reflections on “real-world” community psychology

A R T I C L E

REFLECTIONS ON ‘‘REAL-WORLD’’COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY

Tom WolffTom Wolff & Associates

Carolyn SwiftLawrence, KS

Reflections on the history of real-world (applied) community psychologiststrace their participation in the field’s official guild, the Society forCommunity Research and Action (SCRA), beginning with theSwampscott Conference in 1965 through the current date. Fourbenchmarks are examined. The issues these real-world psychologists bringto the field include academic and community legitimacy, communitypsychology as an interdisciplinary field, and politics and advocacy.Challenges these issues create among community psychologists—real-world and academic—are briefly addressed. These reflections end with avision of the future of community psychology that includes a strongrecommitment to social change and social justice. �C 2008 WileyPeriodicals, Inc.

The mission, competence, and orientation of each side must be respected. Forexample, field people uniquely experience the community as a richly complexongoing need field system, while university people cannot usually have suchexperience, but can bring a questioning broad-gauge research attitude. It wasfelt that a meaningful integration of these two sets of strengths would becrucial for successful program development’’ [from the Swampscott con-ference. (Anderson et al., 1966, p.19)

We are especially grateful to James Kelly for generously sharing his time and thoughts on our subject,especially on the relationship between applied and academic community psychologists during the early yearsof our discipline. Gloria Levin was helpful in identifying applied community psychologists and we thank herfor that. We appreciate the assistance of Andrea Solarz, who was a primary resource for information aboutthe policies and processes of SCRA. The cooperation of APA Division staff in providing data is acknowledgedand appreciated.Correspondence to: Tom Wolff 24 S. Prospect St., Amherst, MA., 01002. E-mail: [email protected]

JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY, Vol. 36, No. 5, 609–625 (2008)

Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com).

& 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. DOI: 10.1002/jcop.20244

WHAT IS A ‘‘REAL-WORLD’’ COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGIST?

Tom Wolff coined this term to refer to community psychologists who have beenconventionally labeled as applied psychologists or practitioners. The authors feel‘‘real-world’’ more accurately reflects applied psychologists’ commitment to workingdirectly in the real-world communities they serve. They work in both governmentaland nongovernmental sites. Their roles include consultant, trainer, policy shaper,decision maker, legislative aide, program administrator, and teacher. They havecareers in (a) educational and health settings—in programs for various age groups, incommunity health and mental health centers, hospitals, and crisis centers (for suchissues as rape, domestic violence, and AIDS), (b) in law enforcement—policedepartments, prisons, jails, and parole centers; and (c) in charities, foundations, andother nonprofit organizations. They work for a large and disparate list of communitysites we refer to as the real world, the world outside the academy. Obviously,universities and colleges are a part of the real world as well, but for our purposes here,contrasting the multiply varied community work sites of real-world communitypsychologists with the work site of the academy helps articulate differences betweenthem and their academic colleagues.

In this article, we review some of the events that have shaped the path ofapplied community psychologists from Swampscott until now. We do not offer acomprehensive history or a complete set of their issues, but rather the reflections oftwo real-world community psychologists who have traveled this path for over 65(combined) years. Carolyn Swift begins by documenting the participation of real-worldcommunity psychologists in four benchmark events that span the 40 plus years ofcommunity psychology. Her focus is on their experiences within Division 27(Community Psychology) of the American Psychological Association (APA) and thelater Society for Community Research and Action (SCRA), and at seminal conferenceswithin the field. Tom Wolff then reviews some of the issues real-world psychologistshave represented and the challenges they have brought to community psychology. Hecloses with personal comments and comments from the field about the future of ourdiscipline. While writing this we invited newer real-world community psychologists torespond to a Division 27/SCRA Listserv request to share thoughts on their chosencareers and the paths they hope community psychology will take in the future. Weregret there wasn’t room for all the responses we received; some appear at the end ofthe article.

HISTORY: CAROLYN SWIFT

Real-world community psychologists were prominent in the early history of ourdiscipline. In the Sixties and Seventies, the nation was rocked by the civil-rights andwomen’s movements. These issues became, if not part of the text, an important part ofthe subtext for the Swampscott conference in 1986, commonly known as the birthplaceof community psychology. Real-world community psychologists were among theleaders of the conference—in its organization, in co-editing the proceedings, and inadvocating for action to address the social justice issues of the day. Their leadership onadvocacy has now been actualized in SCRA’s new vision for community psychology.This vision confirms our discipline’s commitment to work toward resolving socialjustice issues (Wolff, 2006).

610 � Journal of Community Psychology, July 2008

Journal of Community Psychology DOI: 10.1002/jcop

In subsequent years, real-world community psychologists took major roles inestablishing the APA division of community psychology.1 They arranged its initialfunding through the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), served as officers onthe division’s executive committee, and edited its newsletter. Applied communitypsychologies then at NIMH and those now at the U.S. Department of health andHuman Services has consistently supported community psychology programs throughthe funding of research and conferences related to SCRA’s mission.

After their visibility and influence in these early years, the activities of most real-world community psychologists dropped from the division of community psychology’sradar screen in the mid-Seventies and for most of the next decade. They came intodivision view again in the mid-Eighties due to their representation on the executivecommittee and their establishment of a new award for distinguished contributions tothe practice of community psychology. They have since consolidated their participa-tion in SCRA by contributing a regular column on community psychology practice toSCRA’s newsletter, and hosting a preconference summit on community psychologypractice at SCRA’s 2007 Biennial Conference.

