Six-Year Sustainability of Evidence-Based Intervention Implementation Quality by Community-University Partnerships: The PROSPER Study

There is a knowledge gap concerning how well community-based teams fare in implementing evidence-based interventions (EBIs) over many years, a gap that is important to fill because sustained high quality EBI implementation is essential to public health impact. The current study addresses this gap by evaluating data from PROSPER, a community-university intervention partnership model, in the context of a randomized-control trial of 28 communities. Specifically, it examines community teams' sustainability of implementation quality on a range of measures, for both family-focused and school-based EBIs. Average adherence ratings approached 90% for family-focused and school-based EBIs, across as many as 6 implementation cohorts. Additional indicators of implementation quality similarly showed consistently positive results. Correlations of the implementation quality outcomes with a number of characteristics of community teams and intervention leaders were calculated to explore their potential relevance to sustained implementation quality. Though several relationships attained statistical significance at particular points in time, none were stable across cohorts. The role of PROSPER's continuous, proactive technical assistance in producing the positive results is discussed.     

From ��Water Boiling in a Peruvian Town�� to ��Letting them Die��: Culture, Community Intervention, and the Metabolic Balance Between Patience and Zeal

While the concept of culture has long been central to community psychology research and intervention, it has most frequently referred to the communities in which such work occurs. The purpose of this paper is to reframe this discussion by viewing community interventions as instances of intercultural contact between the culture of science, reflected in community intervention research, and the culture of the communities in which those interventions occur. Following a brief discussion of the complexities of culture as a concept, two illustrative stories of failed community interventions are provided to highlight the centrality of cultural and contextual understanding as prelude to community intervention. These stories, set 50 years apart, reflect the depth and pervasive influence of both the culture of science and the culture of communities. Next, a series of propositions about the culture of social science as a partial reflection of the broader culture of the United States are offered, and their implications for the conduct of community interventions drawn. The paper concludes with a series of recommendations which, together, provide an ecological mind-set for taking culture seriously in community interventions. Central to this mind set are the importance of focusing on communities rather than programs and emphasizing the intervention goal of choice over change.     

Mobilizing Communities to Implement Evidence-Based Practices in Youth Violence Prevention: The State of the Art

Community mobilization can increase the effective implementation of evidence-based practices (EBPs) in youth violence prevention. These strategies bring together people and organizations in a community to try to solve or reduce a problem. They help communities address the challenges of identifying EBPs, disseminating them to local decision-makers, and then implementing and sustaining them if they are successful. Science-based systems for implementing EBPs such as PROSPER and Communities That Care can help to integrate this complex work in communities. Further insight about implementing EBPs in youth violence prevention is being developed through the CDC-funded Academic Centers for Excellence in Youth Violence Prevention. Community mobilization approaches for seven of these programs are discussed, highlighting successful approaches and challenges encountered.     

Leveraged Resources and Systems Changes in Community Collaboration

Most models of community collaboration emphasize the ability of diverse partners to come together to enact systematic changes that improve the health of individuals and communities. The ability of these groups to leverage resources is thought to be an important marker of successful collaboration and eventual improvements in community health. However, there is a paucity of research addressing linkages between systems change activities and leveraged resources. This study used a sample of collaboratives (N = 157) that received technical assistance and funding through the Georgia Family Connection Partnership (GaFCP) between 2006 and 2007. Data were collected from collaborative report of activities and funding, member ratings of collaborative functioning, and characteristics of the communities served by the collaboratives drawn from US Census data. Cross-lagged regression models tested longitudinal associations between systems change activities and leveraged dollars. The results indicated that systems change activities predict increased leveraging of resources from state/federal and private partners. However, there was no evidence that systems changes were linked with leveraging resources from local groups and agencies. These findings have important implications for providing technical assistance and training to health partnerships. Furthermore, future research should consider the relative strength of different systems change activities in relation to the ability of coalitions to leverage resources.     

Collaborative Measurement Development as a Tool in CBPR: Measurement Development and Adaptation within the Cultures of Communities

This paper describes the processes we engaged into develop a measurement protocol used to assess the outcomes in a community based suicide and alcohol abuse prevention project with two Alaska Native communities. While the literature on community-based participatory research (CBPR) is substantial regarding the importance of collaborations, few studies have reported on this collaboration in the process of developing measures to assess CBPR projects. We first tell a story of the processes around the standard issues of doing cross-cultural work on measurement development related to areas of equivalence. A second story is provided that highlights how community differences within the same cultural group can affect both the process and content of culturally relevant measurement selection, adaptation, and development.     

