Using Community Psychology in NHS Settings…

Evolution or Revolution?

Rosanne Shocolinsky-Dwyer

with thanks to Glenn Williams, Sally Zlotowitz & James Bourne

British Psychological Society Community Psychology AGM Monday 16th December 2013

Overview of Workshop

1. A summary of the core values of community psychology

2. The ‘fit’ of these values

3. Some ways to apply Community Psychology to NHS settings

4. Challenges…

5. ….and Opportunities

Core Values of Community Psychology

•Placing people in their social contexts

•Includes central concepts of:

–Power (disempowerment………..empowerment)–Social inclusion (marginalisation…..inclusivity)

•Involves working collaboratively with others

•Uses a plurality of research & development methods (e.g. participatory action research)

•More critical community psychological approaches challenge the status quo

(Oford, 2008)

Evolution or Revolution?

4

The ‘Fit’ of Values

5

How do the values of Community Psychology fit with your other contexts?

Task of Community Psychology is to help people:

•Understand the connection between the social and economic reality of their lives and their states of health and wellbeing

•Join with others with similar realities in order to give voice to this understanding

•Engage in collective action to change these realities

Orford (1998)

6

Examples of Community Psychology in NHS Settings… Working within the Evolution-Revolution Spectrum

•Guy Holmes- ‘Real world’ psychology groups

•Rhona Brown- situating social inequality and collective action in Cognitive Analytic Therapy

•Sue Holland- social action psychotherapy approach focused on women in White City; individual and group work

• Janet Bostock- interventions in primary care

•Burton- societal case formulation

•Hagan & Smail- power mapping

•Wendy Franks & Danny Taggart- ‘Define Normal’ project

7

Examples of Community Psychology in NHS Settings… Working within the Evolution-Revolution Spectrum

•The Recovery Model- supports people to utilise their (community) resources (Repper & Perkins, 2003)

•Positive Psychology- the need for connectedness and making a meaningful contribution is essential for wellbeing (e.g. Seligman et al., 2005)

•Mindfulness- a way to support people experiencing distressing psychosis to engage in and become less judgemental of thoughts (Chadwick et al., 2005)

•Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

•However… can we call these community psychology approaches?

8

Challenges and Opportunities

9

• What are the challenges we face in putting community psychology principles and interventions into practice?

• How can we better understand people’s social contexts, and the role of social context in distress/wellbeing? What tools can we use to take a multi-level approach to a problem through the:

– micro-level, – meso-level, – and macro-level perspectives?

• How can we balance supporting individuals to ‘change’ whilst recognising the need for system changes (e.g. in health care or in an organisation) too?

• How can we use community resources within one-to-one therapeutic work?

• What opportunities can we create? How could we build on our practice or principles which we currently value?

• Could we work outside of individualised therapeutic interventions? What could this look like?

ReferencesBostock, J. (1998). Developing Coherence in Community and Clinical Psychology: The Integration of Idealism and Pragmatism. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 8, 363-371.

Brown, R. (2010). Situating Social Inequality and Collective Action in Cognitive Analytic Therapy. Reformlation, Winter, pp.28-34

Chadwick, P., Newman-Tylor, K. and Abba, N. (2005). Mindfulness groups for people with distressing voices. Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 33, 351–359.

Hagan, T. & Smail, D. (1997). Power Mappting I: Background and Basic Methodology. Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology, 7, 257-267).

Holland, S. (1992). From social abuse to social action: a neighbourhood psychotherapy and social action project for women. In: J.M. Ussher & P Nicolson (Eds) Gender Issues in Clinical Psychology. London: Routledge. Chapter 3, pp.68-77

Holmes, G. (2010). Psychology in the Real World: Community-based Groupwork. PCCS Books Ltd, Herefordshire.

Orford, J. (1998). Have we a theory of community psychology? Clinical Psychology Forum, 122, 6-10.

Orford, J. (2008). Community Psychology: Challenges, Controversies and Emerging Consensus. West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons.

Prilleltensky, I., & Nelson, G. (1997). Community psychology: Reclaiming social justice.  In D. Fox & I. Prilleltensky (Eds.), Critical psychology: An introduction (pp. 166-184). London: Sage.

Repper, J. & Perkins, R. (2003) Social Inclusion and Recovery. Balliere Tindall: London

Seidman, E. & Rappaport, J. (Eds.). (1986). Redefining social problems. New York: Plenum Press

Seligman, M. E. P., Steen, T. A., Park, N., & Peterson, C. (2005). Positive psychology progress: Empirical validation of interventions. American Psychologist, 60, 410–421.

11

Resources:

• BPS Community Psychology Section website: http://cps.bps.org.uk

• Community Psychology UK website: http://www.compsy.org.uk

• The Radical Psychology Netowork: www.radpsynet.org/applied/index.html

• The Radical Social Work Resource List: www.geocities.com/rswsg/resource.html.

• The Consortium for the Advancement of Social and Emotional Learning: www.casel.org

• An overview of community collaboration may found at www.communitycollaboration.net

• Ning network

Rosanne.Shocolinsky-Dwyer@candi.nhs.uk