The Illusion of Empowerment

Abstract

This paper presents a community development experience in Puerto Rico which was guided by the goal of empowerment. It describes the socio-historical context in which the effort is embedded. its values, and its theoretical background. The intervention was carried out in a poor rural community of approximately 1,400 families. Specific strategies and tactics used to facilitate ideological and skill development among the residents are presented. The article concludes with an analysis of the achievements and limitations of the effort. Guidelines toward future conceptual and practical developments are suggested.     

Citizen Empowerment

Abstract

Since the late 1970s, the notion of empowerment has appeared with increasing frequency in discussion of preventive social and community intervention. While the idea of empowerment is intuitively appealing both for theory and practice, its applicability has been limited by continuing conceptual ambiguity. Based on a small ?^G study of emerging citizen leaders in grassroots organizations, this article proposes a view of empowerment as a necessarily long-term process of adult learning and development. In this framework, empowerment is further described as the continuing construction of a multi-dimensional participatory competence. This conception encompasses both cognitive and behavioral change. Implications for practice are also addressed.     

School Violence Interventions in the Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative

Abstract

The Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative was designed to encourage collaboration among school districts and local community service providers in the provision of behavioral health prevention and early intervention efforts. These efforts would address the physical safety of students as well as provide mental health, violence prevention, and social skills services. One local SS/HS Initiative brought together community and school collaborators in an ambitious agenda that included 14 distinct programs that addressed the needs of over 110,000 students in a large school district. The purpose of the current paper is to report the results of the evaluation of two of the programs designed to reduce violent and disruptive behavior in schools. The programs include a school-based anger management program and a community-based, alternative-to-suspension program. Working in cooperation with program staff and the school district, quasi-experimental designs were used to measure change over time for students. The two studies demonstrate the application of multiple methodologies in evaluating the effectiveness of prevention and early intervention efforts with the aim of providing data to support program improvement and sustainability.     

Promoting Methodological Pluralism,Theoretical Diversity and Interdisciplinarity Through a Multi-Leveled Violence Prevention Initiative in South Africa

SUMMARY

Violence prevention within low-income, under-resourced communities presents significant challenges to community development researcher-practitioners seeking to maximize partnerships, resource utilization and overall program effectiveness. This article highlights a South African research and service delivery organization's efforts to develop a violence prevention matrix, premised upon an adaptation of the public health approach and the infusion of a critical, community development praxis. It presents preliminary outcomes of a multi-level pilot application of this matrix in a low-income neighborhood in South Africa, specifically focusing on evaluating its capacity to foster methodological pluralism, theoretical diversity and interdisciplinarity, together with promoting community empowerment and coalition-building strategies.     

Doctoral Education in Clinical-Community Psychology

SUMMARY

This paper provides an overview of doctoral clinical-community psychology programs and highlights some possible future directions in training. Clinical-community doctoral programs were categorized as: (1) formally labeled clinical-community programs, (2) clinical programs with a formal community track, or (3) clinical programs with an informal community emphasis. Many graduates from these programs obtain a basic understanding and appreciation of community psychology through required or elective courses, and through contact with students and faculty involved in community research and action. Those students who focus their research and electives around community psychology obtain a thorough and in-depth training experience in community research and action. Changes precipitated by managed care will challenge current ways that psychological services are provided allowing for more community based, innovative, and preventive approaches for which community psychology training would be particularly useful. Greater flexibility in APA accreditation guidelines provide opportunities for greater flexibility within clinical-community programs. Doctoral programs in clinical-community psychology are positioned to lead the development of a public health and human service approach to doctoral training through the integration of community and clinical psychology.     

Successful Program Development Using Implementation Evaluation

SUMMARY

Four methods used to enhance implementation of a resiliency-based early childhood substance abuse and violence prevention initiative are described. Project staff drew up formal agreements with participating programs to ensure administrative support for the intervention, provided high quality training for program implemcnt-ers, used a participatory evaluation approach, and monitored implementation both directly and through practitioners' self-report. The contribution of each of these methods to fidelity of implementation is discussed, and implementation challenges are identified. The growth and success of the project demonstrates the utility of implementation evaluation data for ongoing program development and improvement.     

