American Journal of Community Psychology Archives

American Journal of Community Psychology

Issues

American Journal of Community Psychology

Fixes that Fail: Reducing Food Deserts, Poverty, Crime, and Intergenerational Incarceration

Posted in: Criminal Justice, Marginalized Groups, Poverty and Socioeconomic Status | Tags: Featured Research
Published in: American Journal of Community Psychology
A systems approach is needed to address the context roots underlying urban access to healthy food. The root problem stems back to systemic racism. Creating sustainable community wealth can address food deserts and upstream issues criminal justice.

The Multiplied Impact When People Who Have Survived Rape Choose to Tell Their Stories

Posted in: Mental Health
Published in: American Journal of Community Psychology
Providing space for rape survivors to tell their stories promotes healing for them and others not ready/willing to share their own stories. Participants noted that the experience provided them the closure they were looking for within their community.

Adapting Evidence-Based Suicide Prevention Practices in Alaskan Native Villages

Posted in: Marginalized Groups, Prevention Science | Tags: Featured Research
Published in: American Journal of Community Psychology
Transplanting evidence-based practices into new contexts requires extensive thought and consideration as most interventions are not developed with populations at highest risk in mind. Our study highlights the importance of including community members and everyday people in plans to take action for social change.

Using Existing Program Data to Assess the Health of Mentor/Mentee Relationships

Posted in: Children, Youth and Families | Tags: Featured Research
Published in: American Journal of Community Psychology
Data were collected from a large national sample of Big Brothers/Big Sisters mentors and mentees. Assessment data can provide a signal for those who may be at risk for terminating the program relationship early. Additional support can be offered in struggling dyads.

Indigenous Culture and Wellness: Healing and Wellbeing in the face of Colonization

Posted in: Children, Youth and Families, Marginalized Groups | Tags: Featured Research
Published in: American Journal of Community Psychology
Indigenous Peoples are revitalizing our culture and way of life, improving our ability to self-heal. When accounting for an individual’s cultural efficacy in our study, cultural engagement was related to lower levels of anxiety and was significantly related to flourishing mental wellbeing.

Resisting State Sanctioned Violence: A Toolkit for Community Organizers

Posted in: Coalition Building, Marginalized Groups | Tags: Featured Content
Published in: American Journal of Community Psychology
Marginalized communities have long persisted in the work toward liberation despite continued state-sanctioned violence (SSV). We created a toolkit for organizers, community members, allies, and mental health professionals who want to build individual and community resilience while resisting SSV. We aimed to support marginalized communities through making psychological literature accessible and relevant to community-based through […]

Photograph of two people sitting by a door

Importance of Social Supports to Resiliency for Youth

Posted in: Children, Youth and Families, Housing, Poverty and Socioeconomic Status | Tags: Featured Research
Published in: American Journal of Community Psychology
Informal supports are an important sources of resilience for low-income families who may be excluded from or are reluctant to engage with formal social systems. Social ties can help households withstand threats to their living arrangements and may be a powerful tool in disrupting pathways to behavior problems among teens.

Using Storyboarding to Train School Staff to Deliver Mental Health Interventions

Posted in: Children, Youth and Families, Mental Health | Tags: Featured Content
Published in: American Journal of Community Psychology
Storyboarding can creatively engage families to share their experiences with mental health problems. Community-engaged tools such as storyboarding can be used to increase awareness and reduce stigma of maternal depression among staff training to deliver family-focused mental health programs in schools.

Double-Edged Policy? Consequences of the COVID-19-Related Eviction Moratorium

Posted in: Housing | Tags: Research
Published in: American Journal of Community Psychology
Eviction moratoriums like the one enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic may have different consequences on housing instability. More work is needed to develop policies to protect the unstably housed in cases of natural emergencies.

Bystanders Respond to Microaggressions to Develop Welcoming and Inclusive Workplaces

Posted in: Marginalized Groups | Tags: Featured Research
Published in: American Journal of Community Psychology
Repeated exposure to micro-aggressions can have a negative impact on psychological and physical health. Expanding collective organizational capacity to address bias in respectful ways (by promoting active bystanders) has been shown to have an empowering impact and to foster more equitable workplaces.