Global Journal of Community Psychology Practice

Volume 3, No. 2

Published February 10, 2012

Articles

  1. Cover Image

    Lynne Cohen, Julie Dean, Heather Gridley, Rebecca Hogea, Ken Robinson, Emma Sampson, Anne Sibbel, Colleen Turner

    Lobbying for Endorsement of Community Psychology in Australia

    In November 2010, the areas of practice known as community psychology and health psychology were endorsed by the Australian Health Workforce Ministerial Council (AHWMC). This was a major reversal of the Council’s earlier decision in April that year to limit the endorsed areas of practice to those represented by the other seven Colleges of the Australian Psychological Society. This paper describes the intense lobbying effort coordinated by the National Committee of the Australian Psychological Society College of Community Psychologists and their supporters, which was sustained over many months and led ultimately to a changed decision by the Australian Health Ministers. The story is important for community psychology as it demonstrates the power of collective, integrated and focussed political lobbying, in this case to promote and to inform others of the key contributions of community psychology to health policy, illness prevention and primary care. Without endorsement there would be little incentive for universities to offer postgraduate programs in Community Psychology, which would then choke the only pathway to future membership of the College, rendering it unviable.  With no further training offered, and eventually no representative body within the APS, there would be direct implications for the sustainability of the whole discipline and practice of community psychology in Australia.

  3. Cover Image

    Sylvie Taylor, Gregor V. Sarkisian

    Commentary: Lobbying for Endorsement of Community Psychology in Australia and the Invisibility of Community Psychology in the United States

    The challenges faced by our Australian colleagues raise a range of questions about the future of Community Psychology (CP) in contexts that have become increasingly focused on the legitimizing of academic programs and professions by bureaucratic governmental entities whose understanding of the disciplines and professions they seek to legitimize may be limited at best.  More importantly, their struggle points to challenges within academic psychology, as CP continues to struggle for a place at the table of organized psychology.  Perhaps the greatest lesson in the narrative of this struggle was how some of the tools of the discipline were used to resolve what was perceived to be a crisis threatening the very survival of CP in Australia.

  4. Cover Image

    Francine Lavoie, Marie-Hélène Gagné

    Commentary: The proof of the pudding is in the eating

    This commentary is offered by two Community Psychologists from Canada with experience in attempting to carve a niche for community psychology in their country. Their suggested lessons learned include the need for lobbying, the developing of friends across a variety of fields, timing is important, and learning from the work of colleagues in other countries.

  5. Cover Image

    Donata Francescato

    Commentary to “Lobbying for Endorsement of Community Psychology in Australia”

    The struggle to have community psychology endorsed as one of the recognized psychological specialization among the health professions could not happen in Italy in quite the same form, since in our country the most prestigious professions (doctors, lawyers, architects, engineers etc.) are regulated through “professional orders” , which are instituted through specific laws passed in Parliament. University graduates aspiring to practice one of these “legalized” professions must pass a special examination (similar to the bar exam for lawyers in the United States) to become members of the professional order. Different professions can create scientific or professional associations, which have less prestige and power than professional orders. In fact, many requests by professional associations to become an order often remain in the form of proposed laws for years in the Italian parliament. In Italy, a big battle, which required most of the same lobbying described by our Australian colleagues, actually took place in the seventies and eighties to obtain the passage of this kind of law.

  7. Cover Image

    James R. Cook

    Developing Alliances: Commentary on Lobbying for Endorsement of Community Psychology in Australia

    This article provides a good example of community psychology in action, mobilizing resources, organizing constituents, utilizing allies and partners, and working political systems to effect change (or, more specifically,  to prevent an adverse change).  Knowing your enemy, using social networks, tailoring your message to the values of your audience, and working to “convince the organ grinder, rather than the monkey” are all important aspects of good community change efforts.

  9. Cover Image

    Caterina Arcidiacono

    Further Comments

    The striking experience of the Australian psychologists tell us about the importance of the advocacy and lobbying power in the pursuit of political and scientific goals; the role of agency as a behavioural attitude in social settings. This article tell also how important is the accurate description of events, relations, and interactions in the dissemination of a certain experience. The authors are, in fact, very detailed in the description of all the contacts, the connections and the networking they went through. It goes without saying that all their actions and reports are giving trust to every sort of collective and participatory political involvement. Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!

Editor's Note