Channeling Power Across Ecological Systems: Social Regularities in Community Organizing

Relational and social network perspectives provide opportunities for more holistic conceptualizations of phenomena of interest in community psychology, including power and empowerment. In this article, we apply these tools to build on multilevel frameworks of empowerment by proposing that networks of relationships between individuals constitute the connective spaces between ecological systems. Drawing on an example of a model for grassroots community organizing practiced by WISDOM—a statewide federation supporting local community organizing initiatives in Wisconsin—we identify social regularities (i.e., relational and temporal patterns) that promote empowerment and the development and exercise of social power through building and altering relational ties. Through an emphasis on listening-focused one-to-one meetings, reflection, and social analysis, WISDOM organizing initiatives construct and reinforce social regularities that develop social power in the organizing initiatives and advance psychological empowerment among participant leaders in organizing. These patterns are established by organizationally driven brokerage and mobilization of interpersonal ties, some of which span ecological systems. Hence, elements of these power-focused social regularities can be conceptualized as cross-system channels through which micro-level empowerment processes feed into macro-level exercise of social recommendations for theory and designpower, and vice versa. We describe examples of these channels in action, and offer of future action research.     

Highlighting the Way Forward: A Review of Community Mental Health Research and Practice Published in AJCP and JCP

Articles published in the two most prominent journals of community psychology in North America, the American Journal of Community Psychology (AJCP) and Journal of Community Psychology (JCP), provide a clear indicator of trends in community research and practice. An examination of community psychology's history and scholarship suggests that the field has reduced its emphasis on promoting mental health, well‐being, and liberation of individuals with serious mental illnesses over the past several decades. To further investigate this claim, the current review presents an analysis of articles relevant to community mental health (N = 307) published in the American Journal of Community Psychology (AJCP) and Journal of Community Psychology (JCP) from 1973 to 2015. The review focuses on article characteristics (e.g., type of article and methods employed), author characteristics, topic areas, and theoretical frameworks. Results document a downward trend in published articles from the mid‐1980s to mid‐2000s, with a substantial increase in published work between 2006 and 2015. A majority of articles were empirical and employed quantitative methods. The most frequent topic area was community mental health centers and services (n = 49), but the past three decades demonstrate a clear shift away from mental health service provision to address pressing social issues that impact community mental health, particularly homelessness (n = 42) and community integration of adults with serious mental illnesses (n = 40). Findings reflect both the past and present state of community psychology and suggest promising directions for re‐engaging with community mental health and fostering well‐being, inclusion, and liberation of adults experiencing serious mental health challenges.     

A Return to “The Clinic” for Community Psychology: Lessons from a Clinical Ethnography in Urban American Indian Behavioral Health

Community psychology (CP) abandoned the clinic and disengaged from movements for community mental health (CMH) to escape clinical convention and pursue growing aspirations as an independent field of context‐oriented, community‐engaged, and values‐driven research and action. In doing so, however, CP positioned itself on the sidelines of influential contemporary movements that promote potentially harmful, reductionist biomedical narratives in mental health. We advocate for a return to the clinic—the seat of institutional power in mental health—using critical clinic‐based inquiry to open sites for clinical‐community dialogue that can instigate transformative change locally and nationally. To inform such works within the collaborative and emancipatory traditions of CP, we detail a recently completed clinical ethnography and offer “lessons learned” regarding challenges likely to re‐emerge in similar efforts. Conducted with an urban American Indian community behavioral health clinic, this ethnography examined how culture and culture concepts (e.g., cultural competence) shaped clinical practice with socio‐political implications for American Indian peoples and the pursuit of transformative change in CMH. Lessons learned identify exceptional clinicians versed in ecological thinking and contextualist discourses of human suffering as ideal partners for this work; encourage intense contextualization and constraining critique to areas of mutual interest; and support relational approaches to clinic collaborations.     

Ecological Networks and Community Attachment and Support Among Recently Resettled Refugees

Interventions aimed at enhancing mental health are increasingly centered around promoting community attachment and support. However, few have examined and tested the specific ecological factors that give rise to these key community processes. Drawing from insights from the ecological network perspective, we tested whether spatial and social overlap in routine activity settings (e.g., work, school, childcare) with fellow ethnic community members is associated with individuals’ attachment to their ethnic communities and access to social resources embedded in their communities. Data on routine activity locations drawn from the Refugee Well‐Being Project (based in a city in the Southwestern United States) were used to reconstruct the ecological networks of recently resettled refugee communities, which were two‐mode networks that comprise individuals and their routine activity locations. Results indicated that respondents’ community attachment and support increased with their ecological network extensity—which taps the extent to which respondents share routine activity locations with other community members. Our study highlights a key ecological process that potentially enhances individuals’ ethnic community attachment that extends beyond residential neighborhoods.     

Community Psychology and Community Mental Health: A Call for Reengagement

Community psychology is rooted in community mental health research and practice and has made important contributions to this field. Yet, in the decades since its inception, community psychology has reduced its focus on promoting mental health, well‐being, and liberation of individuals with serious mental illnesses. This special issue endeavors to highlight current efforts in community mental health from our field and related disciplines and point to future directions for reengagement in this area. The issue includes 12 articles authored by diverse stakeholder groups. Following a review of the state of community mental health scholarship in the field's two primary journals since 1973, the remaining articles center on four thematic areas: (a) the community experience of individuals with serious mental illness; (b) the utility of a participatory and cross‐cultural lens in our engagement with community mental health; (c) Housing First implementation, evaluation, and dissemination; and (d) emerging or under‐examined topics. In reflection, we conclude with a series of challenges for community psychologists involved in future, transformative, movements in community mental health.