Today, real-world community psychologists comprise a third of SCRA’s member-ship (Solarz, 2000a) and are active participants in many aspects of SCRA. It should beunderstood that this increased activity approaches a return to their previous visibilityand influence, not a steady state across the 41 years of their discipline. The history istraced below.

Benchmarks

I chose four other benchmark events, aside from basic membership data for Division27/SCRA, to track the participation of real-world community psychologists in theactivities of their official guild.

1 Participation in the seminal community psychology conferences: Swampscott,Austin, and the Biennial Series2

2 Election to the Executive Committee of Division 27/SCRA

3 Fellow status in Division 27/SCRA

4 Annual awards for Distinguished Contributions to Community Psychology

Swampscott, Austin, and the Biennial Series

Swampscott. The Boston Conference on the Education of Psychologists for CommunityMental Health, held in Swampscott, MA in 1965, marked the birth of communitypsychology (Anderson et al., 1966). The Swampscott Conference carved out many ofthe goals and issues that continue to direct the field of community psychology today, as

1The Division of Community Psychology later organized separately under the name of the Society forCommunity Research and Action (SCRA), while retaining the original association with the AmericanPsychological Association as the Division of Community Psychology, Div. 27.2The Vermont Conference Series on the Primary Prevention of Psychopathology was initiated by GeorgeAlbee. Open to all, hundreds flocked annually to the University of Vermont in Burlington to learn the latestin research, theory, and practice devoted to primary prevention in the field of mental health. Although someof these conferences were co-sponsored by Division 27/SCRA, the series itself was not and therefore is notpart of our reflections here.

Real-World Community Psychology � 611


reflected in SCRA’s new Vision Statement (Wolff, 2006). Reading the Swampscottreport almost four decades later elicits wonder at the prophetic counsel of theparticipants. The report’s vision of the field as including the integration of applied andacademic work is particularly insightful:

In the development of social change settings, it was stressed that thedichotomy between the university and field stations needs to be overcome.There is, the Conference felt, a profound underlying convergence of interestsbetween these institutions once the goal of social change research is accepted,since both settings are in need of theory, research skill, and community actionskills and sanctions. It was urged that a variety of bridging positions betweenthe two systems be developed so that eventually personnel could movebetween them with complete flexibility (Anderson et al., 1966).

Real-world community psychologists comprised half the participants.3 Four of thesix members of the committee who planned the conference and authored theconference report were applied, with two academic members (Anderson et al., 1966).Applied psychologists were instrumental in the subsequent formation of the APA’sDivision of Community Psychology (Division 27) in 1967 and were consistently electedas officers to the division’s executive committee for its first 8 years. They served aseditors of the APA Division 27 Newsletter (now known as The Community Psychologist) thefirst six years of its publication. Thus, applied and academic community psychologistswere roughly equally represented, both in leadership and participation, at the birth ofcommunity psychology.

Two issues that emerged at Swampscott, activism and distance, continue tochallenge the field today. Tom Wolff, in his review of issues below, provides a real-world eye on activism within the field. The second issue, the ‘‘distance’’ betweenapplied psychologists and their academic colleagues, goes to the core of theparticipation of real-world psychologists in Division 27/SCRA:

An urgent need was felt to overcome existing professional and personaldistance between field and university training personnel. In many instanceseach sees the other as an ‘‘out-group.’’ The number of linking people betweenthese systems should be greatly increased and contact should be initiated toidentify and develop interdependence between them. (Anderson et al., 1965,p.19)

Swampscott participants anticipated the complications that would ensue from theproposed partnership of academia with the real world outside ivy-covered walls. Their

3Of the 39 participants listed on the Swampscott roster, 18 were academic and 21 were applied psychologists,including observers and representatives of organizations such as APA and NIMH. Throughout the article,we’ve generally assigned academic status to community psychologists whose e-mail or postal serviceaddresses list universities or colleges. Our sources include the 2002 SCRAMembership Directory, official listsof Division 27/SCRA Fellows, elected officers of the Executive committee of Division 27/SCRA, and theparticipant rosters for the Conferences at Swampscott (Anderson et al, 1966) and Austin (Iscoe, Bloom, &Spielberger, 1977). Applied community psychologist Gloria Levin, along with the authors, reviewed theselists and made corrections in individual cases. Our process may underestimate applied personnel, becausesome few who list academic addresses are likely to be administrative or service personnel with no teaching orresearch functions—e.g., directors or managers of centers, counselors in the student hospital.



desire to come together in the new discipline is seen in the innovative solutionssuggested for strengthening ties between field and tower in the proceedings’summary:

A strong appeal was voiced for close and continuing cooperation betweenuniversity faculties and practitioners in the community field. Joint appoint-ments, reciprocal leaves, and frequent consultation were seen as usefullinkages in implementing their mutual responsibility for the education ofcommunity workers. (Anderson et al., 1966, p. 29)

We are unaware that joint appointments or reciprocal leaves for real-world andacademic community psychologists have ever been tried. Implementation of thesecreative suggestions could enhance both the experiences of the professionals involved,and the learning of the students exposed to the dual aspects of community psychologycareers.

The egalitarian legacy of Swampscott was seen in the establishment of the APADivision 27 Newsletter in 1970–1971. The first two editors were applied communitypsychologists: Allen Ratcliffe (1970–1973), followed by Dorothy Fruchter (1973–1976).It was 14 years before another applied psychologist, John Morgan, served as co-editorof The Community Psychologist, a position he shared with academic Joseph Galano from1989–1990 through 1990–1991. Although there have been no applied editors since,the expanded coverage the newsletter has given real-world community psychologistsover the last decade has increased their visibility and facilitated communication amongthem and between them and their academic peers.

