Resident-Led Neighborhood Development to Support Health: Identifying Strategies Using CBPR

Evidence suggests that where people live, learn, work, and play affects a range of health outcomes for children and adults. Differential access to social, economic, and environmental supports puts some community members at greater risk, leading to disparities in health and well-being. The 2014 release of the For the Sake of All report highlighted persistent health disparities for African Americans in St. Louis, Missouri, and their social and economic impacts on the St. Louis region. This study extends this work by developing partnerships with community organizations and neighborhood residents to address health disparities. Community-based participatory research (CBPR) methods were utilized to engage partners in a 10-month research process to address community concerns that impact health. Seven community residents, neighborhood researchers, engaged in workshops to learn about the research process and used techniques to gather information to implement action strategies. Neighborhood researchers selected 14 vacant lots to implement their action plan, which included visions for repurposing the land into a community park, produced a report for dissemination, and organized a community action forum to communicate their findings. This study highlights a promising approach to promote healthy communities and health equity by empowering neighborhood residents using participatory methodologies.     

Harnessing Home-School Partnerships and School Consultation to Support Youth With Anxiety

Youth with anxiety often experience significant impairment in the school setting. Despite the relevance and promise of addressing anxiety in schools, traditional treatment approaches to school-based anxiety often do not adequately address generalization to the school setting, or they require removing the student from the classroom to deliver time- and staff-intensive programs. Such programs often leave teachers and caregivers feeling ill-equipped to support the student with anxiety throughout the natural course of the school day. Given the heavy demands placed on teachers and documented burnout among school professionals, providing effective school supports requires collaborative partnerships among outpatient therapists/specialists, school personnel, and caregivers. Drawing from literature on collaborative models for externalizing problems, we offer recommendations for outpatient therapists and specialists working to implement evidence-based supports and promote home-school partnerships to benefit youth with anxiety in the school setting. Our recommendations touch upon several components of such school consultation, including (a) identification of key parties involved, (b) conducting a needs assessment, (c) collaborative goal setting and development of a fear hierarchy, (d) plan development and implementation (e.g., facilitating a school-based exposure mindset, promoting home-school communication, enhancing school relationships), and (e) progress monitoring and ongoing support. We conclude with a case example to bring these recommendations to life.     

Fresh Start: A Multilevel Community Mobilization Plan to Promote Youth Development and Prevent Violence

While much has been written about community mobilization for health, few detailed expositions of the formation of community mobilization, especially focused on youth violence prevention exist. The Columbia Center for Youth Violence Prevention, in collaboration with the UNIDOS Inwood Coalition, developed a Community mobilization plan to guide youth violence prevention in Inwood. The plan was developed within the context of an evidence-based organizing framework-Communities that Care (CTC) and takes a multi-level approach to service coordination that includes activities at the Individual, Family, Block, Organizational and Built Environment levels. This article describes how the Community mobilization plan was created, illustrates the use of evidence-based practices to lead to the development of the plan, outlines the plan's community/organizational activities, and summarizes the principles and processes that can be replicated in other communities seeking to start their own community mobilization efforts to reduce youth violence.     

Levels of Community Engagement in Youth Violence Prevention: The Role of Power in Sustaining Successful University-Community Partnerships

Previous research indicates that communities can be engaged at various levels in research to reduce youth violence. In this paper, we argue that the method of power sharing among partners is a central factor distinguishing different levels of engagement. Using cases from the Nashville Urban Partnership Academic Center of Excellence, we identify community initiation and community collaboration as distinct approaches to community engaged violence prevention research. The power relationships among partners are analyzed to highlight differences in the types of engagement and to discuss implications for establishing and sustaining community partnerships. Also, the implications of levels of engagement for promoting the use of evidence-based practices are discussed.     

Representations of ethnicity in people's accounts of local community participation in a multi‐ethnic community in England

In this paper we examine the impact of the social construction of ethnic identities on the likelihood of local community participation. We do so in the context of an applied interest in the current policy emphasis on partnerships between government and local communities in initiatives to reduce health inequalities, and a conceptual interest in the role of social representations in perpetuating unequal power hierarchies. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 75 residents of a deprived multi‐ethnic area in south England. Informants described themselves as African‐Caribbean, Pakistani and White English; half men and half women, aged 15–75. We draw attention to the way in which ethnic identities may be constructed in ways that undermine the likelihood of local community participation. Stereotypical representations of ethnically defined ingroups and outgroups (the ethnic ‘other’) constituted key symbolic resources used by our informants in accounting for their low levels of engagement with local community networks. We examine the content of these stereotypes, and highlight how their construction is shaped by historical, economic and social forces, within the context of the ‘institutional racism’ that exists in England. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Waimānalo Pono Research Hui: A Community–Academic Partnership to Promote Native Hawaiian Wellness through Culturally Grounded and Community‐Driven Research and Programming

