Community Elder-Care in Tasmania

SUMMARY

Adult caregivers (n = 184; M age = 43.9 years old) working at a non-profit, eldercare program at five geographically diverse sites located in the self-contained, island state of Tasmania, Australia, completed a set of self-report measures. Results across the five sites indicated that respondents experienced a relatively strong sense of self-efficacy toward making a difference in their local community. However, there were significant differences (controlling for social desirability) when comparing caregivers from rural northern (n = 45) with urban southern (n = 139) communities, with rural caregivers claiming stronger sense of common mission with others, reciprocal responsibility to help others, and caregiver satisfaction, plus lower disharmony with other members and caregiver stress in helping the elderly than urban caregivers. Implications suggest that community self-efficacy may be high among eldercare staff, but their sense of community and caregiving perceptions may reflect geographic differences, especially in Tasmania.     

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.     

Free-Standing Doctoral Programs in Community Psychology

We examined school sense of community (SSOC) between university students who are first-generation U.S. citizens (n = 936) or students who are non-first-generation U.S. citizens (n = 3,556), and between first-generation college students (n = 1,114) and students who are non-first-generation college students (n = 3,378), both attending an urban and diverse Roman Catholic university. Participants reported their SSOC and whether the school was innovative and inclusive, examining whether a higher sense of school community and positive notions of one's campus mission related to being a first-generation U.S. citizen or a first-generation college student. Results showed that a lack of belongingness may lead to lower academic achievement, school dropouts, and less school involvement. Future research should explore why there is a differing impact on school sense of community and campus mission perception for students who are first-generation U.S. citizens or first-generation college students.     

社区矫正视角下城市社区建设的路径分析

社区矫正的发展前景,与城市社区状况密切相关。在社区矫正视角下,城市社区建设应重视以下方面：关注＂弱势社区＂,消除＂区隔＂现象,以弥合城市社区的分化;发展社区民间组织,为社区矫正等活动的开展提供基础和平台;开发社区就业岗位,为包括社区矫正对象在内的社区弱势群体提供就业机会;改善社区矫正心理环境等等。     

The Role of Community in Facilitating Service Utilization

SUMMARY

Guided by an integrated theory of parent participation, this study examines the role community characteristics play in influencing a parent's decision to use voluntary child abuse prevention programs. Multiple regression techniques were used to determine if different community characteristics, such as neighborhood distress and the community's ratio of caregivers to those in need of care, predict service utilization levels in a widely available home visiting program. Our findings suggest that certain community characteristics are significant predictors of the extent to which families utilize voluntary family supports over and above the proportion of variance explained by personal characteristics and program experiences. Contrary to our initial assumptions, however, new parents living in the most disorganized communities received more home visits than program participants living in more organized communities. The article concludes with recommendations on how community capacity building might be used to improve participant retention.     

Community Service Providers' Conceptualizations of the Needs and Services of Depressed Rural Women

Abstract

Representatives from community and volunteer organizations (N = 37) in a rural region of Nova Scotia were interviewed on their views of the causes, prevention and treatment of depression in rural women. Utilizing a qualitative analysis, five themes were identified in their responses: the needs and stresses of women with depression; the problems of women in rural areas; obstacles and barriers to accessing services; the inadequacy of treatment services; and recommendations for improving prevention and treatment. The findings suggested that community service providers were consistent in their views of the needs and stresses of depressed women in rural areas and the kinds of services that would remedy them. Making community service providers aware of the consistencies in their views may promote more interagency cooperation and the development of community-centered approaches to the treatment of depression in rural women.     

Organization and Leadership in the Participatory Community

Abstract

Participation is a community mobilization process which develops in relation to its internal and external conditions. Two of the most salient internal conditions due to their importance for the development of community participation (CP) are the organization and the leadership adopted by participants throughout the participatory project. That is, the community constructs along its self-management process, the particularities that those conditions should have, so that they correspond with the meaning of participation orienting it and with the characteristics of the goals the community attempts to achieve. It is argued that organization and leadership develop in the participatory community not only as related conditions, as they jointly influence CP, but as two conditions which mutually influence one another, so that the definition the community makes of one of them converges with the definition of the other one. That relationship is examined taking as illustration a case study of CP which has a successful history of seventeen years of continued participation.     

Community and Families

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present the social organization, social networks and interactive processes supporting family systems living in communities with marginal economies, in disadvantaged neighbourhoods (barrios) in Caracas, Venezuela. Twelve families inserted in four different communities were observed by four researchers, taking thirty-six ethnographic records of the families' daily life activities, as well as the interaction patterns between family members, and between the family system and the community and social organizations. Some characteristics of the organization, structure, and functioning of the underprivileged family systems as well as their interrelations to the community and to the educational and social institutions are shown. It is concluded that the analysis of these interactive patterns permits the researcher to explore the complexity of family life in poverty stricken communities, its culture and process of change.     

Community Building with Technology

Abstract

This article describes the creation and development of community technology initiatives in Lowell, Massachusetts, a historically poor and ethnically diverse mid-size city. In the past two years, many organizations have joined in community-wide efforts to share information and resources electronically and to launch new electronic technology projects. Recent initiatives include a comprehensive computerized public database of area-wide health and human service programs, a centralized multi-purpose community Web site, and a new inter-agency community technology collaborative. This article reviews these activities and describes general lessons learned in electronic community building that may apply to other communities.     