A group of applied psychologists who have long gone unsung, but without whomthe field of community psychology may not have come into being until many yearslater if at all, are the staff members of the National Institute of Mental Health whoprovided both funding and professional support to the organizers of the Swampscottand Austin conferences and to the establishment of the APA’s Division of CommunityPsychology. James Kelly, present at Swampscott, notes, ‘‘The conference was held at atime when there were more public statements among psychologists that the academyhad become insular and even arrogant about how psychological work should be done.The NIMH participants played a key role in sanctioning the recognition of the validityof applied interests’’ (J.G. Kelly, personal communication, March 10, 2004). WilEdgerton, a community psychologist whose distinguished career spans both academicand applied work, together with other NIMH personnel, accelerated the developmentand extended the reach of the field of community psychology.4 In later years, manyother NIMH staff members have continued the tradition of conference funding,augmented by more formal grant programs designed to explore theory and researchon prevention.

Austin. A decade after Swampscott the National Conference on Training in CommunityPsychology, an invitational conference, took place at the University of Texas in Austin.

4Edgerton (personal communication, April 9, 2004) had high praise for Jerry W. Carter Jr., ChiefPsychologist in the Community Service Branch, for his vision in holding annual conferences for meetingsbetween NIMH psychologists and those from state organizations of community mental health centers—thosein positions to influence programs in their own states, and for James Osterweil, Chief of the State PlansSection of the Community Mental Health Facilities Branch, who was instrumental in promoting programsand funding involving community psychologists.



Funded primarily by NIMH, it was sponsored by Division 27. The major goal of thisconference ‘‘was to examine systematically the many questions and issues that havearisen with regard to appropriate models for doctoral training in communitypsychology’’ (Iscoe, Bloom, & Spielberger, 1977, p. xi). The Austin conference waslong overdue because many university community psychology programs had sprung upin the decade since Swampscott. And clearly, the ‘‘blooming, buzzing’’ confusion over thecontent of such programs, their academic legitimacy, connection to field sites, and thesupervision required for students placed in community internships, all determined thatcommunity psychology faculty command priority in conference attendance. The issuethat concerns us here is the relative absence of applied psychologists at the Austinconference. A review of the official roster of 145 participants shows 111 (77%) wereacademics, 20 (14%) were applied, and 14 (10%) were in the Community PsychologyTraining Program at the University of Texas at Austin.5

The equity found at Swampscott in the number and influence of appliedpsychologists was missing in Austin, as noted in several of the conference reports. Onechapter in the proceedings entitled ‘‘Community-Based Community Psychologists’’pointed out the issues raised by the relatively few applied psychologists present. Somewere concerned that their applied colleagues were underrepresented. ‘‘Othersstressed the irony of a field called community psychology attempting to plan itsfuture with relatively little input or representation from those psychologists who workfull time in community settings’’ (Slaikeu, 1976, p. 283).

The Austin conference brought advances in the development of training models tothe field. It was also significant in making and reinforcing connections between theparticipants, APA’s Division of Community Psychology—particularly members of thedivision’s executive committee—, and NIMH. This is an important point becauseaccess is a major coin of the research and service grant realm. In the 1970 s, federaldollars flowed freely and grants were readily won by applied as well as academicpersonnel. Meeting grantors at conferences provided opportunities to get to knowthem and learn about their system for applying for and securing grants. An invitationto the conference was, in addition to an opportunity to influence the future ofcommunity psychology training programs, a ticket to increased access to some of theNIMH and APA power brokers in attendance.

The Austin conference’s imbalance between academic and community-basedcommunity psychologists, in contrast to the Swampscott conference, reduced thevisibility and influence of applied community psychologists in the newly emergent field.When these psychologists protested the lack of attention to their issues at Austin, as didthe relatively few women and ethnic and racial minorities who were invited, the editorsof the proceedings gave these constituencies space to address their concerns, althoughtheir participation in the volume had not been originally planned (Iscoe et al., 1977).

The SCRA Biennial Conference series. In 1987, SCRA held its first Biennial Conference onCommunity Research and Action at the University of South Carolina. This conferenceseries is open to all members of SCRA and others with similar interests, unlike previous

5This count is at odds with the count given in the proceedings, which reported 30% in field settings andanother 30% in ‘‘academic/field settings’’—people involved mostly with university teaching, but withresponsibilities in field activities as well (Iscoe et al., 1977). Participants in the latter group were counted asacademics here based on their professional affiliations with universities and colleges as listed in theparticipant roster. Three official representatives of APA were listed as academics on the participant roster andin our count as well.



invitation-only conferences. In the early years of the Biennials, it took advocacy andeffort on the part of real-world psychologists to create a balance between applied andacademic participation. Now that balance is taken for granted. Both academic and real-world community psychologists, as well as citizens and those with like interests fromaround the world, are encouraged to attend and present.

The Biennials have become critical events for real-world psychologists becausethey provide opportunities to meet and share their work with other real-worldpractitioners from here and abroad. They have also become sites for increasedacademic and real-world exchange and collaboration. Because one of the visions ofSwampscott—that these exchanges would occur in academic departments—has notbeen realized, the Biennials have become even more significant as critical forums forthis collaboration. Over time, real-world community psychologists have joined theiracademic colleagues in Biennial conference planning; delivering the keynote address;presenting papers, workshops, and poster sessions; and the ancillary activities thataccompany the conference, such as the volunteer mentoring program noted below.Real-world practitioners without the official title of community psychologist havekeynoted the conference, including Love Canal activist Lois Gibbs and Jane Fonda onteen pregnancy prevention.

