in the U.S., an unstable

economy, and a very uncertain political future.

25 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

Goals for the Year

This year, we hope to expand our membership

to include more individuals who focus on teaching

and mentoring undergraduate students throughout

the U.S. and the Globe (hopefully we can find a

time to meet that works with different time zones!).

We hope to extend more opportunities to connect

with one another, and will continue with previous

initiatives including a Webinar, updating our SCRA

teaching resource library, and having intentional

conversations about how systemic racism impacts

our teaching, mentoring, and institutional settings.

Mostly, we hope that this group can be an

important source of support and encouragement for

those working with undergraduate students in this

important sociohistorical moment.

How to Get Involved

If you are interested in learning more about the

Community Psychology Practice in Undergraduate

Settings Interest Group, have ideas for what you

would like to see us accomplish, or would like to

become involved, please contact Ashlee Lien at

[email protected] or Rachel Hershberg at

[email protected]. We welcome everyone who is

interested in building community around teaching

Community Psychology and related topics,

especially related to the current sociohistorical

moment. If you would like to join the Undergraduate

Settings Interest Group listserv, just email

[email protected] and request to be added to

the group. We look forward to hearing from you!

Contact information for co-chairs:

Ashlee Lien, SUNY Old Westbury,

[email protected], [email protected]

Rachel Hershberg, University of Washington

Tacoma, [email protected]

Early Career Edited by Vernita Perkins, Omnigi

Reflections on Multiple Pathways to

Community Psychology and A Call to

Action

Written by Michelle Abraczinskas,

University of Florida; Ijeoma Ezeofor, TCC

Group; Vernita Perkins, Omnigi Research;

and Mayah Williams, Center for Disease

Control and Prevention

This article is a collaboration between the

SCRA Early Career Interest Group (ECIG) and

the American Evaluation Association

Community Psychology Topical Interest Group

(CP TIG)

Every day the need for systems-level change

to improve equity, access, and well-being is

resounding. As community psychologists, we

possess the values and skills to create change.

Have we answered the call to action? Are we

“walking the talk?” To answer these questions, we

considered: 1) how could community psychology

26 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

(CP) articulate its value-add; 2) how might the field

grow its base by harnessing its appeal to both

diverse, established professionals and a generation

of new learners; and 3) how could the field take

action today to demonstrate its uniqueness from

other disciplines? The purpose of this article is to

evoke reflection on our field; highlight its value add

by comparing it to other fields; consider how we

inspire and invite people to CP; and demonstrate

how we must live our shared values.

Comparable Fields to Community

Psychology

CP has values of individual/family wellness,

sense of community, honoring human diversity,

social justice, citizen participation, collaboration,

community strengths, and empirical evidence, and

enacts them via research, scholarship, and

practice. CP focuses on prevention, promotion, and

improving quality of life of individuals, communities,

and societies. CP examines the interrelationships

of systems (e.g., neighborhoods) and individuals

(Dalton, et al., 2007).

Counseling psychology works with individuals

at all stages of their lives on a range of issues

relating to their emotional, social, work, school, and

physical health concerns (“Counseling Psychology,”

2008). Counseling psychologists also work with

organizations to help them increase effectiveness

by improving the work environment.

Public health is the science of protecting and

improving the health of people and communities by

promoting healthy lifestyles, researching disease

and injury prevention, and detecting, preventing

and responding to infectious diseases (“What is

Public Health?,” n.d.). For those working on social

determinants of health, there is the added

emphasis on social (e.g., education,

neighborhoods, economic stability), not just medical

or biological factors.

Prevention science is an interdisciplinary field.

It applies basic research on risk/protective factors

and problems affecting individuals, families, and

communities to the development, evaluation, and

dissemination of empirically based prevention and

health promotion programs. Prevention scientists

use research to influence policy and practice

(“Human Development,” n.d.).

These disciplines focus on the well-being of

people and communities through individual and/or

systems interventions. Prevention science, public

health, and CP share a focus on wellness via

prevention and promotion. Counseling psychology,

public health, and CP use participatory methods

and focus on social justice. CP is unique due to the

core tenet of social justice and the focus on the

psychological well-being of communities.

Finding Fit Within Community

Psychology

There are multiple paths to CP. For some, the

path is straightforward. For others, the path is a

series of random opportunities. The following

stories highlight our divergent journeys to CP. We

hope they inspire reflection on the various

pathways to CP and demonstrate how community

psychologists can actively increase interest in our

field.

Abraczinskas: My undergraduate institution

did not have a CP course, and I had never heard of

it. Post-graduation, I worked at a group home. On

paper, its programming looked great, but its

implementation and outcomes were not. I wanted to

hold the organization accountable to its mission.

Serendipitously, shortly thereafter, interested in

clinical, I interviewed for the clinical-community

psychology master’s program at UNC Charlotte. I

shared that story and got the response “that’s what

WE do as community psychologists.” That interview

changed my career trajectory to CP. I could have

easily gone a different route.

Ezeofor: My journey to CP was pretty indirect.

I am a counseling psychologist by training, but after

a series of twists and turns, I eventually found

myself working within evaluation and learning. I

joined the American Evaluation Association and

sought out a topical interest group that would be my

home within evaluation. I discovered the CP TIG,

which led me to learn more about CP. With its

focus on serving the community, and recognizing

that individuals, relationships, and systems were all

critical to the actualization of well-being, I realized

that I had found my fit.

27 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

Perkins: My journey to CP launched with the

world’s oldest question, why we exist? After

witnessing social injustice in the private sector, I

explored consciousness studies on my way to

applied psychology degrees in organizational

management and organizational leadership.

Management scholars annoyed by my social justice

queries, gently nudged me to social and personality

psychology, and finally to CP. I strongly believe we

are better psychologists in our specialty fields when

we incorporate multiple fields. We socially support

people, people experience a little bit of everything,

and we should be prepared to address a lot of

everything.

Appealing to Future Community

Psychologists

As systems thinkers, we know there are

structures that prevent equity-focused fields like CP

from expanding. A new generation of learners is

emerging, and searching for socially conscious,

action-oriented careers to promote wellness for all.

The world needs them. We must be intentional

about inspiring, motivating, and welcoming these

students to our field.

SCRA and the AEA CP TIG can expose

students to and engage them in CP through

partnerships within and outside psychology

departments, such as: virtual panel discussions,

talks by community psychologists, drop-in hours,

mentorship programs, and college liaisons. These

organizations can also increase social media

presence with active and engaging accounts, and

host live Instagram/Facebook conversations with

community psychologists. These ideas are only a

sample; there is so much more that we, SCRA, and

the AEA CP TIG can do. When we invest in the

next generation, we ensure the longevity of our

field.

Call to Action

Community psychologists must accept the

call to increase the visibility of the field. This call to

action includes sharing information about CP in

daily conversations with the general public and

community collaborators, advocating for increased

visibility, writing op-eds, interviews with news

media, and communicating our unique impact to

draw others to the field. As well as creating social

change, our community partnerships may pique

collaborators’ interest in joining our field.

This is our moment, during the worst global

pandemic and racial crises in recent history, to

emerge from our scholarly insulation into

communities and collaborate with others who are

actively engaged in reducing health and economic

disparities. Community psychologists are most

impactful when they are in communities healing

historical trauma, ameliorating inequities, and

envisioning a new way forward.

If you are interested in the ECIG, the AEA CP

TIG, and/or increasing CP visibility, please contact:

Michelle Abraczinskas, [email protected];

Ijeoma Ezeofor, [email protected]; Dr. Perkins,

[email protected]; Mayah Williams,

[email protected].

References

Counseling Psychology. (2008). APA.org.

https://www.apa.org/ed/graduate/specialize/cou

nseling

Dalton, J., Elias, M., & Wandersman, A. (2007).

Community psychology: Linking individuals and

communities. (2nd edition). Belmont, CA:

Thomson Wadsworth

Human Development. (n.d.). Washington State

University.

https://hd.wsu.edu/preventionscience/

What is Public Health? (n.d.). CDCFoundation.org.

https://www.cdcfoundation.org/what-public-

health

International Committee Edited by Douglas D. Perkins, Vanderbilt

University and Olga Oliveira Cunha, NOVA

School of Social Sciences and Humanities.

This and the international column in the last

issue are intended to introduce readers to

representative work by the new editors of the

28 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

column. We invite those doing either collaborative

international work, such as the prior example, or

those based outside of the U.S. or Canada doing a

local community psychology project, such as the

following, to send a detailed paragraph proposal for

a future article for this column to

[email protected] and

[email protected].

Psychological Intervention in Higher

Education — From the Biomedical to

the Ecological Model: Contributions

from Community Psychology

Written by Olga Oliveira Cunha, NOVA

FCSH – NOVA School of Social Sciences

and Humanities, Lisbon, Portugal APPsyCI

– Applied Psychology Research Center

Capabilities & Inclusion (ISPA-IU)

Attending college is a milestone representing

major life changes for most undergraduate

students. Most of the questions that these young

adults bring to psychological counseling are mostly

related to feelings of low self-esteem, anxiety,

difficulties in adapting to a new routine and

regarding their future.

The demand for psychological support services

occurs with a meaningful event: unaccomplished

assignments, anxiety about evaluations,

concentration difficulties, doubts about the chosen

course and about personal skills, relationship

problems with parents, family and friends, difficulty

meeting expectations, or with behavioral

supervision and controls, whether due to the lack of

support and/or monitoring. On the other hand, they

also referred to experiencing difficulties in love

relationships, either ending a relationship or

difficulty initiating or establishing one. When

explored in counselling we find that the requests

made by these students are commonly linked to

their development as a young adult, particularly

considering their complex life histories, sometimes

dysfunctional or non-existent family environments

or intolerance towards their sexuality.

Many authors have devoted themselves to the

study of the development of young people. For

example Erikson (1972), one of the pioneers in the

field with his theory of psychosocial development,

highlighted the importance of a period of time in

late adolescence, called by the author

“psychosocial moratorium” (Dias, 2006), set aside

to solve identity-related tasks or issues. On the

other hand, Blos (1979) emphasized the

importance of intrapsychic development, focusing

on development throughout adolescence. Also,

Bowlby's (1988) attachment theory is important for

understanding the struggles of this age group when

building relationships (friendship and loving) with

the fear of rejection, dependency, but also in the

development of autonomy and independence from

parents or guardians (Dias, 2006).

When we dialogue about career development

and feelings towards changes in employment

opportunities, these are often felt as threatening.

Savickas (2001) argues that career should be

conceptualized as a continuing process of

individual discovery. In the core of career

development, vocational guidance emerges as a

psychological process of searching, exploring,

asking questions, and examining data for the

purpose of obtaining personal and professional

goals (Pinto et al., 2016). This process involves

carrying out activities that seek to relate the self-

knowledge of each individual to their perception

and knowledge of the world, constituting

themselves as interactive with that world and

involving the reproduction and transformation of

mental structures (Cohen, Duberley, & Mallon,

2004).

Despite the existing counseling and community

psychology literatures, the biomedical paradigm is

still one of the most used models for intervention in

higher education. However, there are some

circumstances for which this model is no longer

considered suitable, with special relevance in the

educational context. Thus, there is a need for new

paradigms that, in the educational (and community)

context, reside in decreasing reliance, or

expanding, on the medical model and adopting an

29 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

ecological understanding of human functioning

(Gutkin, 2012).

When attributing mental health and educational

difficulties to internal states of disease and

pathology as a principle, the medical model

inadvertently generates a system whose most

important factors are emphasized by Gutkin (2009,

2012). These factors are: a) promotion of services

for individuals at the expense of services for the

community in general, which discourages systemic

intervention and the comprehensive resolution of

problems; b) emphasis on remediation at the

expense of early prevention and intervention (the

exclusion of individual services is not advocated,

but their reduction and support of their

complementarity with other approaches that reduce

the impact of, and/or prevent, those same

problems); c) a shortage of service providers-- that

is, the medical model promotes, even if

unintentionally, the disempowerment of caregivers

more accessible to young adults, such as parents

and teachers, whose participation in students’

mental health is essential (Gutkin, 2009, 2012); d)

by giving little emphasis to prevention and early

intervention, it promotes treatments that are

specialized and professionalized, and so harder to

provide and obtain, approaches to mental health; e)

reliability and validity of the diagnoses and

consequent validity of the treatment; and f)

separation between the information collected for

diagnosis and the information needed for effective

treatment.

The medical model collects detailed

information on subjects' psychopathologies. When

we consider the procedures that are particularly

considered for students, we realize that most of

these are environmental manipulations (e.g.,

curriculum change, behavior management

strategies). Although they may help in the short-

term, they are often ineffective long-term as they

fail to recognize the essential role that

environments/contexts play in maintaining

psychological and psychoeducational dysfunction.

Thus, according to Gutkin (2009, 2012), when the

emphasis is almost exclusively on individual

psychopathology, the medical model discourages

systemic and community intervention and the

resolution of problems that are more contextual.

Although remediation and treatment services for

people should always be available when

necessary, relying almost exclusively on these

strategies can constitute a deficient approach,

especially when the main objective is to prevent

pathology and suffering and promote mental health

(Albee, 1999).

Where Are We Going? Changing to an

Ecological Paradigm

Recent investigations point clearly to a

reciprocal interaction between the biological

characteristics of people and the nature of the

environments/contexts that surround them

(Greenleaf & Williams, 2009; Schensul & Trickett,

2009). It can be argued that the ecological model

does not answer all the above issues, but it is a

significant step. Gutkin (2012) argues that

Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) concentric systems model

is particularly consistent with intervention

opportunities in educational institutions and

communities.

Micro-level intervention, for example, in a

classroom allows for the possibility of achieving a

more comprehensive impact (e.g., involving parents

of students). Changing the emphasis on individual

intervention to contexts, interventions can be

developed with “general” (e.g., all first-year

undergraduate) populations, “selective” (e.g.,

students in a transition period or a particular

program) and “referenced” (students who

developed adaptation problems). On the other

hand, prevention and early intervention assume a

very important role since human behavior is greatly

influenced by the meso, exo, and macro contexts,

so an intervention in these contexts can prevent the

emergence of many different problems. Once the

context is modified at any level, teachers, peers,

parents, and others can successfully intervene in

students’ lives, becoming empowered actors in

prevention, intervention, and remediation.

Regarding “effective” treatments, the

ecological model seeks to determine how to

optimize the fit between students' needs and

contextual characteristics, emphasizing context-

30 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

person interactions and the phenomenon’s

complexity. It also encourages professionals to

carry out evaluations and diagnoses in a contextual

manner. Ecologically focused services pay

attention to changes in college, home, and

community contexts to solve student problems and

prevent the dysfunction’s development.

Community psychology (and community

psychologists) can make an important contribution

to this field of primary, secondary, and higher

education intervention with an ecological

perspective, such as the principles of Kelly (2010).

These principles are as follows: interdependence,

which recognizes the multiple interactions and

influences between the various components of a

system; cycling of resources, which is based on

the first law of thermodynamics according to which

all energy is neither destroyed nor created, but is

transferred; adaptation refers to the adjustment

between individuals and social systems as well as

the adjustment of systems to changing conditions;

and succession reflects the evolutionary nature of

social environments with one group replacing

another over time. In fact, these are all dynamic

principles that must be understood in terms of

patterns of interaction and change.

The ecological perspective implies a holistic

view that goes beyond the individual, implying that

“communities are open systems, with several levels

of interdependent analysis and recognizing the

multiple transactions and mutual influence between

individuals and the environments with which they

interact” (Ornelas, 2008, p. 151). We found that the

“medical” approach is still very intrinsic in the

expectations of the various actors across many

different settings. Changing attitudes and

paradigms is something that takes time, but is

possible if we have a medium- and long-term

strategy and objectives, and try to be available and

involve all stakeholders-- students, non-teaching

staff, teachers, and administration-- in our

interventions.

The time spent on individual interventions still

exceeds what would be ideal in the higher

education context (70% on average of the time

available from our staff each month) but the

promotion of projects in which other members of

the educational community have been involved has

shown that we can have interventions early and

more contextualized. As examples, we can hold

group sessions dedicated to Ph.D. students (as

they struggle in “the last kilometer” of their

educational “marathon”) where it is intended to

promote and develop emotional management skills

during this stage of their journey (e.g., fighting

social isolation); information sessions with 3rd-year

undergraduates; running workshops for non-

teaching staff according to the needs presented by

them and in collaboration with the various

departments of the faculty (e.g., training sessions

for non-teaching staff who provide assistance to

students to raise awareness of warning signs);

sessions for students on several psycho-

pedagogical themes (e.g., Educational Special

Needs, Asperger’s syndrome, among others) in

collaboration with various student groups;

extension of training sessions/workshops with

colleagues who work in the various psychological

support offices in higher education institutions in

order to continue to develop skills, deepen

knowledge and debate the challenges that are

posed to professional practice.

References

Albee, G.W. (1999). Prevention, not treatment, is

the only hope. Counseling Psychology

Quarterly, 12, 133-146.

Blos, P. (1979). The adolescent passage:

Developmental issues. New York: International

Universities Press.

Bowlby, J. (1988). Developmental psychiatry

comes of age. The American Journal of

Psychiatry, 145, 1-10.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human

development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press.

Cohen, L., Duberley, J., & Mallon, M. (2004). Social

constructionism in the study of career:

Accessing the parts that other approaches

cannot reach. Journal of Vocational Behavior,

64, 407-422.

Dias, G.F. (2006). Desenvolvimento Psicológico

dos Jovens: Tarefas Desenvolvimentais. In

31 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

Dias, G.F. (Org.), Apoio Psicológico a Jovens

do Ensino Superior: métodos, técnicas e

experiências (pp. 85-108). Lisboa: Ed. ASA.

Erikson, E. H. (1972). Adolescence et crise: La

quête de l'identité. Paris: Flammaion.

Greenleaf, A.T. & Williams, J.M. (2009). Supporting

social justice advocacy: A paradigm shift

towards an ecological perspective. Journal for

Social Action in Counseling and Psychology, 2,

1-14.