Community elder-care in Tasmania: examining whether caregivers believe they "make-a-difference" in an urban and rural island

Adult caregivers (n = 184;Mage = 43.9 years old) working at a non-profit, eldercare program at five geographically diverse sites located in the self-contained, island state of Tasmania, Australia, completed a set of self-report measures. Results across the five sites indicated that respondents experienced a relatively strong sense of self-efficacy toward making a difference in their local community. However, there were significant differences (controlling for social desirability) when comparing caregivers from rural northern (n = 45) with urban southern (n = 139) communities, with rural caregivers claiming stronger sense of common mission with others, reciprocal responsibility to help others, and caregiver satisfaction, plus lower disharmony with other members and caregiver stress in helping the elderly than urban caregivers. Implications suggest that community self-efficacy may be high among eldercare staff, but their sense of community and caregiving perceptions may reflect geographic differences, especially in Tasmania.     

社区公共治理与和谐社区的组织化构建

随着我国城市管理体制改革的深入推进,传统意义上的社区利益整合机制失灵,社区伦理问题日益凸显。本文在对和谐社区作出理论探讨的基础上,认为社区公共治理结构的建构必须在行政资源的推动下,注重社区多元利益主体的共同参与,但也面临初始行动者的生成、社区治理主体间的信任和社区治理网络的协调与整合等三个方面的难题。     

Community Psychologists who Go Beyond the Profession

SUMMARY

A “calling” is typically a compelling sense of purpose that arises from a place different from the calculus that leads to a choice of profession. Yet in the case of community psychology, the five people profiled in this essay have both an impressive professional portfolio and a sense of social mission. This essay explores the two sides of their work, and more broadly the challenges facing those who work as agents of change, while at the same time advancing and achieving notable accomplishments in systems that are at once sources of social problems and resources for solving them.     

Social Justice and the University Community: Does Campus Involvement Make a Difference?

We examined perceptions on school sense of community and social justice attitudes among undergraduates (N = 427; 308 women, 115 men; M age = 19.72, SD = 1.91), and how year in school and club membership affected these constructs. Results demonstrated that involvement with a greater number of clubs was associated with having a stronger school sense of community and more positive social justice attitudes. Multiple regression analyses demonstrated that year in school did not significantly predict social justice attitudes. Results suggested that greater involvement and sense of school belonging might be linked to social justice attitudes.     

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.     

A Community Service for a Rural High School

Abstract

This case study illustrates a preventive consultation using the ecological paradigm to guide entry, assessment, problem solving, and collaborative intervention design and implementation in a rural high school which initially had serious reservations about working with urban academicians. The ecological paradigm's emphasis on the identification of resources, on collaborative work with community members, and on developing tailored solutions based on the strengths of the setting are discussed. A four year follow-up describing the long-term outcome and commentary from a key setting member are included.     

共同体﹑共同体精神与城市社区——以上海市临港新城为例

该文选取了现代社会中一个小范围且典型的事例——城市社区,试图探讨在现代城市社区中共同体及其精神存在的必要性,并通过分析临港新城主城区的各个社区所具有的多方面特质,寻找培育共同体及其精神的可行路径。     

An Analysis of Interagency Communication Patterns Surrounding Incidents of School Crime

Abstract

Need has been recognized for communication and collaboration between the multiple agencies that respond to school crime, but the topic has not been well researched. This study is based on interviews with officials from middle and high schools as well as with police and other juvenile justice officials. Officials in rural, suburban, and urban communities were interviewed about interagency communication and interaction patterns in response to school crime. Findings revealed considerable interagency collaboration in the rural community, some communication in the suburban area, and minimal interaction in the urban setting. Communication between agencies was enhanced and inhibited by cultural, bureaucratic, and individual level factors. Implications are discussed for assessing and improving interagency collaboration.     

对创建对创建“三元一体”城市社区管理目标的思考

城市社区管理和发展的真正基础是把社区建设成承接政府社会管理服务职能,企事业单位及其他部门基础保障功能社会化的动态发展载体。创建"三元一体"的城市社区管理目标,就是建设这样的发展载体,其中的三元,即政府、社区和社区民间组织,分别承担着一定的角色,协同推动社区管理的发展。     

Our Brotherhood and Your Sister: Building Anti-Rape Community in the Fraternity

Research shows that male peer influence is a significant predictor of violent sexual behavior. However, men challenging sexual violence within their male peer communities may exert a counter-influence, shifting community norms and behaviors. Using the Fraternity Peer Rape Education Program as a case study, this article examines the ways that fraternity men in a peer rape education program make sense of and interact within their communities. Through coded interviews, this article examines participants' perceptions of change within themselves, within their interactions with fraternity brothers, and within their fraternities. Learning about sexual violence altered participants' worldview and created a communal sense of partnership and responsibility, while simultaneously limiting the traditional ways that fraternal communities are maintained. This experience provides lessons for how we may begin creating communities of men against sexual violence, as well as what support may be required for such messy, nonlinear change processes.