It was pointed out at Swampscott ‘‘that the field will not attain professionalmaturity without the systematic support of predoctoral education and a steadyrecruitment of dedicated young people to careers in community service’’ (Andersonet al., 1965, p. 30). The Biennials are one of the few places for graduate students tomeet with real-world community psychologists to learn about potential careers in thefield. One of the joys of the Biennials is their incorporation of the experiences ofpeople across the community spectrum who come to share their concerns, successes,and challenges. This conference series holds, for real-world community psychologists,much of the promise of Swampscott in its dedication to inclusion, diversity, and mutualrespect for the work of both community activists and researchers.

Election to Division 27’s/SCRA’s Executive Committee

The elected officers of the Executive Committee of Division 27/SCRA currently includethe President, President-Elect, Past President, Secretary, Treasurer, APA CouncilRepresentative, Regional Network Coordinator, Council of Education ProgramsRepresentative, two National Student Representatives, and three Members-At-Large,(who produce the Division’s/ SCRA’s program at APA’s Annual Conventions, chair theMembership Committee, and do other tasks as needed). From its inception in 1966through 2005, 17 applied and 74 academic community psychologists have beenelected to serve on the Executive Committee. For the purposes of this article, eachperson who has served as an officer was counted only once, although many of thoseelected served multiple-year terms or in multiple offices. Of the 41 presidents ofDivision 27/SCRA elected through 2007–2008, only four have been applied: Don Kleinand Saul Cooper in the division’s first seven years and Andrea Solarz and CarolynSwift in its last seven years.

Given the predominance of academics within SCRA, it’s to be expected that theircandidates are consistently elected. Even so, I was surprised to discover that in overhalf of its 41 years, the Committee had either one or no applied psychologist elected tothe committee. From 2000–2005, only two applied psychologists were elected to fill theofficer slots available. This picture is in sharp contrast to the early years of the field,



when applied community psychologists comprised a third to a half of Division 27’sExecutive Committee. Solarz (A. Solarz, personal communication, March 30,2004) has suggested that the Member-At-Large position be alternated annuallybetween applied and academic personnel. This change would have no budgetaryimpact but would guarantee applied input within SCRA. It would also maintain acontinuous connection between the two groups and could be expected to increase theinsight of each for the others’ values, practices, and skills. If this suggestion wasexplored, consideration would need to be given to other minority groupswhose interests would also be furthered by a guaranteed slot on the ExecutiveCommittee.

Fellow Status

Members of Division 27/SCRA may recommend themselves or other members to theFellows Committee as having built a record of outstanding accomplishments in thefield. Through 2007, 286 members of Division 27/SCRA had been named as APA and/or SCRA Fellows: 12% are real-world, 82% are academics, and 6% are Fellows whosestatus as applied or academic could not be determined.

There are a number of possible explanations for the disparity between the numberof real-world and academic psychologists who have achieved Fellow status. Assumingthe integrity of the process it may be that few real-world members apply. The awardmay be less significant in their lives. Fellow status can be an important ingredient inacademic promotions and raises, whereas the real-world colleague’s employers are lesslikely to consider it or give it much value. Another explanation is that the award maybe seen as a perk for academics, but out of reach to applied psychologists, because theymay lack publications in refereed journals or significant research and feel they couldn’tpass standards they assume are required. Their achievements are more likely to befeatured in the popular media—local newspapers, TV or radio programs, nationalmagazines, parent-teacher bulletins, and electronic communications—,which maycommand the visibility and respect in the community that journals command inacademia.

The process itself could incorporate biases, including few if any applied Fellows onthe Fellows Committee, or inappropriate standards used to evaluate the work ofapplied community psychologists (e.g,, requiring numerous publications in refereedjournals). It may be that a lack of knowledge on the part of applied personnel abouthow to organize and report their work on the Fellows application is a factor. Manyuniversities have a mentorship program for new professors to guide them throughsuch processes as promotion, tenure, and becoming a Fellow, whereas appliedpersonnel do not routinely have this resource. I am personally indebted to JulianRappaport, who suggested I apply. At the time, I felt my work was not at the levelrequired and would have waited many years longer. Gloria Levin, a real-worldcommunity psychologist, has been active over the last two decades in nominating andsupporting SCRA members for Fellow status. At recent Biennial Conferences, Dr.Levin has developed an informal mentoring program that is ranked highly byparticipants. Veteran community psychologists, both academic and real-world,volunteer as mentors to whomever may wish to consult with them. This is an excellentopportunity for real-world SCRA members to learn about the Fellows applicationprocess and what is required for acceptance. Formalizing this mentorship programinto an official part of SCRA governance and targeting it to new, as well as current



members who may wish to access it, would provide a communication channel for thosewho lack information about the procedures and requirements for Fellow status. Such astep would be of particular interest to minority groups—whether these be racial,ethnic, gender, age, physically challenged, or practice minorities—and to the generalmembership as well.

Annual Awards for Distinguished Contributions to Community Psychology

In 1974, APA’s Division of Community Psychology established an annual awardfor distinguished contributions to community psychology and specified it be givenfor achievements in theory and research. There is no question that this honorrecognizing the value of research and scholarship was an important develop-ment in establishing community psychology as a legitimate academic discipline.These contributions are built on a distinguished body of work documentedin publications and presentations, and in interactions among academicians andstudents in classrooms and conferences around the country and, increasingly, theworld.