Gutkin, T.B. (2009). Ecological school psychology:

A personal opinion and a plea for change. In

T.B. Gutkin & C.R. Reynolds (Eds.), The

Handbook of School Psychology (pp. 463-496).

New York, NY: Wiley.

Gutkin, T.B. (2012). Ecological Psychology:

Replacing the Medical Model Paradigm for

School-Based Psychological and

Psychoeducational Services. Journal of

Educational and Psychological Consultation,

22(1-2), 1-20.

Kelly, J. (2010). Ecological thinking: Four qualities.

Análise Psicológica, 28(3), 389-393.

Ornelas, O. (2008). Psicologia Comunitária. Lisboa:

Fim de Século.

Pinto, J., Faria, L., Pinto, H. & Taveira, M. (2016).

Identificação de necessidades de intervenção

psicológica: um estudo-piloto no ensino

superior português. Psicologia USP, 3(27), 459-

472.

Savickas, M. L. (2001). Toward a comprehensive

theory of career development: Dispositions,

concerns and narratives. In F. T. L. Leong & A.

Barak (Eds.), Contemporary models of

vocational psychology: A volume in honor of

Samuel H. Osipow (pp.295-320). Mahwah, New

Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Schensul, J. & Trickett, E. (2009). Introduction to

Multi-Level Community Based Culturally

Situated Interventions. American Journal

Community Psychology, 43, 232-240.

Prevention and Promotion Edited by Susana Helm and Jackie Ng-

Osorio, University of Hawai’i at Mānoa

The Prevention & Promotion IG column of The

Community Psychologist highlights P&P resources

as well as the P&P work of community psychologist

and allied professionals. We invite submissions

from SCRA members, from people who present on

P&P topics during SCRA and other conferences;

and from leading and emergent scholars, including

students. Please refer your colleagues and friends

in academia and beyond to our interest group and

column. Please email me if you would like to submit

a brief report or if you have resources we may list

here.

Mahalo to my colleague Dr. Jackie Ng-Osorio

for guest co-editing our column this quarter to

highlight an indigenous approach to youth

substance use prevention and community-based

health promotion through the lens of emerging

indigenous scholars. Jackie and I both work on the

Puni Ke Ola (PiKO) project and serve as mentors

for the three emerging scholars whose reflections

are shared here, and with a brief introduction by

Jackie. PiKO is a youth drug prevention program

serving as a state model and is situated on the

island of Molokai where 60% of the total population

identifies as indigenous, and over 80% of school-

aged children identify as indigenous. This set of

submissions is written in Hawai`i’s two official

languages – English and Hawaiian (see Table 1 for

a glossary).

32 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

Pūpūkāhi I Holomua. Unite in Order to

Progress

Written by Jackie Ng-Osorio, University of

Hawai’i at Mānoa, Department of Psychiatry

At the core of communities are their youth.

Statistics in rural areas show higher rates of

substance use and suicide. In Hawai`i this is no

different, especially on the rural islands which

largely excludes O`ahu. On the island of Molokai,

the community saw a problem they wanted to

change – youth substance use. To address the

problem, they created the Puni Ke Ola (PiKO)

program, which uses culture as an intervention.

Therefore, the program utilizes Native Hawaiian

culture and leads haumana through culturally

relevant huakaʻi and hoʻala to share their

experiences and learnings through the use of a

photovoice-inspired pedagogy. The sharing of the

haumana’s thoughts through the hoʻala discussions

and the culminating community event, referred to

as a hōʻike, allows growth to be shown. The

following brief articles share Native Hawaiian

emerging scholars’ perspectives (Adolpho, 2020;

Alden, 2020; Yamane, 2020) on how their personal

experiences as research associates on the PiKO

project have shaped their insights on indigenous

ways of knowing. Rebecka Adolpho earned a BA in

Psychology (2019) and is a current Master of Public

Health student, Nanea Alden earned a BS in

Psychobiology (2019); and Cherry Yamane earned

a BA in Public Health (2018) and will enroll in

graduate school in Fall 2020.

My Huaka`i to Finding Purpose

Written by Rebecka Adolpho, University of

Hawai’i at Mānoa, Department of Psychiatry

and Office of Public Health Studies

I naturally gravitated towards Puni Ke Ola

because it fits me and my idealism so perfectly. We

are taught in research to depersonalize studies to

33 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

avoid biases and control for various factors. But for

me, Puni Ke Ola is as far from impersonal as it

possibly could be. Being a Native Hawaiian,

growing up on Molokai, and being a graduate

student in public health, I have been subject to

many researchers and research projects on both

ends of the research continuum – first as the

researched and then now the researcher.

As a community member, I knew of many

studies that were situated on my island focusing on

diabetes, blood pressure, heart disease, and other

preventable diseases. Molokai has been a prime

place to conduct these studies because of its dense

population of Native Hawaiians (60% total, 80%

youth). As a community member now in western

academia, I have sat in university classrooms while

health professionals presented on studies detailing

all the health disparities and negative aspects of my

community. I knew what they were saying was true

because we were still dying from the very things

these researchers were studying. I also knew there

was more to the story, yet no researcher had taken

the time to find or understand our strengths. These

health inequities associated with Native Hawaiians

were a common part of my daily life, and

minimizing them is what drives my passion. I knew

each study was set with the best intentions, but I

left each class feeling that my community was

unseen or overlooked.

When I found PiKO I found the type of

research I knew I wanted to be a part of. PiKO asks

haumana and the community to build on strengths

that already exist in their daily lives that may be

leveraged to create positive change. It doesn’t ask

the community to change themselves, it simply

asks them to bring to light values and traditions that

are known. PiKO empowers us as indigenous

people. It places our cultural knowledge on the

same level as western academia.

For a long time, I struggled with my place as

an indigenous person in western academia

because I didn’t understand how my Hawaiian

heritage would be valued in a western system. I

honestly believed that to be a successful student

and to succeed in a health career there could be no

space for my Hawaiian identity. I thought I would

have to conform to the western model and

suppress the cultural aspects of my thinking for the

sake of success. PiKO changes that narrative. It

bridges the gap between the cultural knowledge my

community gave me and the western knowledge

the university continues to give me. PiKO didn’t ask

me to choose academia or culture like I feel these

two communities often demand. It allowed me to be

completely whole and in turn, I am able to give

back more of authentic self to my community. As I

move forward in my career, it is my hope that I will

be able to create space for the future kanaka to

thrive in my field - creating space for our indigenous

people to be unapologetically whole.

Huakaʻi through Native Hawaiian

Literature: Place as a Leader

Written by Nanea Alden, University of

Hawai’i at Mānoa, Department of Psychiatry

As a seventh grader, I discovered the

promising field of dentistry. For the next ten years, I

worked assiduously for my dental school

admission. But in the tenth year, as a recent

college graduate and novice dental assistant, I

realized my passions resided in something other

than dentistry. Reluctant to abandon what was

once my dream, I felt lost and uncertain. However,

an opportunity to work with Puni Ke Ola (PiKO) has

reconnected me to my Hawaiian culture and

allowed me to find my new path as an emerging

Hawaiian scholar. My experiences with Hawaiian

youth on Molokai have impelled me to determine

ways youth leadership can promote healthy well-

being. My role in the PiKO project has been to

investigate historical and contemporary Hawaiian

literature for insights into leadership through a

cultural lens.

Historically, chiefs maintained traditional

positions of power with the responsibility to uphold

order and prosperity. The story of ‘Umi describes a

chief who cared for all without discrimination. As he

gained respect for his kind deeds, “an aged kahuna

said, ‘He is wise in caring for a chief as he is doing.

His bones shall live.’” (p. 12, Kamakau, 1961).

34 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

Thus, it was a cultural belief that chiefs could

enhance their mana through pono leadership, such

as sustainable resource management. Actions that

were not pono diminished mana. When a chief did

not lead with pono intentions, they often lost the

right to rule (Crabbe, et al. 2017; Kamakau, 1961).

While chiefs ruled due to their genealogy and

inherited mana, the ability to embody mana was not

exclusive to those of chiefly status. The moʻolelo of

Papa and Wākea named Hawaiian people as the

younger siblings of the kalo and ‘āina. The moʻolelo

instructed that kānaka of all ranks inherited the

responsibility to nurture and care for their elders.

Living in accordance with the cultural instructions of

mālama ‘āina and aloha ‘āina, one actualized their

inherent mana through their connection to land

(Crabbe, et al. 2017).

Today, communities who live by these cultural

precepts demonstrate resilience in the face of

colonization. Na Kuaʻāina by Davianna McGregor

imparts the value of cultural kipuka and the

kuaʻāina who preserve and perpetuate them.

Cultural kipuka are culturally sacred places that

have “withstood destructive forces of change” (p. 7,

2007) perpetuating traditional practices, beliefs,

and ways of life. Once a derogatory term that

regarded rural folk as unsophisticated, the kuaʻāina

of rural Hawaiian communities are now revered for

their intimate connection to land, subsistence

lifestyle, and practice of Hawaiian culture. Kuaʻāina

carry with them old moʻolelo and knowledge that

underline the historical significance and mana of a

place (McGregor, 2007), providing us with the right

tools to care for the land. In return, the land

nourishes us physically, mentally, and spiritually.

Given the deep importance of land to Hawaiian

identity, I cannot ignore the potential of a place as a

leader. Part of being a leader is to pass mana and

‘ike on to others. Moreover, it is a leader’s

responsibility to teach others to lead (Kaulukukui,

2016). The land and ocean have served and

continue to serve as primary sources of learning for

all Hawaiians. Puni Ke Ola, born out of the cultural

kipuka Molokai, immerses youth in culturally

significant places and grows their mana through

experience. Molokai Nui a Hina - Great Molokai,

Child of Hina – describes a land of abundant

resources with a need to be cultivated and

sustained (McGregor, 2007). If Hawaiian youth

have the opportunity to cultivate the land so

important to our culture, they will inevitably cultivate

their minds and values. Just as kalo takes two

years to grow, they will learn that personal growth

takes time and diligence. From the lasting walls of

loko iʻa made of rocks that had been passed over

mountains from person to person, they will

understand the value of hard work and collective

effort.

PiKO is a community-based program with an

influence that reaches beyond the youth who

participate. My experiences with Puni Ke Ola have

solidified my decision to pursue other passions and

anchored me in my Hawaiian ancestry. Equally

important, they confirm the promise of cultural

kipuka to build Hawaiian leaders. As the ‘ōlelo

noʻeau “Mōhala i ka wai ka maka o ka pua” (#2178,

Pukui, 1983) implies, when the land flourishes, the

people flourish.

References

Crabbe, K., et al. (2017). Mana Lāhui Kānaka: Mai

nā kūpuna kahiko mai a hiki i kēia wā.

Honolulu: Office of Hawaiian Affairs.

Kamakau, S.M. (1961). Ruling chiefs of Hawaii.

Honolulu: Kamehameha Schools Press

Kaulukukui, T. (2016). Hulili, Vol. 10. Honolulu:

Kamehameha Publishing

McGregor, D. (2007). Nā Kuaʻāina: living Hawaiian

culture. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

Pukui, M. K. (1983). ʻŌlelo Noʻeau. Honolulu:

Bishop Musuem Press.

ʻIke pono i ka huakaʻi: Our Path is

Clear

Written by Cherry Yolanda Ekelakela Wright

Yamane, (formerly) University of Hawai’i at

Mānoa, Department of Psychiatry

The Hawaiian archipelago includes more than

130 islands spread across 1,500 miles, and

comprises a rich culture that has developed over

hundreds of generations (US Department of

35 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

Commerce, & National Oceanic and Atmospheric

Administration, 2010). Hawaiʻi was a kingdom until

the illegal overthrow in 1893, and became a

republic in 1894. The overthrow remained despite

the Kūʻē Petition of 1897 through which a majority

of Hawaiians opposed the illegal annexation of our

Kingdom to the US (Kameʻeleihiwa, 1992; Silva,

2004; Beamer, 2014). It wasn’t until 1959 that

Hawaiʻi became a US state - decided by majority

votes cast by the non-Native populace.

Colonization did not end with annexation and

statehood. Rather, these events symbolize the

continued, contemporary trauma endured by Native

Hawaiians on all levels of the socioecological

model.

I share our history to highlight the disruption of

our Indigenous ways of being in our homeland to

contextualize what I understood as a Native

Hawaiian growing up in one of the most densely

populated Native Hawaiian communities. Waiʻanae

is recognized as a rural community on Oʻahu, which

prioritizes things differently from the tourist areas of

the island: community over commercialization,

understanding over talking. Like others in my

millennial generation, I have overcome a childhood

which included various forms of abuse -

substances, physical, sexual. My personal

experiences underscore some of the disadvantages

Native Hawaiians endure, and about which we are

subjected to the duress of being labelled under a

statistic or studied through a microscope; colonizing

practices that have become an industry in the

academic world which profits (Anyupa, 2020) from

the disparities of our people. The repercussions of

colonization and cultural trauma is a settler

inheritance (Tallbear, 2016) we did not ask for.

From personal experience, I am here to increase

visibility across generations that we are strong,

passionate, and resilient because we are the

product of our ancestors and of the land.

Being a part of the Puni Ke Ola (PiKO) project

when I was an undergraduate research assistant

helped me build research skills in data

management, data analysis, and systematic

literature reviews (Yamane, et al. 2018). I

developed a profound qualitative research

background that gave me a better understanding of

problems facing my community. I have immersed

myself in the loko iʻa that the haumāna participated

in for their huaka`i, and learned from our respected

cultural practitioners. The connectedness to one

another, to the land, our indigeneity, and cultural

pride was as beneficial to the haumāna as it was

for me. Being alongside my people was invaluable

because it gave me the grounding to hoʻi hou i ka

piko of harnessing my own mana and recognizing

the collective mana we share. Decolonization is not

a metaphor (Tuck and Yang, 2012) and sovereignty

must be centered in all work with Indigenous

communities.

I realized that my skills would be useful in

developing an ‘āina-based program for abuse

survivors to become thrivers, to borrow from Maya

Angelou. I intend to develop a program that would

build on my field experience, and would have a

culture-as-intervention, community-based,

integrated health care approach for survivors of

sexual assault and domestic violence. It will be

centered around the sovereignty of Native

Hawaiians. I intend to start in my community since

my connections here are strong, with the hopes of

expanding these services throughout Hawaiʻi. My

community’s voice and ancestral consciousness

will be privileged. We will advocate for our own

health, even when other practitioners have not

taken the time to listen. Culture-as-intervention

deviates from adapted interventions that utilize a

Hawaiian word and say it’s a Hawaiian intervention.

Instead, look to the source - our kūpuna, to the

kumu in our community whose guidance we seek,

to those who have spent their lifetime helping our

beloved home.

To my sources and foundational supports, I

have shared my story to see if this proposal would

be feasible and necessary for our community. I

expressed my intention that there needs to be

access to our cultural practices, community

unification, as well as trauma-informed psychiatric,

and integrated care since these are not widely

accessible. I have been diligently establishing new

connections to cultural practitioners and kupuna

who maintain our sacred sites to see if they were

36 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

interested in helping to facilitate “talk story”

sessions grounded in the translation of our

indigenous ways of knowing and cultural practices

in connection with the land and our spirituality.

While I have a lot of support, my community

members are aware that academic credentials are

required to lend legitimacy to this work. They have

encouraged me to seek higher education, so I am

enrolling in a graduate program in the fall 2020 so

that I may further develop the necessary academic

skills to help marginalized communities and

ultimately help my Native Hawaiian people survive,

thrive, and invoke our mana.

References

Anyupa. 2020. “Aboriginal disadvantage has

become an industry for many people &

organisations to profit off of the oppression mob

in remote communities. Created jobs for

outsiders to “fix” the problem but no real

community empowerment or emerging

leadership programs. Where’s the change?

Nothing.” Twitter, 20 May 2020. 2:35PM.

https://twitter.com/napangarti/status/126326718

5486516225?s=11

Beamer, K. 2014. No mākou ka mana: Liberating

the nation. Kamehameha Publishing.

Kameʻeleihiwa, L. 1992. Native Land and Foreign

Desires. Bishop Museum Press.

Silva, NK. 2004. Aloha Betrayed: Native Hawaiian

resistance to American colonialism. Duke

University Press.

Tallbear, K. 2016. “ʻVirginity” is a settler inheritance.

Stop shaming our girls with virginity. Make a

world in which they have the power to consent.”

Twitter, 25 July 2016. 5:49PM.

https://twitter.com/kimtallbear/status/757784786

819698688?s=11

Tuck, E. and Yang, K.W. 2012. Decolonization is

not a metaphor. Decolonization: Indigeneity,

Education, and Society. Vol 1, No 1, p 1-40.

US Department of Commerce, & National Oceanic

and Atmospheric Administration. 2010. How did

the Hawaiian Islands form?

https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/hawaii.html

Yamane CYEW, Helm S, Tanqueco R. (2018).

Culture-As-Intervention Approaches to Reduce

Health Disparities Amongst Indigenous

Populations: A Systematized Literature Review.

Poster presented at the Office of Public Health

Studies (OPHS) Undergraduate Summit,

Honolulu, HI. 11/2018.

Public Policy Edited by Amber Kelly, Community

Engagement Collective

The Coronavirus Pandemic: Policy

Implications for Community

Psychologists and Training

Written by Christopher Corbett, Albany, NY

Given the coronavirus pandemic, there could

hardly be a more compelling reminder, or stronger

demonstration, of the profound role of public policy.

It is increasingly clear: public policy decisions made

at all levels, whether international, national,

regional, state, county, city, village or local

neighborhoods, have profound implications for the

public health and welfare.

The tragic consequences of the coronavirus

have gravely impacted the globe, from least

resourced and developing countries, to richest and

most developed. No countries are risk free; all

remain at risk for continued or further outbreaks.

Any disregard for sound public health practices

even at the local street level, endangers fragile

health systems and communities, and threatens the

public welfare. Clearly, current public policies, or

lack thereof, at all levels, expose the public to grave

risks given the connectedness of nations and

communities.

The purpose here is to identify certain

implications for community psychologists (CPs) and

benefits of new CP competencies with a specific

policy focus. It is proposed that expanding CP

competencies at master’s and doctoral levels, with

37 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

specializations in policy, will increase CPs’ capacity

to positively impact health and well-being of all

citizens, a foundational goal of the field (Heller et al.

