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E D I T O R I A L O P I N I O N

COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGISTS AS MASTER CARPENTERS

I define community psychologists as practitioners whose goal is institution change. I know many skilled people who are practicing community psychology, and I see them being very effective in bringing about institution change. Therefore I am saddened and frustrated by the lack of respect that others have for community psychology. Community psychology is the first service to go when community mental health funding is cut. Recipients of community psychology services often can’t explain “what that psychologist was coming here for anyway.”

Consequently, I have looked around for another change-oriented service group which enjoys more respect. I am sure that we can learn from others’ experi- ence; and I am hoping that we can improve our position through the process of modeling.

The service group that I have chosen is master carpenters. They enter situa- tions when there is a need for change. The need may be for an additional structure, for the alteration of an existing one, or for a repair. The same can be said about community psychologists.

What can we learn from master carpenters? When I hired a master carpenter because I needed a home oEce, he spent a lot of time with me, finding out exactly what I wanted. I could tell him only in terms that had meaning for me: I needed a large work space that did not face a window; I wanted a warm, beautiful room; I wanted it to be sound-proof. He made suggestions to which I reacted, until we had agreed upon how my home would look as the result of his intervention. Thus we agreed upon “objective outcome measures” for his work.

I am suggesting that the respect which master carpenters enjoy is a function of how carefully they (a) understand what the customer wants, (b) communicate that understanding to the customer, and (c) agree with the customer on “objective outcome measures.” I am also predicting that respect for community psychology will go up as we learn to practice as carefully as master craftsmen do.

Some community psychologists say that they cannot set objective outcome measures because their goal is prevention. Master carpenters are asked to prevent things, too. They are asked to prevent the winter sun from fading furniture, for instance. In that case, they agree with the customer that the job will be done when all the known correEates of prevention are present, i.e., movable shutters, slats at a certain angle.

Psychologists can designate correlates as outcome measures, too. Like car- penters, we would be wise to choose correlates whose significance is obvious. For instance, people do not need a carpenter to understand that shutters prevent fading furniture. People do need a psychologist, however, to understand that internal locus of control prevents vandalism. Thus school attendance would be a better outcome measure for a vandalism prevention program.

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Once the goal for a job is chosen, the carpenter measures how things are now. This step is difficult for community psychologists because of pressure to “get on with it,” but fatal mistakes can be avoided through premeasures. For instance, one cannot show program effectiveness if a vandalism prevention program is piloted where there is little vandalism. Similarly, one may train school personnel to inter- vene with the wrong students if one uses another school’s base rate to choose stu- dents with high absenteeism.

Also, the carpenter uses his knowledge about the job goal and his measurements of the current situation to negotiate about money, materials, and methods. The psychologist is in a difficult bargaining position if he/she doesn’t know the magni- tude of change which is required to reach the desired outcome. The psychologist may promise to deliver something that is impossible, given the current situation. Or, more likely, the community psychologist will underestimate the time that it will take to reach a certain result.

Because the out,come of a job reflects upon a master craftsman, there are limits beyond which he will not go in compromising quality. The same should be true for a community psychologist. For instance, let us say that a preschool advisory board wants its teachers to start teaching phonetics every day; the teachers say, “Fine, but we don’t have the time.” After taking some premeasures, the psy- chologist might say, “I can’t take responsibility for the outcome of this inter- vention unless I can have six weekly planning sessions with the teachers, two more planning sessions with the board, and four monthly follow-up sessions to see if the changes are working.” It is true that community psychologists might get fewer jobs if they were less compromising about quality, but the community’s respect for them would probably go up.

The above negotiation, of course, results in a written contract between the customer (client) and the craftsman (community psychologist). The ideal contract includes an objective description of the outcome, the time it will take, the methods and/or materials that will be used, and what the client will provide to get the job done.

Another practice of master carpenters that is worth emulating is their seeking of feedback throughout the duration of the job. When the carpenter was fixing my office, he stood back and invited my comments every day when I got home from work. He also told me what he planned to do the next day in case I had input. These sessions reduced the likelihood that I would be dissatisfied with the outcome. They increased my appreciation for the amount of effort required to produce the result.

Of course, master carpenters have the advantage of building something ob- servable. Community psychologists can solicit the same kind of feedback, however. I find that I get important feedback whenever I ask for it. If I don’t ask for it, clients keep their preferences to themselves. Then prejudices build up about community psychology that I have no opportunity to answer.

The final step of a carpenter’s job is measuring the outcome. Does it fit the specifications in the contract? Then he shows the results to the customer. He guides the cutomer’s perusal, pointing out the changes he has made. The carpenter often offers a guarantee: “If that varnish fades, call me and I’ll put another coat on,” or “I’ll plane that door more if it warps when it rains.”

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The ideal outcome of this talk is that the master carpenter will get another job. The customer might say, “Now, I have this other problem that I need help with.” Or the customer might recommend the carpenter to a friend.

Community psychologists can terminate interventions in the same way. We should take the responsibility for measuring our outcomes. Then we should guide our clients as they interpret them. A guarantee would be “good business,” too. For instance, “If the Board or the teachers become dissatisfied with the phonics lessons, call me back.” In fact, it would be in our best interests to initiate the follow-up call. After all, it is we, and not our clients, who are concerned about our reputations. Then if our “productR measure up,” we’ll get other jobs.

In sum, I advocate that we develop objective outcome meamres with our clients, take premeasures, work under written contracts, solicit feedback as we go along, take postmeasures and interpret them personally for our clients. If we practice that carefully, we should become more understood and respected than we are today.

BRENNA H. BRY Rutgers, The State University