The issue for applied community psychologists was not that the award was createdbut why a comparable award was not created for applied community psychologists aswell. The implicit message was that the work of applied community psychologists doesnot merit awards. In the years that followed, real-world community psychologists intheir concern to seek recognition lobbied Division 27’s Executive Committee for anaward for distinguished contributions to the practice of community psychology. In1983, a decade after the distinguished contribution award for academics, Division 27established an annual award for distinguished contributions to practice in communitypsychology. The award is ‘‘to an individual whose career of high quality and innovativeapplications of psychological principles has significantly benefited the practice ofcommunity psychology.’’

Why did it take so long for the Executive Committee to recognize the value of thedistinguished contributions of applied psychologists? We believe the answer lies in therealities of minority membership, not in any deliberate attempt to withhold the honor.In the year the distinguished contribution award for theory and research was createdand during the following 20 years, the Executive Committee was comprised almostentirely of academics—either one or no applied member was present during these 20years. With only one or no member on the committee, the concerns of the appliedgroup did not surface in a way that commanded majority attention. In the sweepingchanges that occurred in this country in the 1960 s and 1970 s and that are stillreverberating today—civil rights, women’s liberation, gay lesbian, and transgenderrights, the rights of those with disabilities, the elderly, and youth—,one of the lessonslearned is that minorities must be represented in any group that holds power overtheir interests. In the late 1970 s and into the eighties, the leadership of Division 27(Julian Rappaport, Ed Trickett, Ed Seidman, and Beth Shinn come to mind but therewere others) actively pressed to include constituencies whose voices had gone unheardwithin the Division and who were functionally, if not actually, disenfranchised becauseof their marginal presence on the Executive Committee and in the activities of theDivision.

Today, we take for granted that the distinguished contributions of both real-worldand academic psychologists are recognized. We applaud today’s award ceremonieswhere both groups celebrate together the outstanding contributions of their colleagues.



SUMMARY: REFLECTIONS ON HISTORY

In these reflections on the history of real-world community psychologists, we havefocused primarily on their experiences within Division 27/SCRA and at seminalconferences within the field. We have not attempted to address their work withcommunities beyond Division 27/SCRA, a significant story that has yet to be written.We have followed them over three time periods. We looked first at their stronginfluence and visibility in the field as documented at the Swampscott Conference andin the early years of their guild, the APA’s Division 27 (Community Psychology). Next,we followed them through their middle years of relative invisibility in the officialactivities of the Division. Finally, we followed them in their current active and increasedparticipation in SCRA. For some time now, real-world community psychologists havehad their own Distinguished Contributions to Community Psychology award; theirranks include more Fellows and they are increasingly sharing their work in the field’sjournals as well as in the popular media. In the twenty-first century, real-worldcommunity psychologists find themselves sharing in leadership responsibilities,running for elections and winning, planning conferences, and serving on SCRA’scommittees. Such activity is likely to increase as real-world psychologists and SCRA’snew visioning priorities attract practitioners from other disciplines to join SCRA. It willtake each group reaching out to the other, not as outsiders, but as partners workingtogether to realize the vision of collaboration articulated at Swampscott andre-envisioned in SCRA’s new Vision Statement (Wolff, 2006).

THE ISSUES—TOM WOLFF

The field of community psychology has struggled with finding legitimate roles andrecognition for real-world community psychologists. This may best be understood as areflection of the challenging issues that these real-world practitioners have brought tothe field. Thus, one way of understanding this history of real-world communitypsychology in the field is to try to understand these issues.

Academic Legitimacy

In the beginning as the field of Community Psychology was created, a key task wastrying to carve out a role for itself as a legitimate academic field. As CommunityPsychology programs began defining their place, they were working hard atdistinguishing themselves from clinical programs while seeking recognition as alegitimate scientific field. They were busy creating this new role in psychologydepartments. Therefore, the leaders in the field kept the focus on those criteriathat matter most in terms of creating legitimacy within academia: creating refereedjournals, producing quality research, having graduate students who were trained to beresearchers and who would land jobs in academic settings. And that is what the field did.

The real-world practitioners were a second thought to the primary pursuit ofacademic legitimacy. In fact, the practitioners could also be a challenge to that pursuit.If the work they did was in clinical settings (i.e., community mental health centers),then they continued the confusion between clinical and community. If they wrote uptheir work in descriptive, case study fashion, real-world community psychologists wereseen as not displaying the scientific discipline that the academic community



psychologist’s sought. It was not clear that the real-world practitioners added anythingto the pursuit of community psychologists for academic legitimacy.

From the real-world practitioner viewpoint, we were bringing communitypsychology to a wide range of settings. In previous reviews (Wolff, 1993, 2000), itwas noted that almost all applied community psychologists created their own jobs andwere not known in their work settings as ‘‘community psychologists.’’ Real-worldcommunity psychologists were also fighting for the legitimacy of their roles in theirwork settings, whether they were in community mental health centers, state or federalgovernment agencies, foundations, or other organizations. The practitioners werefacing variations of the same dilemmas as the academics. The fights were less on thelegitimacy of the title because those of us in the field were not known as communitypsychologists to begin with. The battles were about approaching issues from anecological, community empowerment, prevention, and collaborative approach ratherthan from a traditional remedial approach.