1984, p. 4). Not only will public policy

specializations increase usefulness and utility of CP

graduate training, but policy specialized

competencies will increase the value proposition of

CP training, and in turn, expand the marketability

and employability of CPs, especially relevant to

government and nonprofit sectors. Both sectors

require public policy expertise. Coupled with

advocacy and intervention skills and related core

competencies, CPs can tailor their interests and

skill sets most compelling to their sector and

employer of choice.

This article proposes that new CP degree

specializations, namely public policy tracks and

certificates, will increase the value proposition of

the field and training in CP. Such offerings stand to

expand the “social action” emphasis of CP theory

and training, as called for by Price and Cherniss

(1977) and Corbett (2012). Secondly, this should

increase employability of master’s and doctoral

degrees by better serving government and

nonprofits who require multi-skilled trained

professionals well suited to successfully navigate

complex and varied public policy related roles.

Expanding CP’s Value Proposition

Through Public Policy and Related

Competencies

Given the foundations of CP, coupled with

training in the core competencies, CPs are well

suited to play critical roles helping communities

both during, as well as post, the coronavirus

pandemic. The evolution of training to identify

specific core competencies (Dalton & Wolfe, 2012),

includes many that prepare CPs to be multi-skilled

professionals critically needed now, and will be

needed in the foreseeable future, even in a post-

pandemic world.

While eighteen core competencies are

identified, several are highly relevant to addressing

current and future community needs beyond the

fundamental Public Policy Analysis, Development

and Advocacy. Other highly relevant competencies

include: Empowerment; Sociocultural and Cross-

Cultural Competence; Ethical Reflective Practice;

Prevention and Health Promotion; Resource

Development; Collaboration and Coalition

Development; Community Education, Information

Dissemination, and Building Public Awareness, and

Program Evaluation (Dalton & Wolfe, 2012; p. 10-

13). These skills in tandem illustrate the potential

power of the value proposition of the graduate

degreed CP, where Public Policy is fundamental

and justifiable as its own dedicated track or

freestanding certificate supplemental to a master’s

or doctoral degree. As noted previously, public

policy intervention fits a community psychology

agenda and an increased emphasis on public

policy and practical skills will substantially expand

and improve the future trajectory and state of the

field (Julian 2009, p. 34). The time is ripe to bolster

CP graduate training with new policy specific

credentials in both track and certificate forms.

Tracks, Certificates or Both?

For CP programs considering policy tracks or

certificates or both, there are advantages of each.

One advantage of a public policy track for master’s

or doctorial programs is the ability for students to

identify interests and core competencies that align

with personal, professional and employment goals

based on electives in their foundational

coursework. A disadvantage of the track approach:

it is limited to existing and future matriculated CP

students.

This illustrates one certificate advantage; it can

be an added competency not only available to

current and future students but as a credential

upgrade, open to all graduates in CP, or related

bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral programs, from any

institution, from any prior years.

Another advantage of a supplemental

certificate: it is highly suited to online offering,

providing flexibility to reach candidates currently

employed, those with day or evening schedule

restrictions, or transportation limitations. Finally,

due to efficiencies for institutions, costs may be

lower, attracting more candidates to support a

certificate program.

38 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

An Illustration

The addition of new policy focused training

opportunities, such as through certificates in public

policy, or through policy tracks, could well meet the

training needs and expectations of policy-oriented

students and also align with employer needs. One

illustration of a policy specialization that would

provide a powerful supplement to basic CP training

would be: Public Policy Advocacy and Intervention

which could be, by certificate, or as an additional

track in new or existing master’s and doctoral level

trainings in CP.

Such a specialization would likely appeal to

government sector organizations as public policy is

integral to government operations at all levels. It

would also likely appeal to nonprofit organizations

where it is well recognized that the sector, at least

in the United States, has neglected its advocacy

role essential for its health and survival (Corbett

2011a). Different combinations of core

competencies could be tailored to meet either, or

both, sectors’ needs.

Potential Policy Roles

There are many Policy roles needed by

government and nonprofit sector employers. One

example is policy research and formulation. This

would include the ability to research various local,

state or national legislation to identify current model

legislation and how it may be adapted or improved.

These skills and abilities serve both government

and nonprofit employers. Another example is the

ability to perform advocacy roles, especially the

ability to lobby in compliance with state and federal

requirements that are often complex. This is often

neglected by nonprofits (Corbett 2011a) and would

satisfy a keen and growing need for increased

advocacy at the federal level, as has become

increasingly apparent from failures by nonprofits to

access the recent multi-trillion dollar stimulus funds,

approved by the federal government in the

aftermath of the coronavirus. Programs could be

tailored to meet students’ specific training and

professional employment goals to obtain the

necessary experience and competence in the

strategies and roles they seek. Such strategies are

many and include: research, media advocacy,

direct lobbying, grassroots lobbying; public events,

judicial advocacy; public education; coalition

building, administrative lobbying, voter registration

and education and expert testimony (Gao & Saxton

2010). Training in these strategies has high

potential value in either, or both, government and

nonprofit organizations, though this will, however,

vary by nonprofit depending upon by-law

requirements and congruence with mission (Corbett

2011a, p. 10).

These strategies enable and empower CPs to

act in a wide variety of roles such as including

policy and legislative research, lobbying, policy

development and policy implementation of federal

or state legislation. Another powerful CP policy role:

all nonprofits should have at least one CP on the

board, with others in management and/or staff

(Fromm Reed 2012, p. 10).

Policy implementation also creates book

publication opportunities due to the broad impact

on the public interest. One example of policy

implementation of federal legislation is described by

Cleveland & Wineburg (2011). Their book details a

case example of a successful university-community

partnership, implementing the American Recovery

and Investment Act of 2009. The book also

demonstrates the successful application of many

related core competencies including: Public Policy

and Advocacy; Empowerment; Community

Inclusion & Partnership; Consultation and

Organizational Development skills; Community

Education; Small and Large Group process skills;

and Resource Development (Dalton & Wolfe, 2012;

Corbett 2011b).

Another example: the implementation of the

Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which legislatively

imposed certain ethical and governance

requirements on all nonprofit organizations in the

U.S. (Jackson & Fogarty, 2005). As detailed by

Corbett (2011c), the implementation of this federal

legislation at the nonprofit level illustrates the

application of various core competencies such as

including: Public Policy; Empowerment; Prevention;

Resource Development; Consultation and

Organizational Development; and Community

Education.

39 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

Another factor supporting book publication: the

policy implementation of legislation, due to its

complexity and with serious implications of force of

law and enforcement, creates grave risks of non-

compliance. This is of great interest to government

officials and regulators, who are responsible to

enforce legislation, as well as nonprofit leaders and

board members legally culpable and exposed to the

consequences of violation, or malfeasance, as

executives of Enron, United Way and American

Red Cross found (Jackson & Fogarty, 2005, p. 2).

This also opens the door to prevention oriented

CPs with policy related solutions by applying CP

principles, and “behavior setting” theory, to prevent

organizational failures (Fromm Reed 2012; Corbett

2011c).

Potential Track and Certificate Content

While further potential course content is

beyond the scope here, there is much policy related

scholarship already created by many SCRA

scholars and fellows, waiting to be tapped. Policy

tracks and certificates could readily be constructed

from many published texts, journal and TCP

articles, workbooks, SCRA session and workshop

materials, including various texts that address

employability of CPs in government and nonprofit

sectors. While not all inclusive, various CP authors

of much policy and employment relevant

scholarship include: Balcazar, F., Campbell, R.,

Cherniss, C., Dalton, J., Ferrari, J., Glantsman, O.,

Howe, S., Jason, L., Langhout, R., Maton, K.,

McMahon, S., O’Donnell, C., Shinn, M., Toro, P.,

Viola, J. and Wolfe, S. to name a few.

Conclusion

Institutions willing to consider adding policy

specific tracks and/or certificates, either on campus

or online, could use these authors and scholars as

a starting point to develop new policy related

credentials, thereby increasing the value

proposition of CP training and the employability of

CPs, especially to meet the urgent needs of both

the government and nonprofit sectors.

References

Cleveland, O. & Wineburg, R. (2011). Pracademics

and community change: A true story of

nonprofit development and social

entrepreneurship during welfare reform.

Chicago: Lyceum.

Corbett, C. (2011a). Increasing public policy

advocacy and influence: A priority whose time

has come. Paper presented at the Annual

Conference of the Association for Research on

Nonprofit

Organizations and Voluntary Action held

November 17-19, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Corbett, C. (2011b). Book Review of Pracademics

and Community Change: A True Story of

Nonprofit Development and Social

Entrepreneurship during Welfare Reform.

Global Journal

of Community Psychology Practice Vol. 1(3), 1-5.

Corbett, C. (2011c). Advancing nonprofit

stewardship through self-regulation: Translating

principles into practice. Sterling, VA.: Kumarian

Press.

Corbett, C. (2012). SCRA’s Golden Opportunity:

Modifying MOOC and Certificate of Mastery

Concepts to evolve CP into a Profession. The

Community Psychologist 45(4), 14-17.

Dalton, J. & Wolfe, S. (2012). Joint Column Core

Competencies. The Community Psychologist.

45(4), 8.

Fromm Reed, S. (Ed.) (2012). Applying community

psychology knowledge in nonprofit settings,

by C. Corbett. The Community Psychologist

45(3), 8-12.

Guo, C. & Saxton, G. (2010). Voice-In, Voice-Out:

Constituent participation and nonprofit

advocacy, Nonprofit Policy Forum, Vol. 1: Iss. I,

Article 5. Available at:

http://www.bepress.com/npf/vol1/iss1/5.

Heller, K., Price, R., Reinharz, S., Riger, S., &

Wandersman, A. (1984). Psychology and

Community Change. Homewood, Illinois: Dorsey

Press.

Jackson, P. M. & Fogarty, T. E. (2005). Sarbanes-

Oxley for Nonprofits. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley.

Julian, D. (Ed.) (2009). The Community

Practitioner. Advocating for Federal Stimulus

Funds to Advance Social Justice: Pursuing

Funding from the American Recovery &

40 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

Investment Act of 2009 by Christopher Corbett.

The Community Psychologist 42(3), 31-34.

Price, R. & Cherniss, C. (1977, May). Training for a

New Profession: Research as Social Action.

Professional Psychology, 222-231.

Regional News Submitted by Regional Coordinators

News from the Midwest Region U.S.

MIDWEST REGIONAL COORDINATOR

Tonya Hall, Chicago State University

Maintaining A Sense of Community in

the Age of a Pandemic

Tonya Hall, Chicago State University

Community psychologists are adept at

facilitating strong collaborations among various

groups within the community with a common goal

of resolving social problems that ail and concern

society. Several months ago, COVID-19 ushered in

an era of social distancing, increased feelings of

isolation, wearing face masks, and quarantining

within our homes often away from our offices,

extended family members, friends, colleagues, and

those receiving assistance. All of which may serve

to hamper not only our sense of community but our

sense of belonging, which could serve to put a

damper on our overall well-being. In-person

conferences where community psychology

academicians, researchers, students, and

community members regularly gather to share and

hone novel ideas, network and socialize almost

seem antiquated as the pandemic barrels into the

future. How are community psychologists to

effectuate change in the current environment

particularly with marginalized groups when

restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic

abound and persist with seemingly no end in sight?

For now, the answer is to utilize, maximize, and

master the tools of online platforms and application

such as GoToMeeting and Zoom to have meetings,

host virtual conferences, and simply stay connected

with one another.

The good news is that whether you reside in

the Midwest or if you live in a different region you

currently have the opportunity to connect with other

SCRA Midwest members in several upcoming

virtual events that you do not want to miss including

the Midwest Eco Community Psychology

conference and the Midwestern Psychological

Association/SCRA conference.

The 44th Midwest Ecological Community

Psychology Conference 2020

The SCRA Midwest U. S. region includes the

following States: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas,

Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, and South

Dakota. For the past several years, Midwest ECO

conferences have primarily been located within the

beautiful Metropolitan area of Chicago, Illinois.

Students from schools such as DePaul University,

University of Illinois, and National Louis University

have often spearheaded the Midwest Eco

conferences and spurred us into action to present

our work often informally, up close and personal,

and followed by supper together. Faculty advisors

have supported students’ efforts by serving as

conference hosts who handled all fiscal matters

and secured conference sites. Well, this year,

SCRA Midwest, we are leaving Chicago in a sense

and heading far north to the Twin Cities! Autumn

Kirkendall, a community psychology graduate

student at the University of Cincinnati and a team of

her peers are working arduously and doing an

excellent job of preparing to host the “Midwest Eco

Conference: Promoting Environmental & Social

Justice through Community Research and Action”

This Midwest Eco Conference will be held

virtually via Zoom on Saturday, October 24, 2020

from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. CST. Although the

conference proposal submission deadline has

passed, stay tuned for conference registration

information on the Midwest Eco conference website

(https://midwesteco2020.wixsite.com/midwesteco2

020) or contact the conference sponsors and

faculty advisors, Dr. August Hoffman at

Metropolitan State University

41 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

([email protected] ) or Dr. Stephen

Stelzner at the College of Saint Benedict St. John’s

University ([email protected]).

The 93rd Annual Midwestern

Psychological Association/SCRA-

Affiliated Conference

The MPA/SCRA annual conference is typically

held for one day at the Palmer House Hilton

Chicago followed by dinner at Exchequer

Restaurant, which received the “Best Chicago Style

Pizza” USA Today award in 2019. This conference

is also scheduled to be held virtually next year on

Friday, April 23, 2021. The conference paper

submission deadline is Wednesday, November 4,

2020. For more information, visit the MPA website

(http://midwesternpsych.org/) or contact Dr.

Michael Bernstein at ([email protected]). If you are

interested in serving as a conference proposal

reviewer, contact Dr. Tonya Hall at

([email protected]) by Friday, October 2, 2020 to

obtain additional details.

SCRA Midwest Regional Coordinator &

Student Coordinator Applications

SCRA Midwest is currently accepting

applications to fill the vacancies for SCRA Midwest

Regional Coordinators (RCS) and SCRA Midwest

Student Regional Coordinators (SRCS). If you are

interested in supporting SCRA, seeing that it

continues to thrive in the Midwest, serving in one of

these roles, and obtaining a job description, contact

Dr. Tonya Hall at ([email protected]) for more

information.

News from the Southeast Region U.S.

SOUTHEAST REGIONAL COODINATORS

Wing Yi Chan, RAND Corporation and Elan Hope,

North Carolina State University

2020 Southeast ECO Conference

Changing Tides: Empowering Communities

& Challenging Systemic Injustice

Georgia State University & Morehouse

College – Online

October 16-17, 2020

This conference is organized by graduate

students. The goal is to share knowledge relative to

community psychology and related fields by

connecting students, researchers, community

members, and scientists to share experiences in an

effort to reduce social inequalities and empower

marginalized communities. These goals are more

salient than ever as public health and social justice

waves awash our communities.

Changing Tides aims to focus first and

foremost on:

1. Individual and Community Wellness

2. Fighting Oppression

3. Reducing Social Inequalities

4. Empowerment.

We believe this is possible by sticking to the values

of Community Psychology (CP):

A. Action-Oriented Research

B. Empirical Grounding

C. Community Collaborations

D. Capacity Building

E. Setting Analysis

Presentations will be mixed recorded and live.

Formats will include presentations (posters, oral,

symposia), discussions (roundtable, mentorship

chats), and additional innovative sessions.

News from the Western Region U.S.

WESTERN REGIONAL COODINATORS

Rachel Hershberg, University of Washington

Tacoma; Erin Rose Ellison, California State

University-Sacramento

Hello from your West Region Coordinators for

the Society for Community Research and Action!

This year, Erin Rose Ellison, California State

University- Sacramento, has joined me, Rachel M.

Hershberg, University of Washington Tacoma, as a

co-coordinator for the region. We want to give a big

thank you to Greg Townley-Portland State

University, for his leadership for several years.

Greg was instrumental in organizing the last two

regional conferences and in bringing folks from our

region together at the last biennial.

42 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

This year, there is no regional SCRA

conference for the West region, but we did want to

alert folks to the conference that will be held by the

Western Psychological Association. Details are

below. Please contact us here

http://www.scra27.org/who-we-are/regional-

activities/western-region/

If there are any events of conferences you

would like folks in our region to be made aware of

or to learn more about our regional work in SCRA.

Thank you!

Rachel M. Hershberg & Erin Rose Ellison

2021 WPA Convention: Submission

Information

The 2021 submission window will open on

October 1, 2020. Submissions will be due by

December 1, 2020.

Thank you for supporting opportunities for

psychology students, and faculty and practitioners,

throughout the West through WPA!

Kris Leppien-Christensen, Ph.D.

Executive Officer

Western Psychological Association

Phone: (855) WPA-INFO (972-4636)

Email [email protected]

News from the International Regions The international Regions include Asia,

Australia/New Zealand/South Pacific, Canada,

Europe/Middle East/Africa, and Latin America

Europe/Middle East/Africa

Regional Coordinators: Serdar

Degirmencioglu, FernUniversitat; José Ornelas,

Instituto Universitário; Catarina Arcidiacono,

Federico II University; Julia Halamova,

Comenius University

We are happy to invite you to the

following joint events:

7th Conference and Workshop in

Community Psychology in Slovakia

2020

The goal of the conference and workshop is to

provide time and space for both researchers and

practitioners from various areas of community

psychology in Europe so they can meet, present

their work and research, inspire each other, and

enjoy socializing together.

Organisation: Institute of Applied Psychology

at Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences at

Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia,

European Community Psychology Association

(ECPA), and The Society for Community and

Action Research (SCRA) Division 27 American

Psychological Association.

Conference and workshop dates: 30th

November - 1st December, 2020 (9.00-16.00)

Conference and workshop language: English

and Slovak (please, prepare your presentation in

English in both cases)

Conference and workshop fees: No fee (free

access)

The proceedings from the conference will be

published in electronic form with ISBN. The

deadline for the submission of the conference

papers is November 8th, 2020

([email protected]) in

order to be reviewed and published online prior the

conference.

