COUV ACTES - Psychologie communautaire

Community Psychology: Common Values, Diverse Practicestheir particular conditions. According to some authors (Hopper, 2007, Davidson et al., 2009) the capabilitiesapproach can be used as a tool and a guiding principle in the field of public mental health with the essentialprerequisite of adopting a recovery perspective, which focus on people and their experiences. Resulting fromyears of cultural studies, Nussbaum articulated 10 capabilities or freedoms that should be afforded to vulnerablepopulations, selected as central and important capabilities to all human life. We will take these capabilities asdependent variables for this study.The second approach that we take to define community participation derives from focus groups of users of theservice to be studied here.The research team decided to implement a two-step design. Therefore the study will consider a first exploratoryand qualitative analysis, in order to identify the gains of the members derived from the participation in theorganization, followed by quantitative analysis. In this second step the research team proposes to interview asample of 100 users to create evidence of AEIPS efficacy in fostering community involvement. Results of the firststage will be used to produce an interview protocol for the further quantitative phase.The procedures and methods for the first qualitative phase, carried out between October 2008 and July 2009,involved eighteen discussion groups conducted to collect data about the improvements of AEIPS members,focused on accomplishments stemming from participation in the organization. Respondents were 36 members,11 women and 25 men, between 20 and 58 years (average = 41), 22 % were currently studying, 33 % wereworking and the remaining 47 % were involved with other services of the organization. Each group wascomposed of four participants and one discussion facilitator. The domains covered in discussion included areasof community involvement like employment, education, housing, personal network development, and how theseaccomplishments have contributed towards a recovery path.The second stage of the qualitative phase is the data analysis occurred during 4 months of work. The goal is todescribe the phenomenon of community integration with words and experiences of research subjects, in order toget closer to their perspective. A panel composed of three AEIPS members and two professionals categorizedtopics from the discussion groups and observed regularities across them. Once every three weeks videoconferences were conducted with the American supervisor to ensure ongoing technical advice on work inprogress. The content analysis identified several improvements reported by the participants, which wereconverted into an 84 item questionnaire to be used in the quantitative phase.In the domain of employment, for example, members of one group answered that they became moreprofessional, another that they had gained opportunities for more competitive employment, and again, anothergroup said that they have learned to work in a team. These answers have been converted into items thatcompose the interview protocol and each item is supported by a 3-point Likert scale.The last stage of the qualitative phase consists in adapting the interview protocol to the Capabilities Approach ofNussbaum. The same panel of professionals and AEIPS members reviewed each item of the interview protocoland adjusted it to domains proposed by Nussbaum, in order to give to the instrument an objective measure ofdiversity of choices and variability derived from AEIPS services. These conditions are seen here as necessary toachieve a community participation and membership.240