As a practitioner, I have always seen it as one of my tasks to bring scientificknowledge to my communities. In this way, I see myself as a bridge between thecommunity and the literature. I have always found it surprising to see how littlecredibility the literature can have at the community level. John McKnight is fond ofsaying, ‘‘Institutions learn from studies, communities learn from stories’’ (McKnight,1995). An example will illustrate this point:

I recently was consulting to a violence prevention program focused on youngvictims of violence. In our strategic planning work, I was helping them look at whatsustainable violence prevention programs they would like to have in place. The groupwas very attached to their New Mom Baby Bag Program. The baby bag is provided tonew moms and is filled with information on child rearing and community resources,etc. Although I am enamored with this idea, I questioned what they knew about itseffectiveness. And I then asked about the status of the nurse home visiting programs intheir community. These home visiting programs exist in many communities and arebased on well-researched studies with solid child abuse prevention outcomes. Theyacknowledged that indeed such a program did exist, and they were fascinated to hearabout the research base and effectiveness of home visiting programs. But as the daywent along and they brainstormed their future, the group went right back to their newmom baby bags and dropped the idea of supporting home visiting programs. Why?Because territory (home visiting was another agency’s program) trumped effective-ness. This is by no means the usual outcome of such exchanges with communitygroups; it is, however, not a rare exception. So, when communities reject the science-based prevention efforts what do we do? This is an interesting real-world question forboth academic and applied community psychologists.

As we move into the maturity of the field of community psychology, can weimagine a new set of relationships between the academic and real-world communitypsychologists? Can we imagine what creative collaborations can be achieved bybringing the strengths of both groups together? My own collaboration with faculty atthe University of Kansas and University of Massachusetts at Lowell have certainlybeen mutually challenging and enhancing. Yet, how often does this occur in ourfield? How often do real-world community psychologists get invited to visit academicdepartments to talk of their work and provide role models for the large number ofgraduate students who will not work in academic settings? I can remember so clearlythe visit by Saul Cooper, a pioneering real-world community psychologist, to mygraduate program at the University of Rochester. Saul talked of his work in



consulting to schools and how, if you really wanted to understand a school, youneeded to talk to everyone including the custodian. This sounded to me, at the time,as some of the best advice I had picked up in graduate school, and I still have thenotes from that talk. My encounters with graduate students at SCRA Biennialsconfirm their hunger to understand life and work outside of academia forcommunity psychologists.

Community Psychology as an Interdisciplinary Field

In recent years, under the leadership of Ken Maton and others, the field of communitypsychology has started to look carefully at becoming involved in more interdisciplinarywork. I applaud this effort, as I imagine would most other real-world communitypsychologists. However, one of the ironies of working in communities is that the realworld is by nature interdisciplinary, that is, unless you are limiting the definition ofinterdisciplinary to interdepartmental within an academic setting. On a given day, I ammore likely to be in a meeting with a health center director, a police officer, a grassrootscommunity leader, a chamber of commerce director, and a housing authority managerthan I am with another community psychologist. In thirty years of community work, Ican most likely count on one hand the number of times I ran into another person whocalled themselves a community psychologist in a community meeting. Communitywork is almost always automatically interdisciplinary.

If we decide to transcend a view of ‘‘interdisciplinary’’ that is limited to academicdepartments, then new possibilities emerge. If we defined community psychology as afield committed to bettering the world from an ecological perspective based onpractice and research, then I could easily see that most of the people I work with incommunities could be called community psychologists (See Jim Emshoff ’s vision at theend of this article). This may pose another challenge that real-world communitypsychologists have brought to the field: the definition of who can be part of our guild.If we have worked so hard to create a field and set criteria for excellence, can we nowgive the name away? As the field moves in an interdisciplinary direction, maybe we canlearn something from those real-world community psychologists who have alwaysoperated in interdisciplinary settings. Maybe a broadening of our definition would notonly enrich our field but also increase membership in SCRA.

Politics and Advocacy—Why are Community Psychologists so Phobic?

Real-world community psychologists are often quite comfortable being involved in theworld of politics. It is the reality of how one form of change occurs in communities.Small ‘‘p’’ politics can mean negotiating the tricky waters among institutional players ina community—the police chief, school superintendent, director of the mental healthcenter, CEO of the hospital. But, increasingly, we are hearing of real-world communitypsychologists who are also involved in capital ‘‘P’’ politics. Debbie Starnes (2004),recent award winner for Distinguished Practice in Community Psychology, has been anelected city councilor in Atlanta for years and describes this job as part of hercommunity psychology practice. I inadvertently discovered a few years ago that Ishared the distinction with Thom Moore of being an elected school committeemember. I am sure there are numerous other examples of elected officials in the SCRAranks. Yet, until recently, we haven’t said very much about this aspect of our lives. Cansomething as seemingly ‘‘unacademic’’ as holding public office be seen as community



psychology? The political nature of much real-world community psychology work mayalso account for some of the struggles they have had with those in the field.

In my work in Massachusetts, working with community groups to build healthycommunities (Wolff, 2003), we counted on state legislators as our crucial supporters,especially for funding purposes. Our relationship with the legislators grewconsistently and slowly over 20 years. We would regularly invite them to coalitionmeetings to tell us what was happening on ‘‘the Hill,’’ to hear the community’sconcerns, and to problem solve issues together. They were terrific advocates for newprograms (i.e., domestic violence pilot projects and rural transportation systems) andfor fighting off funding cuts (i.e., closing of court houses, welfare offices). They werealso our key financial support because they earmarked specific funds to support thecoalitions every year in the state budget, which was no easy task. The legislators wereour partners. We did projects together, they helped us with issues, and we honoredand provided them with forums and ‘‘hero’’ opportunities (Dunham & Meredith,1999).

At some point over the past 20 years, I became the Chair of my town DemocraticCommittee and attended the annual state party convention for many years. (Ourhealthy communities work also had strong support from a number of Republicanlegislators so this was by no means a strictly partisan lobbying effort.) In the conventionsettings, these same legislators got to see me as a political supporter, someone whowould take their signature papers around, donate money, etc. My involvementcertainly did not hurt our community causes. This is politics with a capital ‘‘P.’’ It wasan intimate part of the work we did to create healthy communities.