A Partnership Approach to Consultation

Abstract

A social ecological approach to consultation was evaluated through a four-year primary prevention field research project with 10,000 people in 24 church congregations. Significantly lower levels of personal distress and alcohol abuse were found in experimental congregations exposed to intervention processes which encouraged an increase in heterogeneous settings and activities when compared to control congregations not exposed to the same intervention processes. Continuing reciprocal social support and mutual empowerment, defined as knowing how to give and receive support, caring for others, knowing others by name, and being asked to help others, were identified as the key process variables which minimized distress and abuse.     

The School-Based Violence Prevention Planning Program

Abstract

Despite a growing research literature identifying evidence-based prevention strategies, schools often adopt programs lacking evidentiary support (Gottfredson and Gottfredson, 2002; Ringwalt et al., 2002). Further, when evidence-based programs are adopted they often suffer from poor implementation (Gottfredson and Gottfredson, 2002). This gap between research and practice defines a need for efforts to further the dissemination and effective implementation of evidence-based prevention strategies. The School-Based Violence Prevention Planning Program (SBV3P) is designed to improve the dissemination of evidence-based prevention strategies by building the capacity of school personnel to identify and effectively implement violence prevention strategies that have substantial empirical support. In this program, prevention planning teams from schools create violence prevention plans by progressing through a structured planning framework emphasizing data-driven decision making and the use of empirically validated violence prevention strategies. To build capacity, participating teams are provided with training, technical assistance, and online resources. Here we present the SBV3P and review a pilot test of this program.     

Supporting and Strengthening Family Functioning

Abstract

The thesis of this article is that family resource programs which employ prevention models fail to recognize that the prevention of poor outcomes cannot be equated with the strengthening of family functioning. Evidence from divergent but conceptually coherent lines of research is presented which indicates that the absence of problems does not necessarily mean the presence of positive functioning. The use of promotion models which are more consistent with the aims and principles of family resource programs is advanced as a way of bridging the gap between intervention models, family support principles, and family resource program practices.     

Parents as teachers project

SUMMARY

Individuals with interests in children and families, as well as in critically examining interventions and service systems may consider opportunities for evaluation research in Child Welfare. As the field increasingly adopts multi-level preventative interventions, positions may offer opportunities for motivated individuals with skills in articulating and examining phenomena at individual, family, community and organizational levels. The paper follows one pathway from graduate school to a position within an organizational context manifesting many of the major themes in contemporary community psychology, including capacity building and empowerment, community development and multi-level prevention interventions, consumer involvement and the stimulating role of program evaluation. The purposeful collection of practical experience is suggested as an important balance to rigorous academic preparation and creative exploration of different professional roles.     

Design and Implementation of Parent Programs for a Community-Wide Adolescent Alcohol Use Prevention Program

SUMMARY

Project Northland is a comprehensive community trial designed to evaluate programs for the primary prevention of alcohol-related problems during adolescence. It uses a community-wide model, that includes both demand and supply reduction techniques. The first phase of Project Northland (grades 6-8) was completed with the effective implementation of multiple, complementary programs including a multi-year social behavioral curriculum, intensive parental involvement components, peer leadership opportunities, and community-level changes through the formation of local task forces. This article describes the process used for developing and implementing the comprehensive parent interventions used during the first phase of the research, highlighting the elements that led to the successful implementation of the programs with very high participation rates by parents, their young adolescents, teachers, and community members.     