The scientific presentations from the

conference are encouraged to be submitted in form

of the articles into Human Affairs journal

https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/humaff

More information:

https://fses.uniba.sk/pracoviska/ustavy/uap/ko

munitna-psychologia-na-slovensku/

http://www.scra27.org/ http://www.ecpa-online.com/

Place: online (please, check your emails prior

the conference)

Contact person: Martina Baránková,

00421911278474,

[email protected]

43 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

Research Council Edited by Chris Keys, DePaul University

Research Scholars: Success and

Selection

Written by Chris Keys, DePaul University

Quick background: The Research Council

was founded in 2017 and decided a good way to

begin supporting community research would be to

help untenured community psychology faculty

enhance their research programs and become

tenured. Such scholars may become tenured

faculty, contribute to community research literature

and mentor future scholars, scholar-practitioners

and practitioners for decades to come.

Success! The SCRA Research

Council is delighted to

congratulate Elan Hope from North

Carolina State University on

achieving promotion to associate

professor with tenure! Elan is a

Research Scholar in the initial

cohort of Scholars selected in

2018.

Selection: The Research Council is happy to

announce the outcome of the 2020-2022 cycle of

recruitment, review, and selection of Research

Scholar applicants. In winter 2020, the SCRA

Executive Committee (EC) committed a total of

$5,000 to support two Scholars. In addition to

financial support for two Scholars, all Scholars

receive mentoring assistance from one or more

accomplished senior researchers in community

psychology or related field. Scholars also provide

mutual support and engage in professional

development sessions on regular basis. After

carefully reviewing the number of diverse, talented

applicants, the Council members selected the

following five very promising assistant professors in

community psychology doctoral programs or

doctoral programs including community psychology

for this the third cohort of SCRA Research

Scholars.

To introduce the readers of The Community

Psychologist to this cohort of Research Scholars,

here are brief biographies of each Scholar and a

short account of their plans as a Research Scholar.

We wish each scholar great success in her

research in particular and academic career in

general!

Meeta Banerjee

Dr. Meeta Banerjee is an

Assistant Professor in the

Clinical-Community program at

the University of South Carolina.

During her postdoctoral program,

she was an International Jacobs

Pathways fellow and a NIH

minority postdoctoral fellow at

the University of Michigan in the

Institute for Social Research. She received her

Ph.D. in Ecological Community Psychology with a

specialization in Applied Developmental Science

from Michigan State University. Dr. Banerjee’s

research examines the interaction between

ecological contexts (e.g., schools, families,

neighborhoods, communities, racial discrimination)

and parenting practices. She is interested in how

these processes directly and indirectly influence

psychosocial and educational outcomes in African

American/Black and Latinx communities. Dr.

Banerjee uses mixed methods to examine explicitly

how race-related processes in the family (e.g.,

parental ethnic-racial socialization, youth’s ethnic-

racial socialization practices, parents’ racial

identities) influence ethnic minority youth.

Dr. Banerjee hopes to accomplish three goals

as a Research Scholar. First, begin to develop and

procure research partnerships with community-

based partners. Relocating to South Carolina, Dr.

Banerjee finds it important to begin developing

partnerships with community stakeholders and

leaders as well as foster research collaborations

with community psychology faculty in the

surrounding areas. Second, Dr Banerjee hopes to

Meeta Banerjee

Elan Hope

44 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

establish multi-year funding from both national

institutions and foundations such as, National

Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation,

W. T. Grant, and Spencer Foundation. Finally, Dr.

Banerjee hopes to learn qualitative methodologies

such as PhotoVoice to begin to develop a deeper

understanding of race-related factors in African

American/Black and Latinx children and youth. Dr.

Banerjee’s underlying goal is to move the field

forward in reducing health and mental health-

related disparities for both African American/Black

and Latinx communities. Dr. Banerjee is currently

receiving mentorship for the SCRA Research

Scholar program from Dr. Bret Kloos of the

University of South Carolina and Dr. Emilie P.

Smith of Michigan State University. She is excited

to be a SCRA Research Scholar and looks forward

to receiving guidance from her mentors within the

field of Community Psychology.

Natalie Kivell

Natalie’s research program is

participatory, action-oriented,

and community-based. She

employs critical methodologies

to advance the theoretical and

empirical foundations of the

phenomena and process of

social transformation. Natalie’s

interests include: building and

applying critical social theory and

participatory and critical methodologies; challenging

epistemic authority and violence through the de(re)-

centering of knowledge(s); and engaging in and

studying intersectional social movements. Her

research is grounded in an anti-racist and anti-

oppressive praxis, actively building a culture of

inclusion for students – opening space for students

from historically marginalized communities to see

(and create) a space for themselves in her lab, at

WLU, and in CP more generally. In her position at

WLU, she is co-director of the Access and Equity

Lab with Dr. Ciann Wilson.

Natalie will be working with two mentors

during her SCRA Scholar appointment – Dr.

Urmitapa Dutta of the University of Massachusetts

Lowell and Dr. Regina Langhout of the University of

California, Santa Cruz. These two critical scholars,

each inspiring so much of Natalie’s work, will

support Natalie’s development of accessible and

actionable publications from a critical perspective.

They will help her to navigate translating critical

methodologies into publications and grant

applications.

Mariah Kornbluh

Mariah Kornbluh is an

Assistant Professor in

Clinical-Community

Psychology at the

University of South

Carolina. She earned a

Ph.D. in Ecological-

Community Psychology from Michigan State

University and held a postdoctoral position at the

University of Wisconsin-Madison in the School of

Human Ecology. Dr. Kornbluh is committed to

elevating the voices of young people by

democratizing research through youth-led

participatory action research methods (YPAR) and

efforts to bolster social capital. She explores how

young people develop critical consciousness (i.e.,

understandings of social inequalities, agency to

work towards social change, and participation in

social change efforts). In particular, she is

interested in how perceptions of inequality and civic

identity impact young peoples’ health, well-being,

and learning. Her research has been funded by the

State of California, Spencer Foundation, the SCRA

Policy Council, and the SCRA Council on

Educational Programs. During this year as a

Research Scholar, Dr. Kornbluh plans to enrich and

build upon emerging community partnerships, as

well as secure multi-year grant funding. Dr.

Kornbluh will continue to work towards connecting

with stakeholders and young people that serve

children and adolescents to form long-term

partnerships in South Carolina. Specifically, she

hopes to employ mixed methods to explore the role

of social capital networks, civic participation, and

critical consciousness in informing intervention

design and development. Dr. Gabriel Kuperminc of

Georgia State University will serve as her primary

mentor. For more information on her recent

Mariah Kornbluh

Natalie Kivell

45 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

research, and the Youth Empowerment in School

and Systems Lab see: https://yesslab.com/ or

follow @KornbluhMariah.

Delphine Labbé

Delphine Labbé (twitter:

@labbedel) is an assistant

professor in the Disability and

Human Development

Department at the University

of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).

Originally from Montreal

(Canada), she completed her

PhD in community

psychology at the Université

du Québec à Montreal. Her postdoctoral fellowship

was at the University of British Columbia in

Vancouver in the Department of Occupational

Science and Occupational Therapy. Given her

interdisciplinary background, Dr. Labbé’s research

focuses on promoting full participation and health of

people living with disabilities by better

understanding the person-environment interaction

and developing interventions to create inclusive

communities. Her main areas of interests are

developing accessible cities and creating health-

promoting interventions through adaptive leisure

and recreational physical activity. Using

community-based research, she is deeply

committed to creating knowledge and interventions

with people with disabilities and relevant

stakeholders from different sectors (e.g. municipal,

health care) in all aspects of her research

(https://ahs.uic.edu/disability-human-

development/directory/labbe-delphine/).

Delphine Labbé’s Research Scholar main goal

is developing her research program in health

promotion for people with disabilities, including

honing her grant-writing skills for the US context.

She also wishes to develop her network in

community psychology. Her mentor is Dr. Yolanda

Suarez-Balcazar, the head of the Occupational

Therapy Department at UIC as well as an affiliated

professor in the Disability and Health Department.

Dr. Suarez-Balcazar has expertise in health

promotion of Latino families with children with

disabilities as well as a double lens of expertise in

disability studies and community psychology. Her

talents will help Dr. Labbé to better understand the

American context of disability, grant writing and

building community collaborations. Dr Labbé’s also

seeks to extend her research program to conduct

intersectionality studies on health promotion needs

of people with disabilities that experience other

discrimination or limitations because of their ethnic

background, their gender or their immigration

status. Dr. Labbé also hopes that she will be able to

exchange with the other SCRA Research Scholars

for their perspectives to develop her research

program.

Vanessa Volpe

Dr. Vanessa Volpe is an

Assistant Professor in the

Applied Social and

Community Psychology

program in the Department

of Psychology at North

Carolina State University

and director of the Black

Health Lab

(@Blackhealthlab). She earned her PhD at the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As an

applied community health psychologist, her

program of research centers on systems of

oppression as social determinants of racial health

disparities in the United States. It explores the ways

in which Black and Latinx communities actively

resist and protect themselves against these

systems. She aims to use critical strengths- and

community-based contextual approaches to use the

knowledge gleaned from research as the

springboard for healing programming and policy.

Over the course of the Research Scholar

appointment, Dr. Volpe will develop and investigate

a local Black community-centered, strengths-based

coalition to address the health impacts of online

structural racism. The end-goal of this research is

the collaborative development of a systems-level

intervention and/or policy recommendations. She

also hopes to use this investigation as a

springboard for large-scale grant funding

applications in collaboration with communities. Dr.

Volpe will work with her mentor, Dr. Branda Nowell,

Vanessa Volpe

Delphone Labbé

46 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

organizational-community psychologist and

Professor in the School of Public and International

Affairs at North Carolina State University, to solidify

her training in coalition-building, systems-level, and

CBPR approaches and engage in career trajectory

and funding planning.

You can contact Dr. Volpe at

[email protected] and follow her on Twitter

@DrVanessaVolpe. Learn more about her and the

Black Health Lab at

https://sites.google.com/view/black-health-lab

Rural Interests Edited by Susana Helm, University of

Hawai’i at Mānoa

The Rural IG column of The Community

Psychologist highlights rural resources as well as

the work of community psychologist and allied

professionals in their rural environments. We invite

submissions from Rural IG members, from people

who present on rural topics during SCRA and other

conferences, and from leading and emergent rural

scholars.

In this TCP issue we are featuring Kenneth

Polishchuk from the APA Advocacy office where he

serves as Senior Director for Congressional &

Federal Relations. We asked Kenneth to elaborate

on his May 2020 brief entitled Advocating for Equity

in Internet Access for Students Learning from

Home, circulated by our APA colleague, Javier

Aquino at the Rural Health Network. Kenneth’s

article builds on our column in the last issue

featuring rural demographic trends and

socioeconomic impacts of the pandemic in Rural

America (Carson, TCP 53-2). Below Kenneth refers

to rural population statistics. For an in-depth

discussion of how rural populations are defined and

counted, please see TCP Rural IG column 53-2

(Rizzo, et al 2019). Kenneth focuses on access, a

long-standing issue in rural health (see TCP 47-3,

Rural column).

Closing the Digital Education Divide

in Response to COVID-19

Written by Kenneth Polishchuk, Senior

Director for Congressional and Federal

Relations Advocacy, American

Psychological Association

For a variety of

reasons, distance

education has not risen

to the challenges of

meeting current

educational needs

(Hobbs & Hawkins,

2020). New data show

that about 15 to 16

million students, and as

many as 400,000 teachers, lack adequate access

to the internet and/or devices (Chandra, Chang,

Day, Fazlullah, Liu, McBride, Mudalige, & Weiss,

2020). Furthermore, in many areas, teachers lack

experience with remote learning; parents do not

have the additional time to devote towards their

children’s studies; or students simply have not

logged on (Educators for Excellence, 2020).

Significant disparities exist in access to technology

and broadband connectivity, which is particularly

pernicious for the most vulnerable students, many

of whom require accommodations in ordinary times,

including those with disabilities, in foster-care, or

living in poverty. This is further exacerbated across

the urban-rural divide.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau,

approximately 13 percent of U.S. households with

children live in rural areas. Among them, 1.7 million

households, or two out of every five families, do not

have high-speed internet service at home. This

equates to 37 percent of rural students without a

home broadband connection compared to 25

percent in suburban households and 21 percent in

urban areas, with the greatest disparities existing in

rural southern and southwestern states (Perrin,

2019). At the same time, just 27 percent of rural

Kenneth Polishchuk

47 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

school districts set expectations on how to provide

remote instruction during COVID-19, as compared

to 51 percent of urban districts (Gross & Opalka,

2020).

These are all factors contributing to learning

loss and further increasing the risk that millions of

students will have large gaps in educational

attainment, impacting their preparation for a lifetime

of learning and employment. Preliminary research

already is bearing this out. The average student

could begin the next academic year having fallen

behind academically by as much as seven months

(Dorn, Hancock, Sarakatsannis, & Viruleg, 2020;

Kuhfeld, Soland, Tarasawa, Johnson, Ruzek, & Liu,

2020). These losses are expected to be greater for

minority and low-income children (Chetty,

Friedman, Hendren, Stepner, et al., 2020), further

widening racial and socioeconomic achievement

gaps. Black and Latinx students could experience

learning losses up to an equivalent of 10 months.

As state budgets shrink and school districts

struggle to address a range of challenges

associated with both returning students to the

classroom and maintaining effective remote

learning options, the federal government will need

to step in to provide further support. The Federal

Communications Commission’s (FCC) E-Rate

Program is a longstanding, bipartisan, universal

service program that provides annual discounts for

broadband and Wi-Fi to K-12 public and private

schools and public libraries. The FCC E-Rate

Program may be the most expeditious, efficient way

to close connectivity gaps and meet currently

growing needs.

The American Psychological Association

(APA) has called on Congress to provide at least

an additional $4 billion for E-Rate in a forthcoming

COVID-19 relief package. This would increase

connectivity for students in rural, urban, and tribal

communities. Additionally, to address broadband

disparities among low-income college students,

APA is advocating for the inclusion of the

Supporting Connectivity for Higher Education

Students in Need Act (H.R. 6814/S. 3701) in any

coronavirus-related legislation. This bill authorizes

a $1 billion higher education emergency relief fund

to support Historically Black Colleges and

Universities (HBCU), Hispanic-serving institutions,

tribal colleges, and other institutions of higher

education serving large numbers of Pell Grant

recipients.

Although these actions will not fully address

the scope of the challenges before us, they are

critical to ensuring equitable learning opportunities

to all students—irrespective of racial or

socioeconomic status—and helping to mitigate

increasing achievement gaps among traditionally

underserved populations, including students in rural

communities.

Reducing education disparities and promoting

health equity are among APA’s advocacy priorities

developed by the APA Advocacy Coordinating

Committee with input from the APA membership.

To keep informed about APA’s federal and state

advocacy activities, sign up to receive APA’s

Washington Update or join the Psychology

Advocacy Network to receive calls to action.

References

American Enterprise Institute. (2020). How parents

are navigating the pandemic: A comprehensive

analysis of survey data. Retrieved from:

https://www.aei.org/multimedia/how-parents-

are-navigating-the-pandemic-a-comprehensive-

analysis-of-survey-data/.

Chandra S, Chang A, Day L, Fazlullah A, Liu J,

McBride L, Mudalige T, Weiss, D, (2020).

Closing the K–12 digital divide in the age of

distance learning. San Francisco, CA: Common

Sense Media. Boston, Massachusetts, Boston

Consulting Group.

Chetty R, Friedman JN, Hendren N, Stepner M, et

al. (2020). Real-time economics: A new

platform to track the impacts of COVID-19 on

people, businesses, and communities using

private sector data. Harvard Kennedy School.

Retrieved from:

https://opportunityinsights.org/wp-

content/uploads/2020/05/tracker_paper.pdf.

Dorn E, Hancock B, Sarakatsannis J, & Viruleg J.

(2020). COVID-19 and student learning in the

United States: The hurt could last a lifetime.

McKinsey & Company, June 1, 2020. Retrieved

48 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

from:

https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-

sector/our-insights/covid-19-and-student-

learning-in-the-united-states-the-hurt-could-last-

a-lifetime.

Educators for Excellence. (2020). Voices from the

virtual classroom 2020: A survey of America’s

teachers on COVID-19-related education

issues. Retrieved from:

https://e4e.org/sites/default/files/voices_from_th

e_virtual_classroom_2020.pdf.

Gross, B. & Opalka, A. Too Many Schools Leave

Learning to Chance During the Pandemic. June

2020. Center on Reinventing Public Education.

Retrieved from:

https://www.crpe.org/sites/default/files/final_nati

onal_sample_brief_2020.pdf.

Hobbs TD & Hawkins, L. (2020). The results are in

for remote learning: It didn’t work. The Wall

Street Journal, June 5, 2020. Retrieved from:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/schools-

coronavirus-remote-learning-lockdown-tech-

11591375078.

Kuhfeld M, Soland J, Tarasawa B, Johnson A,

Ruzek E, & Liu J. (2020). Projecting the

potential impacts of COVID-19 school closures

on academic achievement.

(EdWorkingPaper: 20-226). Retrieved from

Annenberg Institute at Brown University:

https://doi.org/10.26300/cdrv-yw05.

Perrin, A. Digital Gap between Rural and Nonrural

America Persists. Pew Research Center. May

31, 2019. Retrieved from

www.pewresearch.org/fact-

tank/2019/05/31/digital-gap-between-rural-and-

nonrural-america-persists/.

