The Importance Of Community Psychology

In the future I imagine community psychology will continue to work in areas such as mental health care improvement, decreasing poverty, decreasing homelessness, and the betterment of communities in order to better the mental health of community members. Further, I hope to see a framework of research set up that will help to make community psychology a more accepted research and career path. As I outlined in my own career goals mental health care is not easily access by many people, this has led to many people going without care and experiencing the often harsh consequences of doing so. Many of the mentally ill find themselves unable to hold down jobs, have relationships, keep a home, or care for themselves, and this often causes them to turn

In his article, Science and Community Psychology: Social Norms for Pluralistic Inquiry, James G. Kelly outlined several areas and ideas to focus on in order to stimulate discussion on the idea of building a widely acceptable framework for research in the field of community psychology to help validate research results. His ideas include demythologizing statistics so that research is not bound by the current community favorites but by the method of statistical analysis the fits the research style and method. Encouraging open discussions on the ecological validity of various research methods to establish the fact that not all methods are appropriate for every case. Encourage critical analyses and discussions of multiple procedures and methods in order to reiterate the fact that not all procedures and methods are equal to the task at hand. Celebrate and reward young researcher who come to the field and/or bring new method of research to light. Discuss historical precedent and how things have changed over the year to promote the idea that the psychological field as a whole is ever changing. And finally, create support groups to encourage both new and seasoned researchers going in the field. (Kelly,

Too often we are seeing innocent people harmed or killed because of mental illness, and worse than that there are so many who are suffering in silence and with help the help they so desperately need. It is time to finally pull back the curtain and let these people start living the lives they deserve and to experience the freedom of no longer being afraid. Five key concepts of Community Psychology are empowerment, the idea that community psychology will become global in nature, use of multi-sectoral, interdisciplinary partnerships and approaches, a focus on creating policies informed by community psychology and social justice values, and research and action that promote social justice. These concepts are accepted by the Society for Community Research and Action (SCRA) which is division 27 of the American Psychological Association (APA). (SCRA, 2016) Community psychology seeks to empower individuals to help themselves by empowering the communities they live in. In this way the quality of life for everyone involved improves and every member of the community can contribute a fair share to continued betterment and quality of life. (SCRA,