Preventing Dating Violence in Public Schools

Abstract

Many communities offer programs aimed at improving teen dating skills and knowledge about violence and sexual behavior. This research study evaluates one such program, operated by an interagency collaborative. Each of four participating community agencies provided one hour of curriculum during one week of health class. Lecture, group activities, and films were used in the intervention. A 0 X 0 design was used to examine changes in knowledge and attitudes among 74 students. Results indicate that most students began with fairly high knowledge levels and appropriate attitudes. Nevertheless, the program did appear to have a positive impact on those who exhibited less knowledge about and more tolerant attitudes toward exploitive dating behaviors at pre-test. Implications of results for the school context are discussed.     

Advocacy for prevention: The role of the mental health association in Michigan

SUMMARY

This paper describes the application of such community psychology principles of empowerment and systemic interventions in a variety of applied settings, including school systems, a university campus, and a community hospital. The consistent application of such principles illustrates one way in which a viable career as community psychologist can be maintained in settings that do not have community psychology positions per se.     

Comparing Middle School Teachers' and Students' Views on Bullying and Anti-Bullying Interventions

Abstract

This study compares middle school students' and teachers' perceptions regarding the effectiveness of intervention and prevention strategies commonly used by children, teachers, and nonteaching staff to address bullying among students as identified in the research literature. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used. The results indicate that teachers are more likely to perceive bullying intervention and prevention strategies as effective than are students, and to perceive teachers as offering assistance to student victims. Both teachers and students appear to believe that teachers need to teach students assertiveness techniques to confront perpetrators. However, both students and teachers generally did not see as helpful some of the common educational techniques utilized by most bullying prevention programs, including role-playing and literature.     

The inner “I”

SUMMARY

Many community psychologists have the educational and professional backgrounds which make them potentially valuable resources for the disabilities field. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) and the reauthorized Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) call for greater community inclusion, empowerment, and self-determination for persons with disabilities. Community psychologists with interests in these concepts, as well as in interdisciplinary training, collaboration, community-driven research, and political action are needed as leaders in the disabilities field. This paper explores the development of one community psychologist's career working with persons who have disabilities and the institutions that support them.     

High Schools Respond to Crises

Abstract

Schools across the nation have increasingly coordinated crisis intervention programs to minimize the impact felt by students as the result of a crisis, such as national events and school violence. Through the development of response plans and crisis teams, as well as the instrumental work of school counselors in promoting intervention plans and prevention programs, school systems have taken steps toward assisting students in recovery from crises. Theories of crisis intervention emerge from direct practice; however, minimal research has been conducted to examine how schools plan to respond to crises versus their actual response. This research investigated what high schools in one Massachusetts county have learned from actual response to crises. The study was conducted via written surveys of administrators and qualitative interviews with school counselors.     

School Violence Prevention

Abstract

School violence has many faces and many casualties. In varying degrees it touches students, parents, educators and communities of every school world wide. At the local level, communities are seen as playing a significant role in violence prevention. Generally, community-based violence prevention approaches involve the assessment of local problems, identification of target issues, selection of a range of interventions, and the encouragement of collaboration among civic groups, the juvenile justice system, local leaders, and young people themselves. These programs are generally judged as successful if they are able to address risk factors effectively for individual youths, strengthen those factors that provide protection and enhance resiliency, provide sufficient support and effective supervision, and increase pro-social attitudes by providing youth with a sense of having an increased stake in their local communities. Although too few educators are aware of its impact, the women's community has been involved in this work for decades. In this paper I discuss the results of interviews with members of the women's community in Atlantic Canada who have developed proactive violence prevention initiatives. I will concentrate on their efforts to bring those programs into the schools and their experiences of the successes and challenges they encounter.     

Teachers' Attitudes and Beliefs About Bullying

Abstract

Two exploratory studies were conducted to investigate U.S. teachers' attitudes and beliefs about bullying. Although most teachers believed they were doing a good job at preventing bullying, results indicate that some teachers hold beliefs that are at odds with current best practices in bullying prevention and intervention. First-year teachers would like more training in bullying despite reported confidence in their abilities to handle bullying, and report they did not receive such training either in teacher preparation programs or in-service training.