Self Help and Mutual Support

Interest Group Edited by Thomasina Borkman, George

Mason University and Ronald Harvey,

American University in Bulgaria

New Beginnings: The 40-Year

Journey of a Self-Help Support Group

Written by Carol Randolph, New Beginnings

[The founder Carol Randolph of New

Beginnings (NB) will tell her narrative (story) of how

the group evolved over the last 41 years in two

parts. This first part describes the origin and early

years when major activities and procedures were

developed. NB began in the late 1970s when

divorce in the United States was relatively rare,

stigmatized, and often unsupported by family and

friends. The second part will deal with formal

organizing and the impact of the internet on NB]

I had been separated 15 months after a two-

year marriage with no children when I started New

Beginnings (NB) in 1979. All the existing support

groups at that time were for single parents. People

without kids supposedly didn’t need support:

“You’re lucky,” people would say to me. But I didn’t

feel lucky. At 27, my dreams of a family had fallen

into a black hole, my map of the world was in

pieces, and I needed to know that someone

understood.

I went to a discussion of a book about learning

to be single again. I could barely focus on what

anyone was saying because I was fascinated by

the other people there–men too! How did their

marriage end? Why did it end? How long were they

married? If I knew what happened to them, I could

somehow make sense of what happened to me.

The community of others felt so good.

A co-worker, also separated about a year, after

a 22-year marriage, with two children, began

answering personal ads in the Washingtonian

Magazine. This was before the Internet, cell phones

or widespread use of computers. I noticed that

49 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

many of the authors were separated or divorced.

What if instead of looking for one person, they

could all get together and talk? So, on a lark, I

drafted an ad and threw it on my friend’s desk. She

said, “Let’s do it,” and NB was born.

Our 3-line ad appeared in the Sept 1979 issue

of the Washingtonian: “Separated? Informal group

forming for discussion, outings, mutual support.”

Nine people attended the first meeting on October

3. Five more attended the second meeting on

October 17. From diverse backgrounds and a

range of ages but united in the shared experience

of a marital separation, they talked about what they

wanted in a support group–how often to meet,

where to meet, how to structure the meeting, what

was the purpose.

At first, we had two discussion meetings a

month, always held in someone’s home: one in

Northern Virginia (also a suburb of Washington, D.

C.) and one in Maryland/DC. Many people drove to

wherever the meeting was. One person drove 74

miles one way and back, an hour and 20 minutes

each way. Meetings had topics–a list that has now

grown to over 80–and agendas with suggested

questions. Having an outline for a meeting became

more important as we increased the number of

meetings per topic. It guaranteed a modicum of

consistency among meetings of the same topic,

even allowing for variations in group make-up.

Topics were also a way of limiting group size as the

organization grew. Each month had at least one

topic for people in the first year of separation

(Anger, Aloneness, Emotional Craziness) and one

for people farther down the road who were starting

to date and establish new relationships (Trust &

Risk, Beginning to Begin to Date). We also had a

number of topics dealing with personal growth

issues (What I’ve Learned From My Divorce,

Communicating with the Opposite Sex).

Early on, we added expert speakers–people

from the professional community who could talk in

more depth or add special insight to a topic:

financial planners, attorneys, counselors, or a travel

agent knowledgeable about vacationing as a single.

At our peak in the mid-1990’s, we were running

42 discussion meetings/month on six different

topics and two speakers/month, one in Virginia and

one in Maryland/DC. We often had a Maryland and

Virginia meeting on the same night. If response to

one was especially large, and the host could

accommodate two separate meetings, we pulled in

another facilitator and ran an “upstairs/downstairs”

meeting.

A big part of adjusting to a new life as a single

person is learning how to make friends and interact

as just YOU, not half of a couple. Social events like

parties, potluck dinners and picnics helped

members do that while also building a support

network.

We had our first weekend retreat, a camping

trip, in July 1982. For the next 22 years, we had five

weekend retreats a year—one for each season plus

a Ski Weekend. We had two trips to Cancun (1984,

1991) and one cruise (1993). Monthly Dinner &

Movie Nights began in September 2002.

NB has always been a coed group although

probably 60% of participants are female. Same-

sex groups—especially for divorce—can be

valuable to build confidence and strengthen

resolve, but they can also foster a climate where—

implicitly or explicitly—the opposite sex becomes

the target for blame. If even one member of the

opposite sex is present, the inclination to bash the

other is tempered. It is a powerful lesson in

humanity to see that both genders are capable of

wanting the marriage to work and that both

experience the same disappointments and

betrayals. This goes a long way in helping people

move past the anger and pain to a place of healing.

I facilitated all the meetings, but once we hit

seven meetings/month, even I knew I needed help.

A small group of us took the facilitator training

offered by the Washington Ethical Society for their

discussion groups. We soon realized that we

needed training specific to NB, so in 1983 we hired

a consultant to help us design such a program.

That same model is used today. It includes a

written application, 16-hour weekend training

running mock discussions, co-facilitating actual

meetings and quarterly refreshers on specific skills.

All our discussion meetings have ground

rules, and they are repeated at the beginning of

50 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

every meeting. I believe very strongly in ground

rules. They establish boundaries, and that

reassures participants by creating a safe space.

When participants know what is allowed and what

isn’t, it is easier to intervene if someone strays from

personal experience or tends to talk too long. Our

ground rules are: (1) Speak from personal

experience, using *I* statements; (2) Speak briefly,

so everyone has a chance to talk; (3) One person

talks at a time; (4) No side conversations; (5)

Silence is okay—we are glad you are here.

The one about *I* statements is the most

important. It keeps people from giving advice–

statements that always begin with “You should.”

Even though motivated by a desire to help, *you*

statements will not be heard by someone who isn’t

ready to hear them. What we can hear is how

someone else approached the same problem; then

we can make our own decisions about possible

solutions. *I* statements also prevent personal

attacks and generalizations.

From time to time, someone asks about a

ground rule of confidentiality. We have no way to

enforce such a rule, and it might even be counter to

our goal as a support group. Someone could talk at

a meeting about something they are struggling with,

and another person at that meeting might want to

tell another member who shares that same

struggle. Everyone in the group has always

understood and honored the purpose of the group.

In the beginning, there were no fees or

membership dues. The host provided refreshments

as an out-of-pocket donation. I prepared a monthly

newsletter that was mailed to anyone who wanted

it. I used the copier at work to print it. We asked

people to donate stamps; some people gave a lot,

some gave none; it was impossible to keep track.

We didn’t know we were starting an

organization. A lot of things along the way would’ve

been easier if we had. The group kept growing, as

did the work (and costs) to support it. Our table at a

Self-Help Fair in the fall of 1980 produced a list of

150 names to add to our mailing list. It was clear to

me that we needed a formal structure—

nonprofit/corporate status, membership dues and

meeting fees—so we could focus our energies on

the active participants. My friend preferred to keep

the group small, serving only our needs. I didn’t see

how we could do that. Perhaps at that point, I had a

glimpse of the possibilities. On this issue, we parted

company. [Part 2 will describe the process of

developing a nonprofit organization, mission

statement, and how the internet affected NB].

I use the terms “self-help group” and “support

group” interchangeably. NB is a self-help group in

that we give people the TOOLS to cope, but people

have to pick them up and USE them. It is a support

group in that it offers a community of others who

understand. There is so much that People Who

Haven’t Been Through It don’t get. This is true of

any support group. The first time someone enters

a room full of others coping with the same life crisis

can be a heady experience akin to coming home. It

is as if you have left the foreign country of strangers

outside and have finally found people who speak

your language. Not only do they understand what

you are talking about, they share some of the same

experiences: “Oh, yes, that happened to me!” “I did

that too.”

I am continually in awe of this simple process

that enables total strangers to share intimate details

of their lives. I firmly believe that talking to others,

face-to-face, with a trained facilitator to encourage

the expression of deep feelings, is one of the best

resources for coping with any life crisis.

51 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

Student Issues Edited by Camilla Cummings, DePaul

University

SCRA Transitions

Written by Jessica S. Saucedo, Michigan

State University

Hello to all SCRA members!

Before I introduce myself and

my goals as a student

representative, I would like to

acknowledge the land that I

currently occupy, which is now

known as East Lansing, Michigan.

The following statement was

written and approved to be

published in printed material by the American

Indian and Indigenous Studies program at Michigan

State University (MSU).

I acknowledge that MSU occupies the

ancestral, traditional, and contemporary Lands

of the Anishinaabeg – Three Fires Confederacy

of Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi peoples. In

particular, the University resides on Land ceded

in the 1819 Treaty of Saginaw. I recognize,

support, and advocate for the sovereignty of

Michigan’s twelve federally recognized

American Indian nations, for historic Indigenous

communities in Michigan, for Indigenous

individuals and communities who live here now,

and for those who were forcibly removed from

their Homelands. By offering this Land

Acknowledgement, I affirm Indigenous

sovereignty and will work to hold MSU [and

SCRA] more accountable to the needs of

American Indian and Indigenous peoples.

It is important that we be mindful of the past

and present history of colonialism, reflect upon the

land we occupy, and be intentional in our actions to

be supportive of Indigenous and all people.

I am delighted to have been voted into the

student representative position, as this opportunity

allows me to amplify student voices on the SCRA

Executive Committee (EC), work towards

reparations and justice in my role on the EC, and

opportunities to develop professionally. I am

currently pursuing my PhD in Ecological

/Community Psychology at MSU and completed my

undergraduate studies in Psychology at California

State Polytechnic University, Pomona. I am

#CSUmade! My research interests broadly include

addressing community-identified health disparities

among Native American, Indigenous, and Latinx

communities through prevention, intervention, and

evaluation. My current work explores Native culture

and language as buffers against obesity among 2-

to 4-year old children enrolled in Tribal Head Start

programs across the United States.

In the process of writing my letter of intent of

running for the position, it was a priority for me to

think critically about how I can meet the needs of

national and international undergraduate and

graduate students. Since submitting my letter of

intent, many events—internal and external to

SCRA—have occurred that have impacted how I

view my role as a student representative on the

SCRA EC. With that being said, my goals since

writing my letter of intent have become more

specific. As a first-generation, Chicana student who

comes from a low-income family, I find it extremely

important to intentionally uplift the lives of Black,

Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), as well

as those with additional identities, into all spaces

and conversations. While having the lives of BIPOC

colleagues across the United States and

internationally in mind, my goals for the next two

years:

• Work closely with SCRA members and the EC

to establish a sustainable, positive racial

climate within the organization. A top priority of

mine is to assist in working towards

organizational racial healing to foster

sustainable positive racial relations.

• Amplify undergraduate and graduate student

priorities while working with the EC. I hope to

organize virtual meetings for students to share

their challenges in and out of SCRA with

Camilla and me. The information shared will

help inform Camilla and I advocate for solutions

students seek. It is important for students to be

Jessica Saucedo

52 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

included and feel that their involvement in

SCRA is acknowledged, valued, and taken into

account by the organization and its members.

• Increase the visibility of community psychology

among undergraduate students by connecting

and collaborating with undergraduate student

organizations at various universities, with and

without community psychology programs.

Before applying to graduate school, I had not

heard of community psychology if it wasn’t for

my mentor. Thank you, Dr. Morales! With that

said, it is important that undergraduate students

be presented the opportunity to learn more

about our field sooner rather than later. As

Camilla, the second-year student

representative, once told me, “Just because

there isn’t a community psychology program at

a school does not mean there aren’t students

doing community work.” Thanks, Camilla!

• Facilitate creating a stronger SCRA student

community. In addition to hosting events where

students can share their challenges, I hope to

organize virtual community-building events

where students have an opportunity to extend

their networks, get to know each other, receive

communal support, and celebrate professional

and personal wins.

• Advocate for transparency of all actions and

processes that occur at all levels. SCRA is an

organization that remains active and prospers

through the support of its members, all

members should have accessibility to actions

and decisions conducted by the organization.

• Continue the work of my predecessors and

promote initiatives to support student travel

grants and thesis and dissertation awards. It is

immensely important that students are

supported to develop professionally through

attending conferences, and SRs can have a

role in reducing barriers for students.

My outlined goals align well with the work Joy

and Camilla have focused on achieving during their

tenure. I plan to continue the good work Joy and

Camilla have done, while emphasizing the

importance of elevating the needs of BIPOC

students and colleagues.

I am immensely thankful for Camilla for being

wonderful to work with from the start. I think we will

work well together to support students throughout

the year. I am also thankful for my colleague and

friend, Tatiana Elisa Bustos, for her continuous

encouragement to step out of my comfort zone

since my first day in graduate school. Lastly, I am

thankful for the opportunity to serve SCRA student

members through collaboration with the EC.

SCRA is a great organization with a great

vision: “[It] will have a strong, global impact on

enhancing well-being and promoting social justice

for all people by fostering collaboration where there

is division and empowerment where there is

oppression.” I look forward to supporting the vision

of SCRA and advocating for all student members,

especially BIPOC students. It is of utmost

importance for both Camilla and I to hear from

students, so please feel free to connect with one of

us. As student representatives, we want to listen to

students’ ideas, concerns, comments, and

questions!

SCRA Transitions: Aligning with our

Values

Written by Joy Agner, University of Hawai‛i

at Mānoa

Dear SCRA Community,

For the past two years

I have served as one of the

SCRA Student

Representatives (SR)

alongside two impressive,

compassionate,

hardworking, justice-oriented students: Erin Godly-

Reynolds and Camilla Cummings. As I transition

out of this role I would like to share a bit about what

Iʻve come to appreciate about SCRA, my

accomplishments as a SR, and my hopes for our

organization in the future, specifically in terms of

addressing student wellness and ableism.

One of the highlights of this postion has been

getting to know SCRA students from around the

country and around the world. I am consistently

impressed by the academic and social justice work

that students complete despite the multiple

Joy Agner

53 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

constraints of being a graduate student. When I

began, my main goal was to increase resources for

SCRA students in the form of research and travel

funding. In collaboration with fellow SRs, I

successfully advocated to raise the award amount

for student research and travel grants, increase the

number of grants, and amended the reimbursement

process to make it less onerous for students who

receive the awards to collect the funds. In total, we

oversaw the allocation and disbursment of $13,000

to 26 SCRA students for research or conference

travel. Other SR duties included serving as The

Community Psychologist editor for the student

column, advocating for students on the executive

committee (EC), hosting student-focused events,

and soliciting student feedback and sharing it with

SCRA. Communicating with students, and meeting

with many of them at the Biennial, engergized me

and filled me with hope and optimism for the future

of our field. As an SR I learned that funding for

student grants has consistently been one of the

largest budget items for SCRA. This indicates a

commitment to contribute to student growth.

While acknowledging that commitment, I would

like to encourage greater attention within SCRA to

structural factors that impact student health and

wellness. It’s no secret that graduate students

suffer poor psychological and physical health

outcomes. Students are in relatively low power

positions with chronic stress. Many juggle mutiple

responsibilities as a parent or caregiver and

student, or work multiple jobs outside their

department in order to survive. Some have no

health insurance or sick leave. Some have harmful

or abusive mentors and little or no options for safe

grievance processes. Nearly all experience fiancial

insecurity based on meager student wages, and for

some, this leads to housing and food insecurity.

Students are responding to these inequities

around the country and around the world by

attempting to unionize, striking, and truly putting

themselves at risk for retribution. The potential

impacts of backlash are higher for students of color,

those with chronic conditions or who are living in

poverty, women, first-generation students, and low-

income students. Therefore, SCRA leaders,

particularly senior scholars and practitioners who

have higher power and security, should be at the

forefront of movements to support student on a

meaningful scale. If we make structural changes

within our own professional organization,

departments and universities (e.g. opportunities for

collective bargaining, meaningful grievance policies

for abusive situations, etc.) and promote cultures

that enhance wellness within academic

departments, we will have been successful as a

field. Otherwise, we will tout a set of values that we

are not actualizing in the places where we have the

most power and influence – our own departments

and professional organization.

Through my position as an SR I have also

become aware of ableism within our organization,

and I hope to see a serious attempt to address it in

the future. In the last Biennial feedback survey,

several students raised concerns about

accessibility. Navigation between buildings, visual

accessibility of slides, auditory acessibility during

presentations and mobility during lunch and poster

sessions were all raised as issues by students.

When I shared these findings with the disability

listserv I received responses from members who

had stopped attending Biennials due to the lack of

accessibility. Despite our stated attention to

diversity and value for inclusion, there are people

within our organization who still cannot physically

access our conferences. This is a major issue that

is solveable and inexcusable in 2020.

I raise these issues because I see SCRA as an

intellectual and professional community that I want

to be a part of, and I think we can do better. My

time on the EC has made me believe in the

potential of this organization, but serving in this role

was emotionally challenging and stressful at times.

While serving as an advocate, I also occupied the

lower power position as a student. However, I am

inspired by several SCRA members and leaders, at

mulitple career levels and from multiple

backgrounds, who are working for meaningful

change within our organization. I am heartened by

those working for racial justice and bravely pointing

out internal work we need to do. As I step out of

this role, I welcome Jessica Saucedo as the new

54 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

SR, and I hope to continue working alongside her

and others who are ready for our organization to

become more just, more equitable, more uplifting,

and more aligned with our stated values. Thank you

to every student and SCRA member who is and

has been doing this work.

SCRA Member Spotlight Edited by Dominique Thomas, University of

Michigan

The SCRA Member Spotlight lets us engage

our members and highlight great work! Each issue

we solicit submissions of accomplishments. We

especially would like students, early career

scholars, and practitioners to submit their

accomplishments and work. Submissions can

include but are certainly not limited to:

● New jobs ● Post-docs

● Promotions ● Thesis/Dissertation Defenses

● Newly published journal articles, books, chapters

● Podcasts, blogs, news items that are by or about you

● Certifications or other credentials ● Retirement

● Grants

● Awards ● Successful/ongoing projects

● New projects or community initiatives

If you are interested in submitting for the next

issue, please click this link and fill out the form. We

hope to hear from you!

Tiffeny R. Jimenez, National Louis

University in Chicago, is the evaluator on a 5-year

$2.3 million dollar Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI)

grant from the U.S. Department of Education titled

CLAVE, which stands for Colaborando con las

Comunidades Latinas para AVanzar en Educación

(Collaborating with Latino Communities to AdVance

Education). The CLAVE grant’s major goal is to

collaborate with local communities to increase

Hispanic/Latinx and other underrepresented

individuals’ enrollment in and graduation from

doctoral programs.