Although we never called it lobbying, we were always ‘‘educating’’ our legislatorson the key issues affecting our communities and training community members in thefine art of influencing legislation. It was central to many of our successes, includingpassage of a bill guaranteeing universal health care coverage for all children inMassachusetts. I was in regular contact with the health and human service lobbyists inthe state and worked closely with them on many campaigns (i.e., universal health carecoverage for children). These lobbyists became my friends and colleagues.

I believe that the political world is one of the real ways to create systemschange—a goal of mine as a real-world community psychologist. Andrea Solarz(2000b) has preached variations of this theme for years, urging greater participationby SCRA members in Washington decision making. Yet, I am not sure that we havealways been ready to talk about this in the field. Do any programs teach graduatestudents about legislative advocacy and lobbying? I describe this in some detailbecause I think that community psychologists are, in general, somewhat phobicabout politics with a capitol ‘‘P’’ and even with a small ‘‘p.’’ The involvement of real-world community psychologists in politics and the challenges this poses for thecommunity psychology mainstream may be another issue that has separated thegroups over the years.

As noted above, hand-in-hand with working in the world of politics is becomingengaged in advocacy activities. Community psychologists can argue on the SCRAListserve about whether we, as community psychologists, can take a position that isnot research based. A recent example that triggered such a debate involved taking aposition on the war in Iraq. It is a baffling question to me. Although there are placeswhere my advocacy requires a research base, I have never felt a need for a researchbase to decide to advocate for universal health care coverage or a livable wage or forpeace rather than war. Data on the impact of poverty and social class on health may



be helpful, but these are issues that can be argued from a values/spiritual base just aswell. And, my values and spiritual nature are a significant part of me as a communitypsychologist.

Over the last decade as I became more involved in public health issues, I wouldoften attend the annual meetings of the American Public Health Association. Theirview on politics and advocacy was a welcome change from that of psychology groups(APA, SCRA). They have no trouble taking advocacy positions; it is part of their verynature. I remember distinctly watching APHA award its highest honor one year to amember whose introduction proudly included a listing of his arrests at variouspolitical protests. Our discomfort with politics, advocacy, and risk taking is worthreexamining.

Hiding our Power—Community and Systems Change

One possibility is that we don’t talk about politics, advocacy, and social change becausewe are not involved in major systems change and don’t see it to be the appropriaterealm for community psychologists. Well, I think this is just not true. Almost all themajor academic figures in our field not only have a successful and productive area ofresearch but also are actively involved in major systems change work. It may not be thework that they publish articles about, but if you talk with them or follow their work,you will see that they have become well respected enough in their fields that they havebecome very influential, often on a national basis. A small sample will show what Imean: Len Jason’s work on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Beth Shinn’s work onhomelessness, Roger Weissberg and Mo Elias on schools, Jim Emshoff on substanceabuse, Irma Serrano Garcia influence in Latin America, Steve Fawcett on communityhealth, and the list goes on, much of it unknown to you and me. Communitypsychologists individually have become highly influential people in many fields. Why isit that we rarely recognize this? Why have we never gathered a listing of suchinfluence? Why do we so rarely talk about and publish this social change work in ourjournals? What does this mean to our students and field?

What would happen if we declared these outcomes to be the successes of the fieldof community psychology and the members of SCRA? What if we catalogued theseoutcomes? What would the field look like? For a long time, Andrea Solarz (2000b) hasurged us to be much more proactive in the world of advocacy, to flex our collectivemuscle. Can we imagine a future of community psychology where we attempt tomaximize the influence that we have accumulated as individuals to create a betterworld?

THE FUTURE

As we see it, the earth desperately calls out for what community psychology has tooffer. Clearly, we have models of enormous accomplishment in social change andsystems change. So why are we so modest? Can we afford to be so modest when theworld needs us? Can we afford to be so modest when SCRA membership hasdropped? Can we create a proactive vision of community psychology that is proudlyboth research- and real-world-based and committed to social justice and socialchange?

How can we fulfill our dreams for the field? This would first require articulatingwhat our dreams are. To that end, the authors put out a request on the SCRA



Listserve for members’ views of the future of community psychology—their dreams,visions, and wishes. We were uncomfortable with a section on the future that did notinclude input from those in the field, especially those in graduate school or justemerging, who will be shaping and living in this future. The responses arewonderful, and we will start with selections from the field before we add our ownideas on the future.

In the future, ‘‘community psychology’’ will be a term that will need noexplanation. No longer will community psychologists have to explain whatthey ‘‘do’’ by reciting a definition, contrasting it with psychotherapy, or listingthe important issues on which they work. Everyone will know that our workspans many disciplines, that our lab is in the community, and that our researchgoes hand-in-hand with social action. Getting a degree in communitypsychology will mean getting a degree in activism. Students, eager to makea real difference and change the world for the better, will flock to communitypsychology programs knowing that this field will allow them to realize theirdesire for social action.

Jacquelyn Brown, Graduate student, University of Hawaii, Manoa

I would like to see community psychology become transformative. There is afocus, in adult education, on learning for adults being transformative, that is,it helps people look at things in fundamentally different ways. Feminism is agood example. As people learn about the history of women and women’scommunities, there can be a "click" whereby gender differences and inequal-ities are seen not as a situation that can be "tweaked" but rather somethingmore profound. Seeing the world through a feminist lens is not just a questionof learning about inequality and women, it is also a cognitive shift, which, onceyou’ve experienced it, it is difficult, if not impossible, to go back to the old wayof thinking. I am really convinced that social change really needs to start withsome kind of cognitive shift, not just a change in behavior, and that the shift/transformation needs to be in the foreground, not in the background of ourwork.