Although Hawai‘i is often portrayed as an idyllic paradise and is recognized as one of the healthiest States in the United States, pervasive health disparities exist among Native Hawaiians. Similar to other indigenous populations across the globe, these disparities are linked to unjust social and economic policies rooted in colonization and historical trauma. Western‐centric efforts to address these disparities have yielded limited results. Consequently, indigenous frameworks to decolonize western‐centric research processes have emerged. The Waimānalo Pono Research Hui is an example of a community–academic partnership that uses indigenous methodologies and principles of community‐based participatory research as the foundation to engage Native Hawaiian community members in research. Monthly gatherings are held where community members and academic researchers share a meal and discuss community priorities with the goal of shaping research and programming that are rooted in Native Hawaiian values. A mission for the group has been created as well as protocols for community engagement to ensure all projects that work with the Waimānalo Pono Research Hui are ethically sound and grounded in the community's preferences, cultural knowledge, and lived experiences. Our community members continually report that the Waimānalo Pono Research Hui has positively transformed their perception of and willingness to engage in research. Similarly, university students and academic researchers express how much their knowledge about working with communities has grown and inspired them. Creating spaces for communities and researchers to build authentic relationships and engage in ongoing conversations can promote culturally grounded and community‐driven research and programming.     

The Relevance of Sociocultural Theory to Culturally Diverse Partnerships and Communities

The phenomenal growth of information technology and globalization promises a future where education about diversity and difference will be very significant. In this information age where existing knowledge and technology are constantly being replaced in an ever changing interdependent global environment, the fundamentals of education are also changing. Education will focus on building new knowledge rather than passing on existing knowledge. The increasing interconnectedness between cultures and their concomitant intermixing as a result of globalization requires that pedagogies about cultural diversity also focus on creating new knowledge and meanings about cultures as they change. In this article, we discuss sociocultural theory as an alternative educational pedagogy that situates the teaching and learning of cultural diversity within rapidly changing local and global conditions. We argue that features of this theory are especially relevant to providing a guiding pedagogy for valuing difference in inclusive environments. We engage the literature on cross-cultural communication and collaboration between culturally diverse professionals and parents of children with disabilities to illustrate sociocultural perspectives on conceptualizing cultural differences and their interaction, and the possibilities for creating culturally inclusive partnerships and communities.     

A Study of Generative Partnership

This phenomenological study suggests that generativity, long conceptualized as a stage of individual psychosocial development, is a collaborative experience in the developmental trajectory of some marriages and long‐term partnerships. This new knowledge was developed through exploring the lived experience of 10 middle‐aged and older couples who participated in this research. Termed “generative partnership,” this collaborative experience includes 3 facets: embracing generative identity, contributing talents and resources, and passing it on. Findings suggest that generative partnerships enhance satisfaction and vitality in relationships at midlife and beyond as couples encounter the opportunities and challenges of growing old together.     

Resolving the Curious Paradox of the (A)Sexual Lesbian

SUMMARY

Lesbians' erotic lives have been bracketed by opposing sexual narratives. According to a variety of experts, sex between two women is an unnatural and unlikely event. Data from a number of other sources suggest that lesbian sex is both frequent and ecstatic. For many long term partners, these polarized narratives serve as filters, screening out a myriad of middle ground practices and scenarios. Because more subtle possibilities are invisible or discounted, couple's only alternative-after the passionate courtship phase of the relationship has ended-is lesbian bed death. In such cases, renewed erotic contact depends on the restoration of the erased sexual middle-ground. This paper focuses on the strategies clinicians can use to neutralize the hegemonic either/or lesbian sexual narratives and expand their client's erotic repertoires.     

A Model for Building School–Family–Community Partnerships: Principles and Process

The extant literature documents the importance of school counselors’ roles in school–family–community partnerships, yet no model exists to guide school counselors through the process of building partnerships. The authors propose a model to help school counselors navigate the process and principles of partnerships. They define partnerships; discuss the principles of democratic collaboration, empowerment, social justice, and strengths focus that should infuse partnerships; enumerate a partnership process model; and discuss implications for practice and research.