In service of our goal, we value students’

multilingualism, and experiences in social-justice

work with Latinx and other marginalized

communities. We engage with an understanding of

how systemic oppression and inequities have

shaped students’ experiences and representation in

higher education. Universities have been perceived

as a source of expertise within community spaces,

however, in working to de-center historically and

potentially oppressive dominant narratives and

power dynamics, we work in partnership with

communities to redistribute this power and

participate with us in co-creating innovative

university programming.

We believe that a long history of colonialism,

coloniality, and systemic oppression have created

inequitable opportunities for people of color, second

language and dialect speakers of English,

individuals from working class backgrounds,

women, and LGBTQ+ people. We believe these

communities must be centered in the work we do.

This work inevitably involves long-term institutional

change working as ‘ghosts in the machine’ to

decolonize the minds and practices of those we

collaborate with, including ourselves. CLAVE hosts

opportunities for doctoral fellowships and post-

docs. Please email Tiffeny with any questions:

[email protected]

55 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

From Our Members Edited by Susan M. Wolfe, Susan Wolfe and

Associates and The University of

Washington

The Influence of School Factors on

Bullying in the U.S. and China

Written by Jie Ni, Amy Kerr, Paul

Flaspohler, & Jaiwei Sun, Miami University

School bullying is a worldwide phenomenon

associated with negative outcomes for victims and

perpetrators. Recent studies indicate that 20% of

students in the United States (Yanez & Seldin,

2019) and 26% of students in China (Han et al.,

2017) have been victims of school bullying. While

prevalence rates vary widely among studies, it is

clear that school bullying remains a significant

problem in both countries despite anti-bullying

efforts.

Though school bullying has been well-

researched in many contexts, few studies have

examined bullying across cultures. Those that exist

focus largely on similarities and differences in

prevalence rates and demographics of children

involved in bullying. Research that extends this

work to include comparisons of other factors

influencing bullying and attempts to explain

differences that may exist can further inform efforts

to reduce bullying. We aimed to conduct an

exploratory review comparing research on school

factors related to bullying in the U.S. and China.

Our review included research published in English

and Mandarin Chinese.

Bullying within a Socioecological

Framework

Researchers in both the United States and

China have examined bullying within a

socioecological framework (e.g., Lee, 2011; Zhang

& Shi, 2014). Conceptualizing bullying within an

ecological systems model can help us understand

the variety of ways in which individual child, family,

school, and cultural factors may influence bullying.

In both countries, research has examined

individual child factors related to school bullying

and found them to be some of the strongest

predictors of a child’s involvement in bullying (Lee,

2011; Zhang & Shi, 2014). Additionally, studies

frequently examined factors in the microsystem,

such as family dynamics, student relationships with

peers and teachers, and other school factors (Lee,

2011). However, there has been less focus on

examining influences on school bullying at other

systems levels. Of particular interest to us are the

broader cultural values and norms contained in the

macrosystem (e.g., individualist/collectivist

orientation) and how they may influence school

bullying either directly or indirectly, via their impact

on peer and teacher relationships and school

climate (Lee, 2011). As cultural norms and values

also help shape educational systems, this may

represent an additional pathway through which

cultural values may influence school bullying.

School Factors Related to Bullying

We found that while specific school factors that

were examined in the U.S. and China exerted

similar influences on bullying across the two

contexts, the bodies of research had different areas

of emphasis. Recent research on school bullying in

the United States has largely focused on the

influence of school climate and found that a more

positive school climate, where students experience

high levels of support and respect from peers and

teachers, is associated with lower instances of

bullying victimization (Gage et al., 2014; Aldridge et

al., 2018). Additionally, school climate can interact

with other factors to influence bullying. For

example, students with high self-esteem may be

more likely to bully others, but only if they have a

negative perception of their school climate

(Gendron et al., 2011).

While research on bullying in China explores

some factors related to school climate, we did not

find any studies published in Chinese that directly

or fully examined this construct. Instead, research

focused mainly on the influence of teachers and

school structures and found that teachers in China

may not receive sufficient training to effectively

address school bullying (Xu, 2018) and may fail to

56 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

recognize and address verbal or relational bullying

(Zhang et al., 2015). Similar results have also been

found in the U.S. (Veenstra et al., 2014).

Research in China has also examined how the

structure and culture of the educational system may

be related to bullying. Traditionally there has been

a lack of attention to social skills and “people-

oriented” (人文教育) education in China’s

educational system (Xu, 2018), due to a focus on

exam-oriented education. This may lead bullies to

be indifferent to the feelings of others and

contribute to difficulties in addressing school

bullying. Additionally, Song (2009) states that

typical Chinese methods of school management

may promote a culture of bullying. The typical

school management style in China, which can be

translated as “high-pressure management and

digestive treatment” (高压管理, 消化处理), refers to

a strict management system where students’

freedom is somewhat restricted. One example of

this can be seen in a practice of many schools in

China, in which they try to persuade students

involved in bullying (whether a bully or a victim) to

transfer to another school after bullying has

occurred. Unfortunately, these types of practices do

not help students who are experiencing bullying

victimization and may contribute to high stress

levels for students and increase the prevalence of

school bullying in China.

In addition to research in traditional Chinese

schools, some studies examined bullying in China’s

New Education Experiment schools (新教育实验学

校), which focus on teacher professional

development and creating an enjoyable learning

experience (WISE, 2019). These schools may be

more similar to schools in the U.S. In the New

Education Experiment schools, it was found that

higher levels of school belonging were related to

lower involvement in school bullying (Yang et al.,

2017), similar to findings in the U.S. (Nansel et al.,

2001).

Discussion

Considering the varied focuses of research on

school bullying published in the United States and

China, it is difficult to make direct comparisons

between the two countries. However, the emphasis

of different factors in research may be one example

of how cultural norms and values shape

educational priorities and school structures, which

can influence school bullying. The strong emphasis

on achievement, exam performance, and respect

for teachers in Chinese schools (Hu, 2019) may

stem from a desire to have a high achieving student

body with minimal disturbances. However, this can

come at the cost of failing to attend to students

social and emotional development or provide

support to victims of bullying.

In the U.S., schools aim to attend to students’

social-emotional development as well as their

academic achievement. However, bullying

prevention efforts are typically delivered at a

universal level and students are then expected to

take responsibility for their own behavior. This

approach may neglect to address the needs of

some students who may be more at-risk for bullying

others or being victimized, who may benefit from

additional support or intervention.

These different areas of emphasis between

the two educational systems are reflected in the

research on school bullying, and each country

stands to learn from the other in order to reduce

school bullying. Research on bullying in China

focuses mostly on individual students and

situations, while neglecting prevention at a more

universal level. On the other hand, research on

bullying in the U.S. has largely focused on universal

prevention efforts and there appears to be much

less information about how teachers can provide

more targeted intervention or support for individual

students or small groups at risk for involvement in

bullying. Researchers and educators in China may

benefit from exploring how universal bullying

prevention, which has been well-studied in the U.S.

and other Western contexts, can be effectively

implemented in Chinese schools. Likewise,

researchers and educators in the U.S. may benefit

from greater exploration of how teachers can

address the needs of individual or small groups of

students who are at-risk for involvement in bullying.

Additionally, both countries may benefit from further

57 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

research on how to effectively address bullying

once it has occurred.

Challenges and Future Study

We encountered multiple challenges during

this review. In addition to differences in the focus of

research on school factors and bullying in the two

countries, differences in specificity and

classification of groups made comparisons between

the two bodies of research difficult. Many studies in

China do not differentiate between school bullying (

校园欺凌) and the broader concept of school

violence (校园暴力), while research in the U.S.

tends to focus specifically on school bullying (with

school violence being a separate line of research).

Additionally, research in the U.S. typically classifies

students as victims of bullying, perpetrators, or both

(bully/victims). However, research in China tends to

simplify the classification of students as “not

involved” or “involved”, without differentiating

between the various roles students might play.

Examining the problem of school bullying from

a systems perspective and exploring the less-

studied influences of culture may help inform efforts

to address school bullying at the universal,

targeted, and individual levels (Bradshaw, 2013).

We plan to extend this work by conducting a

systematic review of how school climate and

related factors influence bullying in the U.S. and

China and hope to explore how similarities and

differences found may relate to cultural differences.

In these cross-cultural comparisons of influences

on bullying, both cultures stand to learn from the

other in how they may best address school bullying

and promote healthy school environments.

If you would like more information or to

comment on this work, please contact Jie Ni

([email protected]) or Amy Kerr

([email protected]).

References

Aldridge, J. M., McChesney, K., & Afari, E. (2018).

Relationships between school climate, bullying,

and delinquent behaviours. Learning

Environment Research, 21, 153-172.

Bradshaw, C. P. (2013). Preventing bullying

through Positive Behavioral Interventions and

Supports (PBIS): A multitiered approach to

prevention and integration. Theory into

Practice, 52, 288-295.

Gendron, B. P., Williams, K. R., & Guerra, N. G.

(2011). An analysis of bullying among students

within schools: estimating the effects of

individual normative beliefs, self-esteem, and

school climate. Journal of School Violence,

10(2), 150–164.

Han, Z., Zhang, G., & Zhang, H. (2017). School

bullying in urban China: Prevalence and

correlation with school climate. International

journal of environmental research and public

health, 14(10), 1116.

Hu, T. (2019). “重典”还是“重教”：中美校园欺

凌治理方式比较. ["Emphasis on Code" or

"Emphasis on Education": A Comparison of

School Bullying Management in China and the

United States.] Journal of Nanyang Institute of

Technology, 1, 23-28.

Lee, C-H. (2011). An ecological systems approach

to bullying behaviors among middle school

students in the United States. Journal of

Interpersonal Violence, 26(8), 1664-1693.

Nansel, T. R., Overpeck, M., Pilla, R. S., Ruan, W.

J., Simons-Morton, B., & Scheidt, P. (2001).

Bullying behaviors among US youth:

Prevalence and association with psychosocial

adjustment. JAMA, 285(16), 2094–2100.

Song, Y. (2009). 关注学校因素：校园暴力丛生带来

的视角转换. [Focus on school factors: The

perspective change brought by the proliferation

of school violence]. China Educational Law

Review, 0, 249-260.

Veenstra, R., Lindenberg, S., Huitsing, G., Sainio,

M., & Salmivalli, C. (2014). The role of teachers

in bullying: The relation between antibullying

attitudes, efficacy, and efforts to reduce

bullying. Journal of Educational

Psychology, 106(4), 1135.

WISE. (2019, September 11). New Education

Experiment. WISE Qatar Foundation.

https://www.wise-qatar.org/project/new-

education-experiment-china/

58 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

Xu, Y. (2018). 从家庭教育与学校教育浅谈新时期中

校园暴力的成因与解决措施. [Discussion on the

causes and solutions of school violence in the

new era from family education and school

education]. Legal System and Society, 16, 183-

184.

Yanez, C., & Seldin, M. (2019). Student

Victimization in US Schools: Results from the

2017 School Crime Supplement to the National

Crime Victimization Survey. NCES 2019-

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Yang, F., Yu, B., Zhu, Y., & Xu, Q. (2017). 校园欺凌

与学校归属感的相关效应：来自新教育实验的证

据. [The correlation effect of campus bullying

and school belonging: Evidence from the New

Education Experiment]. Curriculum, Teaching

Material and Method, 5, 113-120.

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园欺负行为研究进展. [Research progress on

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794-797.

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primary and secondary school students ’

bullying behavior in the Chinese

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182-185.

Evaluation of the SCRA Year-Long

Mentoring Program and Reflections

from the First Cohort

Written by Katricia Stewart, Portland State

University and Erin Godly-Reynolds,

University of North Carolina-Charlotte

Overview of SCRA Year-Long Mentoring

Program

The SCRA Year-Long Mentoring Program

seeks to connect community psychologists at all

stages of their careers and provides an opportunity

for mentor-mentee pairs to expand their

professional development. Successful mentoring

relationships often have a foundation of shared

interest, open communication, mutually agreed

upon expectations, and a commitment to the

relationship. The Year-Long Mentoring Sub-

Committee of the Mentoring Task Force matches

mentor and mentee pairs based on: (a)

professional area of focus, (b) personal and

professional experiences and roles, (c) goals for

receiving mentoring, and (d) the style of mentorship

participants are seeking. Once matched, mentor-

mentee pairs meet (on average) once per month

over the course of the year. These meetings

revolve around the mentor providing guidance,

feedback, and support to the mentee in reaching

their goals for the year.

Evaluation of the 2019-2020 Program

A total of 18 mentors were matched with 31

mentees (some mentors had two mentees). At the

end of the program, all mentors and mentees were

emailed a link to an evaluation survey so the sub-

committee could learn about their experience and

improve this mentoring program for future

participants. A total of nine mentors and 11

mentees completed this evaluation survey.

The most popular topic that the mentor-

mentee(s) pairs chose to focus on was the

academic job search process and options (n = 7;

64%), while 36% chose to focus on career path

options. Additional topics included: adjusting to new

life as first-year doctoral student; applying for

funding; SCRA involvement / conference

presentations; building competencies in community

/ social change; building community through

collaborations; graduate school applications and

admissions; networking; proposing and defending

thesis or dissertation; and publications.

These reported topics and related goals at

least partially reflect the expertise of the

participating mentors. Across all of the professional

experience categories that were listed as options

(professor, researcher, adjunct professor,

practitioner, consultant, evaluator), mentees were

interested in a greater variety of professional

experiences than mentors indicated having.

59 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

In terms of their overall experience, 100% of

mentors would recommend this program to a

colleague or friend. When asked if they would

consider serving as a mentor again in the future,

78% responded “yes” and the other 22%

responded “maybe”.

Among mentees, 82% indicated that they

would recommend the program to a colleague or

friend. Further, 64% of respondents either agreed

or strongly agreed that the mentoring program

supported their professional growth, while 18% of

respondents disagreed. Ten of the 11 mentees

strongly agreed that the mentoring program

connected them with a community psychologist

who is at a more advanced stage of their career

and professional development.

Testimonials from Mentee and Mentor

Participants

We asked mentors and mentees to share their

overall thoughts on the year-long mentoring

program and how it impacted them. Their

testimonials are below!

Rodrigo Quiroz-Saavedra (mentor: Tom

Wolff):

Tom has been my mentor for about a year as

part of my postdoctoral research on early childhood

support systems… During this time, he actively

listened to me and provided me with valuable

advice to resolve difficulties that I have faced in the

research process… Tom’s support has been of

great help in progressively and coherently building

an ecological analysis of the collaboration between

the actors involved [in my research]. Mentoring with

Tom has been a very enriching experience both as

a researcher and as a person. I feel very fortunate

and grateful to Tom and the SCRA mentoring

program for this great opportunity.

Julia Dancis (mentor: Erin Ellison):

I gained a LOT from participating in this

mentoring program. The program coordinators

matched me with Dr. Erin Ellison and I could not

have been a better match! Our monthly check-ins

ranged from teaching wisdom and dissertation

theory to career strategy and life advice. I really

admire the work that Dr. Ellison does and I believe

this year-long program has given me a mentor for

life.

Erin Ellison (mentees: Julia Dancis and

Sherry Bell):

I recently had the pleasure of working with two

emerging scholars in Community Psychology

through the mentor program… I initially thought of it

as a service opportunity to give back and pass

along resources that had been shared with me. Yet,

I also gained a lot myself -- Sherry and Julia

supported me through the process, too. As an early

career Community Psychologist, I truly appreciate

it! The connections we built, and the opportunities

to check-in (especially once COVID-19 shelter

orders were in place) were invaluable to me. I

enjoyed discussing their work, my work, and

opportunities for collaboration and collective

growth. I know our relationships will continue

beyond this year, and I’m thankful for that. I hope

others will participate in this important mentoring

program in the future. Thank you for the

opportunity!

Elizabeth Benninger (mentor: Fabricio

Balcazar):

I found the mentoring program to be extremely

helpful. My mentor was supportive as I navigated

my career as a recent PhD graduate. He was

always encouraging and pushed me to apply for

faculty positions and research grants which I

otherwise would have been too intimidated to apply

for. He helped me to believe in my own potential as

a community psychologist and since the start of the

mentoring program I have received a T32

postdoctoral fellowship, my first pilot award for my

research through the NIH, and have interviewed for

faculty positions. I highly recommend this program.

Noe Chavez (mentees: Munazza

Abraham and Stephanie Lam):

I had the honor to serve as the official mentor

to two graduate students… The idea of a formal

hierarchical mentoring relationship did not appeal to

us… The mentoring was more of a collaboration

among the three of us, sharing of experiences and

resources. I shared my challenging experiences as

a former graduate student of color and offered to

60 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

listen to and share insights regarding their current

graduate school challenges. They supported me

with resources I had not seen, connected me with

others who also offered additional resources and

advice, and both graciously accepted my invitation

to share their educational journey, passion, and

community psychology perspective [with my

students]… They described our mentoring

relationship as ‘a family model, offering moral

support but also tangible and meaningful support’

and a ‘very organic and community style feel… It

feels like we are each other’s fans.’

Michelle Abraczinskas (mentor: Ryan

Kilmer):

This past year, my main goal was to obtain a

faculty job for August 2020… I was paired with Dr.

Ryan Kilmer to mentor me through this process…

Before we [worked together], I felt immobilized with

writer’s block. His mentorship was crucial in helping

me through that period. It was great to get his

perspective regarding what goes on on the faculty

side of making decisions… For anyone going

through the academic job application process, I

highly recommend being paired with a mentor,

especially a faculty member who has been on

hiring committees and has an inside perspective. I

am grateful to him and the rest of my team of

faculty mentors who have helped me get to this

point as an Assistant Professor on the tenure track

at an R1 university.

Goals for the 2020-2021 Mentoring

Program

Based on feedback from this first year’s mentor

and mentee participants, a major goal for the

upcoming cohort is to recruit a larger number of

mentors with a greater variety of professional

experiences. This will hopefully enable more

learning opportunities for mentees with interests in

those professional realms.

The evaluation also pointed to areas where the

mentoring committee can guide a more

individualized structure for each mentor-mentee

pair, such as by facilitating dialogue between

mentees and their mentors to set up a frequency of

meetings that works best for them, or providing

question prompts that could help the mentees

determine how their mentors can best support them

in their goals for the program.