Margaret S. Schneider, Ph.D., C. Psych., Department of Adult Education andCounseling Psychology, Toronto, ON, Canada

My wish is that we continue to make connections with other constituencies,which could include other professional disciplines (e.g., sociology, politicalscience, urban planning) as well as stakeholders that come from multiplebackgrounds (e.g., policy-makers, neighborhood organizations, communityactivists, CBO’s, labor unions, politicians, advocacy groups). There is no P (asin psychology) in SCRA, and we should not limit our collaborations andcommunication with those that identify as community psychologists. Imaintain that 99% of community psychologists (as defined by consistencywith our values and action rhetoric as opposed to training) are unaware thatthey are community psychologists. We need to find them and combine our



mutual competencies to create social change focused on freedom, justice, andequal access to resources and power.

James G. Emshoff, Ph.D., Dept. of Psychology, Georgia State University

A vision of the future, community psychology to the rescue! Communitypsychology offers a philosophy, a process, a body of literature, research, arange of people with relevant experiences that creatively brought together canand just might offer us a way forward. By working together to face up to themany real issues that affect us now and that will affect all of us in the very nearfuture, we can form relationships, networks, groups, and communities. We canshare, then energize each other and become more aware. We can discuss ourvalues, our goals, our lives, and decide on the best steps to take. Collectively,we can handle the issues, constructively, and forthrightly. The task is out there,as well as within us. The place is here, the time is now, and if not us, then thereprobably won’t be another generation and better time to get on to it.Community psychology offers the finest approach to getting us out of the messwe are in, and into finding an ecologically sustainable, reasonable and rationalway to live. Let’s go for it! Now!

Bob Gregory, New Zealand

Community Psychology is desperately in need of a long-term vision of where thefield is going and how we can fulfill our individual and common hopes for the future.Although there have been numerous gatherings and biennials a major new visioningsession is long overdue. I would love to see that vision include a strong recommitmentto social change and social justice. In 1985, at the Biennial at Williamsburg, DavidChavis and I organized a session entitled ‘‘Community Psychology’s Failed Commit-ment to Social Change: Ten Demandments for Action.’’ One of those ‘‘demandments’’was that SCRA ‘‘live up to the Action component which requires a serious andpervasive commitment to social change.’’ What a better time than now to recommit tothat vision.

The vision of the future can also proudly proclaim the field as one that integratesaction and research in both academic and non-academic settings. In 1985 in myaddress to the Biennial, I asked all those present to reply together that we are ‘‘allapplied community psychologists.’’ And now, we can imagine a future where allcommunity psychologists are ‘‘real-world community psychologists.’’ A collaborative,respectful, and productive relationship involving the full diversity of SCRA memberswill be the only way that we can address the major issues facing the world today.

Finally, it is time to integrate our spirituality into the field of communitypsychology. Yes, indeed, many if not most community psychologists have a spiritual life(not necessarily a formal religious life, but a spiritual one). A session that Len Jason,Bill Berkowitz, and I ran at a Biennial led to an outpouring of stories and feelingsabout the need to integrate our spirituality into our work rather than hide it. A glanceback over the last century easily illustrates the powerful role leaders who integratedtheir politics and spirituality into social justice issues—Martin Luther King, NelsonMandela, Gandhi, Malcolm X, to name a few. If we are to be serious about ourcommitment to social change and social justice, then we will have to see what additional



benefit can be brought to our work by integrating our spiritual nature. For me, it hasbecome clear over the years that my spirituality and commitment to social change areinseparable. As Gandhi said, we need ‘‘to be the change that we wish to see in theworld.’’ That would be a wonderful goal statement for community psychology as wegather to envision our future.

REFERENCES

Anderson, L., Cooper, S., Hassol, L., Klein, D., Rosenblum, G., & Bennett, C. (1966). Commun-ity psychology: A report of the Boston conference on the education of psychologists forcommunity mental health. Boston: Boston University.

Dunham, C., & Meredith, J. (1999). Real clout. Boston: The Access Project.

Iscoe, I., Bloom, B.L., & Spielberger, C.D. (1977). Community psychology in transition. Pro-ceedings of the National conference in Training in Community Psychology. Oxford,England: Hemisphere.

McKnight, J. (1995) The careless society: Community and its counterfeits (p171). New York:Basic Books.

Solarz, A. (2000a) Who are we? A little look at ourselves. The Community Psychologist, 33(3),4–5.

Solarz, A. (2000b). We’re making a difference on the national policy scene. The CommunityPsychologist, 33(1), 4–5.

Starnes, D.M. (2004) Community psychologists—Get in the arena!! American Journal of Com-munity Psychology, 33(1,2), 3–6.

Wolff, T. (1993). Keynote address given at the fourth biennial conference. The CommunityPsychologist (Special Issue on Working in the Community), 27(3), 20–26.

Wolff, T. (2000). Practitioner perspectives. In J. Rappaport & E. Seidman (Eds.), Handbook ofcommunity psychology (pp.741–777). Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publish-ers.

Wolff. T. (2003). The healthy communities movement: A time for transformation. National CivicReview, 92(2), 95–112.

Wolff, T. (2006). SCRA proposes new core principles including vision statement. The Com-munity Psychologist, 39, 76–78.



reflections on “real-world” community psychology

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