To learn more about the program and/or if you

are interested in participating as a mentor, mentee,

or Mentoring Committee member, please email

Katricia ([email protected]) or Erin

([email protected]). Thank you to the mentees

and mentors who shared their stories with us!

Being “Out-Here” 2.0: Public

Relationships in the Digital Age

Written by Pesach Chananiah, Community

Alchemist

For a millennial, I’ve been a relative luddite,

taking smug pleasure in my disdain for technology.

Due to the last 15 years of training as a community

organizer, I’ve taken particularly “mature” stances

in favor of good-old-fashioned in-person meetings,

joining my more seasoned colleagues in their

suspicions of “digital organizing” strategies. My

critique is echoed in the literature that has maligned

these strategies as “clicktivism” (Shulman, 2009;

White, 2010) or “slacktivism” (Morozov, 2009) –

what might be seen as the seeming

inconsequentiality of the online petitions that we

sometimes take a minute on and sometimes slough

off.

Yet the virtual wave of the last 6 months,

resulting from our collective quarantine, has

demanded that I reconfigure some of my

assumptions and reconsider the potential value of

digital modes. By mid-May, I had launched two

experimental social change projects using Zoom.

This article is a sort of addendum to my dissertation

– A Psychological Theory of Being “Out-Here” –

and an attempt to rethink that prior research in the

context of our virtual age.

A primary area of interest of mine for quite

some time is the broad-based organizing model of

the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF). After learning

about the organization in college, I spent four years

helping to build an IAF affiliate in Las Vegas, NV

61 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

which was tasked with building political capacity

among a coalition of religious congregations. I then

participated in the Los Angeles affiliate as a

dissertation case study in order to better

understand processes of empowerment. I have

been particularly interested in the claim of

Southwest IAF Director Ernesto Cortés that the

organizational practice of the one-to-one meeting is

“the most radical thing we teach” (Rogers, 1990, p.

64).

Though often seen by outsiders as simply a

method to recruit potential leaders, “one-on-one

interviews,” wrote Schutz and Sandy, are a “central

strategy that community organizers use to foster

community in our new world of weaker

communities[,] a tool for rebuilding webs of

relationships and trust” (2011, p. 192). As a result

of the necessary pragmatic task of meeting with

community members, the IAF culture has evolved

to become primarily characterized as “relational

organizing.” According to IAF organizer Mike

Gecan in his book Going Public (2002), a relational

culture is “created by leaders who initiate and

deepen and multiply effective public relationships . .

. Their ability to act depends on the number and

quality of relationships that they and their

colleagues can muster and sustain” (p. 162). As

opposed to the private relationships of a friendship

or a romance, a public relationship is based on

shared accountability and commitment to collective

self-interest.

In the community psychology literature on this

topic, Christens et al. studied a similar organizing

model, the Gamaliel network, describing “networks

of public relationships [as] key conduits between

components of organizational empowerment (i.e.,

social support, group-based belief system) and

cognitive and relational components of

psychological empowerment (i.e., critical

awareness and bridging social divisions to exercise

social power)” (2014, p. 427). My interest in the

one-to-one, from a community psychology

standpoint, is its tendency mutually-influencing

empowerment – its potential to be therapeutic, if

not transformative.

The distinction in these organizing contexts of

“public life” - versus the private realm - can be

traced, at least in part, to Hannah Arendt, who

wrote in The Human Condition (1959) about the

distinction between a private and public sphere, or

the realm of the household and that of the political.

Arendt lamented in this seminal text that the

emergence of the social realm in the modern age

has banished speech and action—formerly a

product of the Greek polis—to the sphere of the

intimate and private. Returning speech and action

to the public realm is one of the goals of the IAF,

particularly the practice of conducting relational

meetings.

Yet the one-to-ones that are conducive of

developing “public” relationships are ultimately

private conversations. Although these

conversations often connect personal experience to

common concerns, they are not seen by anyone

else. While Arendt’s “public realm” can be

interpreted as the power of gathering together and

relating, it can also be understood quite literally as

that which “can be seen and heard by everybody

and has the widest possible publicity” (1959, p. 45).

The inquiry I made in my dissertation research was:

how can one person impact another through their

conversation; it has now become: what is the

potential for conversations between two people to

also impact a third, fourth, or fifth (or infinite

number) of people unknown to the original

interlocutors?

I began to make this inquiry through

participatory action research in two different

projects. As we were relegated to our homes in

March, I watched a wide range of actors adopt

Zoom. I had recently made a commitment – as a

Jewish person living in the United States – to have

conversations with people in my community about

Palestinian liberation in Israeli occupied territories.

Although the format wasn’t initially clear to me,

when Zoom became an option, I decided to

experiment by inviting my mother to a Zoom

conversation; I shared my screen with her and was

able to do some media literacy and political

education with her in a way I never could have over

the phone – or maybe even in person. With her

62 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

consent, albeit video off, I recorded our

conversation – and was able to share it with over a

dozen people, along with an invitation that they do

the same with people in their lives. The goal was to

encourage more progressive Jews to have

conversations about Israel-Palestine and shift our

community’s stance.

This video can be seen here:

https://youtu.be/K6cQiJ-69jo

The other project started when I saw that a

friend and colleague had posted a conversation he

had with someone else on Facebook Live, also

through Zoom. Although for them it was simply a

low-input method for creating content, I saw the

sharing of this conversation as a unique method for

social change. My friend and I started a project that

we dubbed #COVIsionaries – in which two people

have a conversation about the post-COVID world

they would like to see. We posted a conversation

between the two of us on a #COVIsionaries

Facebook group and on our individual pages – and

invited others to follow, with directions on how to do

so. This project can be found here:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/covisionaries/

My newfound interest in using digital tools for

social justice not only began to erode my disdain

for “digital organizing”; it resulted in a small

literature review, as well. Karpf, who for quite some

time has been studying the digital organizing

pioneers MoveOn.org, defends digital organizing as

such. He argued incisively that the e-mail comment

drives and online petitions that critics of

“slacktivism” and “clicktivism” are referring to are

only one tactic, “an individual element of a broader

campaign to convert organizational resources into

political power” (2010, p. 9). They are just a new

version of a traditional letter-writing campaign.

Karpf also accurately described this type of action

as the first rung in a “ladder-of-engagement” (p.

10), one which ostensibly leads to actions with

increasing risk and, hopefully, increasing impact as

well.

Bennett and Segerberg (2012) differentiated

more traditional forms of “collective action” – which

often require “individuals to overcome resistance to

joining actions where personal participation costs

may outweigh marginal gains” – from what they

saw as the lower barriers of individualized

“connective action” (p. 749-750). Clearly, sharing a

meme does not require as much commitment or

willingness to risk as civil disobedience. But

perhaps the distinctions between online and offline

are not quite so clear cut. Mora (2014) placed

digital activism on a continuum, classifying efforts

by “the relative participation threshold based on

risk, commitment, effort, or intensity of the digital

activism practice” (p. 6).

It turns out that, just because something is

online, does not mean that the barriers to entry are

low enough to cause momentum – as I learned

when I failed to generate the number of Zoom

conversations I had hoped for. Many of the people

who expressed interest were ultimately intimidated

by speaking vulnerably on social media. Being

recorded and potentially seen by whoever poses a

greater risk than agreeing to meet for a “private

conversation”. Clearly, online content does not

reproduce itself automatically, but rather requires a

good deal of effort. My #COVIsionaries friend and I

spent a number of weeks recording, editing, and

posting conversations – before we moved on to

other projects. No one else picked up the torch.

According to Bennett and Segerberg, “there is

nothing preordained about the results of digitally

mediated networking processes. More often than

not, they fail badly” (2012, p. 754). I do not have a

sufficient understanding of social media algorithms

to make my project stand out – since I don’t post

often, it’s possible that few people see the things I

do post. I might think I’m posting something

incredibly profound, but how quickly will it get lost in

the social media morass? While Karpf’s emphasis

on “analytic activism” (2018) is worth noting, his

illumination of the resources required for data

analytics also demonstrates one of its key

limitations.

Despite my newfound curiosity about the

value of social media for social change, my

increased attempt to utilize Facebook has only

solidified my disgust at its echo chambers and its

vitriol. It is worlds away from Arendt’s return to the

Greek polis. Zoom is still too new to know its full

63 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

potential, but perhaps there is some hope in how

we might use it to be more “public,” more fully “out-

here” with others than we ever could be one-on-one

over coffee.

References

Arendt, H. (1959). The human condition: A study of

the central dilemmas facing modern

man. Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor Books.

Bennett, W.L. & Segerberg, A. (2012). The logic of

connective action. Information,

Communication & Society, 15 (5), 739-768.

Christens, B. D., Inzeo, P. T., & Faust, V. (2014).

Channeling power across ecological

systems: Social regularities in community

organizing. American Journal of

Community Psychology, 53, 410–431.

Gecan, M. (2002). Going public: An organizer’s

guide to citizen action. Boston, MA:

Beacon.

Karpf, D. (2010). Online political mobilization from

the advocacy group’s perspective: Looking

beyond clicktivism. Policy & Internet, 2 (4), 1-35.

Karpf, D. (2018). Analytic activism and its

limitations. Social Media + Society, January-

March,

1-10.

Mora, F.A. (2014). Emergent digital activism: The

generational/technological connection.

Journal of Community Informatics, 10 (1), 1-13.

Morozov, E. (2009). The brave new world of

slacktivism. Foreign Policy, May 19, 2009.

http://neteffect.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/05/19/t

he_brave_new_ world_of_slacktivism.

Rogers, M. B. (1990). Cold anger: A story of faith

and power politics. Denton, TX: University of

North Texas.

Schutz, A., & Sandy, M.G. (2011). Collective action

for social change: An introduction to

community organizing. New York, NY: Palgrave

Macmillan.

Shulman, S. (2009). The case against mass e-

mails: Perverse incentives and low quality

public

participation in U.S. federal rulemaking. Policy &

Internet, 1 (1), 23–53.

White, M. (2010). Clicktivism is ruining leftist

activism. The Guardian Online, August 12,

2010.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug

/12/clicktivismruining-leftist-

The 4 S’s in Creating Communities of

Care: A Trauma-Informed Response

to COVID-19 in School and

University-Based Settings

Written by Heather Lewis Quagliana, Bryan

D. Poole, David P. Quagliana, Jeffrey L.

Sargent, Lee University

With our communities facing the current

challenges of COVID-19, there is a great demand

for trauma-informed responses in most contexts.

Apart from the current crisis, 61% of adults have

already faced one adverse childhood experience

(Felitti et al, 1998), thus compounding the need for

trauma-informed schools, colleges, and

universities. While Institutions of Higher Education

(IHE) administrators, as well as primary and

secondary administrators, have been working hard

to mitigate risk of physical illness from the virus in

their school communities, the psychological impact

could be unintentionally overlooked. Community

psychologists have unique skills sets to assist

school and university administrators in considering

contextual and community-based models of

addressing crises on school and college campuses.

We propose 4 S’s in psychological reentry

that adhere to a community based, trauma-

informed approach throughout school and campus

life: 1) Supporting self-care of administrators,

faculty, staff, and students; 2) Campus-wide

socioemotional focus; 3) Springing back from

adversity (resilience programming); and 4) Shared

investment in student mental health. These 4 S’s

are based out of our service to our local schools

and university to promote the values and

interventions congruent with a community based,

64 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

trauma-informed response to COVID-19 and

psychological reentry into a system.

Supporting Self Care

Burnt out teachers do not teach well. A

foundational element in a trauma-informed

approach is self-care and healthy coping skills. A

community psychology informed approach

recognizes that burnout “trickles” down through a

system. For example, a faculty member who is

anxious, burnt out, and not coping well due to the

current crisis will likely be less able to emotionally

support their students. The same is true for

overextended administrators, who may be too

overwhelmed to then best support faculty and staff.

Educational systems need to embrace and value

self-care particularly during COVID-19 as the

emotional health of an institution depends upon it.

Self-care is supported in many tangible

ways: needs assessments, psychoeducation,

routine emotional “check ins”, and gauging burnout.

These can be easily implemented into COVID-19

response plans. Taking the “emotional

temperature” in an institution will help

administrators make informed decisions on

campus-wide supports, as well as broader

community partnerships. Routine emotional check-

ins should occur at multiple levels ranging from

administrative meetings to classroom teaching. For

example, opening class with a quick emotional

“check-in” (i.e. What are some concerns? What

resources do you have to address these

concerns?) communicates to students that their

entire well-being is important in the reentry process.

Burnout, particularly emotional exhaustion,

(Maslach et al., 1997) is a reality facing everyone in

today’s world, but it is vital to encourage the entire

school or campus toward better coping. Effective

coping ranges from informal community supports,

hobbies and social support to formal mental health

services.

Socioemotional Focus

Much of the literature on trauma-informed

schools is written for primary and secondary

educators but can be easily adapted to the

college context. For example, The National Child

Traumatic Stress Network offers guiding principles

in navigating COVID-19 ranging from labeling and

identifying emotions to trauma-informed institutional

policies to promote psychological well-being

(Halladay Goldman et al., 2020). Additionally,

Brymer and colleagues’ (2006) Psychological First

Aid can be adapted to COVID-19 and psychological

reentry in educational settings that when trained

appropriately, any teacher, faculty, or staff can

deliver this intervention in their context. It provides

schools and universities with a standardized

protocol to respond to crisis events while drawing

upon the school or campus community’s strengths

and resources.

Another way teachers and faculty can

accomplish this is by creating programs or courses

that equip students with coping skills and

resources. For example, faculty at our university

have developed a course modeled after Yale

University’s most popular course (Shimer, 2018),

“Psychology and the Good Life.” In addition to

learning about science-supported research on

improving well-being and happiness, our students

complete several activities throughout the semester

(e.g., keeping a gratitude journal, exercising

regularly) to aid in the healthy pursuit of positive

affect, healthy relationships, physical health, and

emotion regulation. Because past research

consistently demonstrates how these courses can

improve students’ mental health, hope, agency, and

purpose (Goodman, Middleditch, Childs, &

Pietrasiuk, 2016; Maybury, 2012), we recommend

primary and secondary teachers, as well as

university faculty consider how similar courses can

be developed (or activities be incorporated) in the

near future.

Spring Back (Resilience Programming)

The current generation of both school-aged

and college students have an unprecedented

opportunity to develop resilience. Community

resilience has long been at the heart of community

psychology, and as community psychologists, we

also have an unprecedented opportunity to

empower our schools and campuses to focus on

resilience. One of the best tools for promoting

resilience is engaging our students in meaningful

relationships in the following ways: 1) Enter the

65 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

student’s reality. Understand the world from a

student’s perspective. This fosters empathy and

promotes attachment thus laying a foundation for

resilience in the face of adversity. 2) Notice the way

students communicate. Young children

communicate through their behavior. Middle and

high schoolers often feel overwhelmed with

complex emotions. College students often feel

stuck in the middle of adolescence and adulthood

making it difficult to label complex emotions and

employ coping skills. 3) Get playful. Creativity is

key in bolstering resilience for everyone! Everyone

should “play” a little more these days.4) Affectively

attune. Pick up on and notice student’s emotions

and model effective coping. 5) Grow through

adversity. Reframe adversity as an opportunity to

learn and grow. 6) Eliminate shame. Help students

dismiss the “shoulds” and “oughts” of how things

might be different and help them move toward

acceptance of difficult emotions with the hope that

“we are in this together.”

Creating an equipped culture of care is also

necessary in promoting resilience. General

encouragement and concern may not be sufficient

to meet our students’ needs. We can support and

encourage resilience by promoting academic,

social, and emotional competency. This can be

accomplished by intentionally integrating self-

regulatory and learning skills broadly into our

curricula. At the broader level, institutions should

consider introducing resilience education early into

the curriculum. An integration of self-regulatory

and learning skills into the first-year curricula can

equip students in the transition and provide for a

foundation of success. We should intentionally

incorporate resilience education into our

classrooms by explicitly labeling and describing the

necessary self-regulatory processes needed to

complete specific academic tasks under difficult

circumstances while also directing to both campus

and community resources that aid in more effective

coping.

Shared Investment

A community based, trauma-informed

approach to COVID-19 recognizes that student

mental health is a shared responsibility and not

the sole responsibility of the school counselor

or University Counseling Center (UCC). Both

school counselors and UCC staff should be seen

as consultants and educators toward a broader

campus mental health initiative for awareness,

prevention, and intervention. Schools and

campuses might benefit from considering three

different types or gradations of mental health needs

this fall, parallel to social science literature on types

of prevention: general psychological need,

identified risk or need not requiring professional

intervention (i.e., psychotherapy), and mental

health concerns requiring professional intervention

(e.g., therapy, medication, crisis assessment and

intervention). School and campus wide

engagement in identifying and responding to needs

at each of these levels is essential for the large

percentage of students and employees with mental

health needs who will not need or seek therapy

(also decreasing likelihood of overwhelming school

counselors or campus’s professional mental health

service providers).

School counselors and UCC staff should serve

to support the campus in the gap between

experience and expectations. First, we must all be

informed about the difference between normal and

abnormal psychological impact. Over-pathologizing

“typical trauma reactions” will cause us to fail to

seek healthy independent or interpersonal

processing of such impacts. Second, it is important

to reexamine our expectations of ourselves and our

institutions as we all need to proceed with humility

and flexibility during unprecedented times. (For

inquiries or questions, please contact Heather

Lewis Quagliana @

[email protected].)

References

Brymer, M., Jacobs, A., Layne, C., Pynoos, R.,

Ruzek, J., Steinberg, A., Vemberg, E., &

Watson, P. (National Child Traumatic Stress

Network and National Center for PTSD).

Psychological First Aid: Field Operations Guide,

2nd Edition, July 2006. Available on:

www.nctsn.org and www.ncptsd.va.gov.

Felitte, V.J., Anda, R.F., Edwards, V., Marks, J.S.

(1998). Relationships of childhood abuse and

66 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

household dysfunction to many of the leading

causes of death in adults: The adverse

childhood expereinces (ACE) study. American

Journal of Preventative Medicine, 14 (4), 245-

258.

Goodman, L. B., Middleditch, A. M., Childs, B., &

Pietrasiuk, S. E. (2016). Positive psychology

course and its relationship to well-being,

depression, and stress. Teaching of

Psychology, 43(3), 232-237.

Halladay Goldman, J., Danna, L., Maze, J.W.,

Pickens, I.B., & Ake III, G.S. (2020). Trauma

Informed School Strategies during COVID-19.

Los Angeles, CA, and Durham, NC: National

Center for Child Traumatic Stress. Retrieved

from

(https://www.nctsn.org/resources/trauma-

informed-school-strategies-during-covid-19)

Maslach, C., Jackson, S. E., & Leiter, M. P. (1996).

Maslach Burnout Inventory manual (3rd ed.).

Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.

Maybury, K. K. (2013). The influence of a positive

psychology course on student well-being.

Teaching of Psychology, 40(1), 62-65.

Shimer, D. (2018). Yale’s most popular class ever:

Happiness. Retrieved from

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/26/nyregion/

at-yale-class-on-happiness-draws-huge-crowd-

laurie-santos.html.

Advancing Social Justice with Model

Legislation: Criminalizing Police

Chokehold Practices at State Level

Written by Christopher Corbett, Albany, NY

Model legislation is a powerful way to further

community psychology (CP) values and principles.

This article describes the value of Model legislation

analysis and proposes it as a highly worthwhile

method for community psychologists (CPs) to apply

to advance social justice issues important to them.

While Model legislation, like beauty, lies in the eye

of the beholder, this article identifies eight criteria

based on CP core values for use in assessing

legislation to determine if it meets a “Model”

standard. To illustrate, the article applies the Model

standard to recently passed legislation in New York

State that criminalizes chokehold practices by

police for possible application in other state

jurisdictions. The article also concludes there is

urgent need for more public policy training in CP

graduate programs which is necessary to further

social justice given the critical role of the public

policy CP competency and the clear neglect of

policy training.

What is Model Legislation?

Model legislation means different things to

different people. Various groups use “Model”

legislation such as: National Association of

Attorneys General, American Bar Association,

National Consumer Law Center and American

Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). For

example, ALEC identifies legislation it deems

“model” for use in different states. While ALEC is

“non-partisan”, it has its own core values including:

limited government, free markets and federalism,

creating a conservative bias in what it deems

“model”.

Clearly, legislation that would be “model” to a

CP would be quite different and would logically be

based on core values of the field. As previously

proposed, some eight values have been proposed

as Hallmark Values of CP (Corbett 2015) including:

prevention; second order change; social justice;

empowerment; citizen participation; diversity;

respect for all cultures and community members,

and empirical grounding. These values are

supported by various community psychologists and

texts as foundational to the field (Heller et al. 1984;

Duffy & Wong 1996; Dalton, Elias & Wandersman

2001 and Tolan et al. 1990).

Various “model” cases of legislation have

previously been examined and assessed, which

include some social justice issues: toxic chemical

exposure of children; gun violence; exploitation of

low wage workers; cyberbullying of children and

race based harassment (Corbett 2015). In each

case, the legislation was examined and compared

to the identified CP values to make a determination

of whether they met a “model” standard.

67 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

More recently, the concept of Model legislation

was applied to the Parkland Florida tragedy by

examining Connecticut’s law that allows seizure of

firearms (Corbett 2018). The next step is to apply

those standards to recently passed legislation in

New York State.

New York State: “Eric Garner Anti-

Chokehold Act” (A6144-B)

On June 12, 2020, Governor Cuomo signed

into law a package of police accountability

measures (Tarinelli 2020), including a new law

criminalizing the use of chokeholds or similar

restraint that results in obstruction of breathing or

blood circulation (NY Assembly Memorandum in

Support 2020). The law, A6144-B is shown in the

figure below. The law provides for felony level

penalties of up to 15 years in prison for use of a

chokehold or similar restraint that causes serious

physical injury or death (Chokehold Law too late,

2020).

Applying Model Legislation Criteria

While subjectivity exists to judge against

specified values, and at times the indicated value or

criteria will not apply, or only in limited way, this

method provides a systematic way to assess

legislation. Also, multiple CP reviewers can help

confirm, or challenge, a finding of Model. As shown

in the table below, the legislation was assessed

across various values. Judgement was made as to

whether the legislation furthered or was in

alignment with the value (+), or undermined the

value (-), or whether the value did not apply (dna).

Regarding prevention, New York’s anti-

chokehold law promotes primary prevention; if the

law is complied with, serious injuries or deaths will

be prevented. Also, generally any legislation will

constitute second order or system level change,

unless and until it is repealed. The legislation New York Chokehold Law

68 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

should further social justice by reducing use of such

police tactics, likely applied disproportionately

across race. The law furthers both empowerment of

the public and promotes citizen participation. Any

citizen can support enforcement, file complaints for

non-compliance and pursue litigation in absence of

compliance. Regarding promoting diversity, the law

neither furthers, nor undermines, that value and

therefore does not apply (dna). The legislation

promotes respect for all cultures and community

members as it prohibits such practices across all

citizens.

The last criteria or value, empirical grounding,

clearly applies as the legislation was based, in

significant measure, on data documenting number

of chokeholds performed by year, by police.

Moreover, those chokeholds were applied in

violation of the New York Police Department’s

administrative ban on chokeholds instituted in

2014, the year of Eric Garner’s death. Specifically,

the number of complaints received by the NYC

Civilian Complaint Review Board, by year was: 276

(2014); 172 (2015); 139 (2016); 132 (2017); 129

(2018); 116 (2019) and 32 thus far (2020), or 996

total reports (NY Assembly Memorandum of

Support, 2020, p. 2).

There are valuable lessons here for CPs.

While policies can be progress, when they are

unenforceable, they can be worse than no policy at

all. That is, they create the thin veneer of a

solution-- when they are merely window dressing

that perpetuates the status-quo, creating false

appearances of a problem solved that goes on for

years, unsolved. Here, the policy did help create

the empirical data that the legislators’ cited as

justification for the law. Any cause to celebrate

victory at law’s passage, however, is tainted by

empirical data showing grave harm to the public

over many years of unenforceable NYPD Policy

prohibiting chokeholds (Chokehold law too late,

2020).

Is NY’s “Eric Garner Anti-Chokehold

Act” Model?

Based on the criteria applied to the legislation,

a strong case can be made that N.Y.’s Act meets a

Model standard, with nearly all values furthered or

supported by the law.

Methodology

The application of Model legislation as

proposed here, constitutes a powerful method to

influence public policy. That is, content analysis,

has been identified as a highly effective research

methodology to advance public policy (Prewitt et al.

2012, p. 97). This methodology, along with case

study analysis (p. 97), are noteworthy as they are

both highly amenable for use by interventionists at

all levels including bachelor, master and doctoral

level CPs.

Model legislation: A Strategy for

Engagement

Model legislation is one method of pursuing

social justice and it falls within the CP competency

for Public Policy Analysis, Development &

Advocacy (Dalton & Wolfe 2012). Specifically, this

competency is: the ability to build and sustain

effective communication and working relationships

with policy makers, elected officials and community

leaders, including to write briefs, present testimony,

draft policies and consult with elected officials at

federal, state, province and local levels (p. 12).

Because legislation deemed Model has been

passed and signed into law, it typically reflects

political consensus in that state or jurisdiction.

The power of Model legislation should not be

underestimated as it provides a basis to engage

individually with elected officials and fashion

working relationships required by the public policy

competency. Moreover, Model legislation facilitates

CPs ability to work across both sides of the aisle,

an essential quality, to rise above partisanship and

craft bi-partisan solutions. Model legislation

typically requires cooperation of both Democrats

and Republicans, as well as the Governor of the

state who is needed to sign the bill into law. Finally,

Model legislation proves that difficult social

problems can be effectively addressed and solved

in one jurisdiction-- and legislators, who are often

lawyers, are extremely vulnerable to influence by

legal precedent. Problems well solved in one

jurisdiction-- can provide a strong basis for solution

in others.

69 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

Further, Model legislation provides a highly

effective entry point and basis for relationship

building. It also conveys CPs’ seriousness to

genuinely help legislators solve difficult or

intractable problems, particularly matters of social

justice where most intervenors engage legislators

based solely upon bald self-interest. That is, CPs

are trained to seek influence for social justice sake-

- which stands in stark contrast to the vast majority

of constituents who seek legislative influence to

advance partisan or economic self-interests. This

strongly distinguishes CPs and places them in

partnership with elected officials, on both sides of

the aisle, to cooperatively address intractable

issues. This is a unique power of the “insider”

approach and illustrates how the policy competency

requirements can be accomplished: to build and

sustain effective working relationships with policy

makers and elected officials at federal,

state/province and local levels (Dalton & Wolfe

2012, p. 12).

This is the essence of the policy competency,

to establish effective and ongoing working

relationships with policy makers. Model legislation

is a powerful method to employ, providing a sound

basis for bi-partisan outcomes essential to the

successful passage of legislation that advances

social justice and public interests-- which hinges on

it being politically viable.

Where to From Here?

The path of social justice requires various skills

in public policy. Prior articles have identified a

notable neglect of public policy in CP training

(Brown et al. 2014; Johnson-Hakim et al. 2014).

More recently, an examination of graduate degrees

found that among 20 U.S. universities offering

graduate degrees in community psychology, only

three required policy courses in their curriculum

(Dancis, Godsay, Hosler & Maton 2016). The data

reviewed included MA/MS and Ph.D. CP degrees

(p. 13). The authors conclude that this does not

bode well for future CPs getting involved in policy

work (p. 13). Effective social justice advocates

require policy training, legislative influence and

intervention to advance their cause.

The preceding provides a strong and urgent

basis for more public policy training to achieve the

public policy competency. Several options include:

more policy training requirements, offering of policy

tracks at all levels of CP training and certificates in

public policy that could be offered to CPs, as well

as any past graduates in CP, or other allied social

justice related fields.

Conclusion

The purpose here is to demonstrate the

potential power of Model legislation analysis by

CPs to advance social justice and CP values and

encourage its use. The table provided can be used

as a template and may prove useful to CPs who

wish to assess any legislation of choice and to

facilitate analysis.

Beyond the eight values identified here, the

template provides for additional values to be added,

depending upon the CP’s priorities. That is, CPs

can tailor values most important to them, that justify

the use of their limited resources, to intervene in

communities to advance the public good. It also

furthers “best practice” analysis and the potential to

apply “Model” legislation to advance system level

change thinking and solutions in multiple

jurisdictions across local, regional, state and

national bounds.

Model legislation can be particularly effective

for advancing social justice progress through state

level legislation and intervention, as illustrated by

this case of criminalizing chokeholds-- where such

relief, potentially mandated through national

legislation, appears unlikely, if not implausible,

based on the state of partisan politics currently at

the federal level. Moreover, policing is, first,

primarily a responsibility of state and local

governments—requiring intervention at those

levels, rather than federal level. Second, Model

legislation provides a prime entry point with

legislators and fosters cooperative working bi-

partisan relationships essential for actually

achieving policy and advocacy training objectives

and skills. This allows CPs to apply their research

skills in service of social justice-based legislation

that helps solve often intractable social and political

problems. Model legislation analysis can be applied

70 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

to whatever issue justifies your precious yet limited

research resources such as discrimination based

on race, gender, sexual identity, disability, or any

other social justice issue that arouses your passion.

Finally, this paper raises a larger question:

How can the field empower CPs to be more

effective social justice advocates and

interventionists? To achieve the aspirational goals

of the policy and advocacy competency, there is

strong basis and urgent need for increased public

policy training at all CP levels: bachelor’s, master’s,

and doctoral. More policy training is well supported

by Brown et al. (2014) and Johnson-Hakim et al.

(2014), and, more recently, based on a survey of

20 graduate CP programs (Dancis et al. 2016). The

preceding supports the urgent need for more public

policy training for practitioners and academics alike.

Various options include: more policy training

requirements; policy specific tracks in master and

doctorial level programs that train current and

future CPs, as well as the potential use of

certificates in public policy, including online

opportunities, to reach past CP graduates as well to

reach students and prior graduates of other allied

fields. In sum, progress needed to advance social

justice through application of public policy skills and

competencies will require, first, specific methods of

engagement with legislators, such as Model

legislation. Second, a systematic expansion of

public policy training in graduate programs is

urgently needed to achieve the competency’s goals

which includes the ability to write briefs, present

testimony, draft policies and consult with elected

officials at federal, state and local levels, as well as

develop ongoing relationships (Dalton & Wolfe

2012, p. 12).

With such progress, the policy and advocacy

competency goals can evolve beyond being merely

aspirational-- to at least enable proficiency, if not

expertise, empowering CPs to successfully pursue

the social justice issues most important to them,

while advancing the state of the field.

Note: This paper is based, in part, on “Model

Legislation: Public Policy 501”, a Core Competency

#15 Workshop presented at SCRA’s 2015 Biennial

held June 25-28, Lowell, Mass. It is available on

SCRA’s website under “Policy Workshops”, along

with Public Policy 101-601 Core Competency

Workshops presented at SCRA biennials since

2005.

Christopher Corbett, MA Community

Psychology, is a nonprofit researcher and author of

Advancing Nonprofit Stewardship Through Self-

Regulation: Translating Principles into Practice

(Kumarian Press). Any questions may be directed

to: [email protected].

References

Brown, K., Cardazone, G., Glantsman, O.,

Johnson-Hakim, S. & Lemke, M. (2014).

Special Report: Examining the Guiding

Competencies in Community Psychology

Practice from Students’ Perspectives. The

Community Psychologist,47(1). 3-9.

Chokehold law too late (2020, June 10). Chokehold

law comes too late for many. Daily Gazette

Editorial. C-6.

Corbett, C. (2015). Model Legislation: Public Policy

501. Workshop presented at Biennial

Conference of the Society for Community

Research and Action, June 25-28, Lowell,

Mass. Accessed from

http://scra27.org/files/8914/4820/9070/Public_P

olicy_501_-

_Model_Legislation_by_Chris_Corbett_SCRA_

Biennial_2015.pdf.

Corbett, C. (2018). Action or Inaction in the Wake

of the Parkland Florida Tragedy? Preventing

Gun Violence Through Model Legislation. The

Community Psychologist 51(2). 21-23.

Dalton, J., Elias, M., & Wandersman, A. (2001).

Community Psychology: Linking Individuals and

Communities. Stamford, CT:

Wadsworth/Thomson.

Dalton, J. & Wolfe, S. (2012). Education

Connection and The Community Practitioner:

Competencies for Community Psychology

Practice. The Community Psychologist 45(4). 7-

14.

Dancis, J., Godsay, S., Hosler, J. & Maton, K.

(2016). Getting Started in Policy Work:

Strategies for Community Psychologists. The

Community Psychologist 49(1). 11-13.

71 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

Duffy, K. & Wong, F. (1996). Community

Psychology. Needham Heights, Mass: Allyn &

Bacon.

Heller, K., Price, R., Reinharz, S., Riger, S., &

Wandersman, A., (1984). Psychology and

Community Change: Challenges of the Future.

Homewood, Illinois: Dorsey Press.

Johnson-Hakim, S., Connell, C., Anglin, A., &

Brown, K. (2014). Competencies for Practice:

Perspectives on Training and Education. The

Community Psychologist, 47(3). 11-12.

NY Assembly Memorandum in Support (2020).

New York State Assembly Memorandum in

Support of Legislation. Bill Number: A6144-B.

1-2. https://nyassembly.gov.

Prewitt, K., Schwandt, T., Straf, M. (eds) (2012).

Using Science as Evidence in Public Policy.

National Research Council, National

Academies Press: Washington.

Tarinelli, E. (2020, June 12). Cuomo signs bills

banning chokeholds, repealing policy secrecy

laws. New York Law Journal, 1-6.

https://www.law.com.

Tolan, P., Keys, C., Chertok, F. & Jason, L. (eds.)

(1990). Researching Community Psychology:

Issues of Theory and Methods. Washington,

DC: American Psychological Association.

SCRA News Edited by Susan M. Wolfe, Susan Wolfe and

Associates and The University of

Washington

Congratulations to CERA Mini-Grant

Recipients!

Written by Mini-Grant Committee, Council

for Ethnic, Racial, and Cultural Affairs

We would like to announce the awardees for

the 2020-21 CERA Racial and Social Justice Mini-

Grants! We had 19 submissions this year and they

were all wonderful and high-quality applications.

Thank you to everyone else who submitted an

application! The difference came down to 1/2 point

and does not reflect a lack of quality in any way as

we only are able to fund 5 mini-grants.

Congratulations to the awardees!

1. The Development of a Research Advisory Board for Latinx Youth in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania by Dr. Josefina Bañales & Dr. Maya Ragavan

2. Enhancing the Racial Identities of Youth Through Culturally Relevant Curriculum by Dr. Rome Meeks

3. Hope, resilience, and action: A qualitative exploration of critical consciousness and sociopolitical development among Black and Latinx adolescent girls by Taina Quiles & Dr. Seanna Leath

4. Code BLACK: Communication strategies to engage the Black Diaspora in a time of Crisis by Dr. Deveda François, Moshood Olanrewaju, Terence Sinabajije, & Isabel Dos Santos-Johnson

5. The Systemic Racism Curriculum Project (SRCP) by Dr. Brett Russell Coleman

The 8th International Conference of

Community Psychology 2020 –

Fostering and Sustaining Solidarities

Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia

November 11, 12, and 13, 2020

Same event delivered virtually! After the

success of two recent ICCP Panel Webinars, we

are confident in moving forward with a fully online

72 THE COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST FALL 2020

virtual experience, allowing our global community

psychology audience to connect safely.

✓ Utilising a dynamic virtual conference platform,

OnAIR attendees will be able to interact and

engage with each other.

✓ Produced in Melbourne, Australia, and spread

over 3 days in morning and afternoon segments

to accommodate varied time zones.

✓ Keynote speakers and panel sessions

streamed live and available on-demand to view

at your convenience.

For more details and to register for the

conference go to:

www.communitypsychologyaustralia.com.au

#ICCP2020