COUV ACTES - Psychologie communautaire

Community Psychology: Common Values, Diverse Practicesby involving themselves within their population of interest. They are not required to make any commitments to anyagency, organization, and/or community effort at this particular point in their training. What is unique about this16 week course is that students are to make as many connections with individuals and agencies in thecommunity as possible, while simultaneously generating reflections about his/her experiences. Students arerequired to consider this a period of reflection and to examine his/her personal beliefs, ideas, and assumptions.During this learning process, students are also assigned readings regarding values of community psychology.Some of the values discussed included but are not limited to the following: participatory processes; actionresearch; engagement; empowerment; sustainability; system change; and ecological theory. This level ofengagement and sharing provides each student to serve as support to their classmates and assist each otherobstacles when they arise. Classmates challenged one another on how each other assigned meaning to theirpopulation of interests, their activities and experiences of engagement. Although this process for some studentsbegan prior to entry of the practicum course, many students use this period to conceptualize interests and identifywhat social problems they were most interested in pursuing and the angle in which they hope to engage in thesocial problem. During this phase of first-person inquiry, students are required to write a series of reflective piecesconcerning their personal construction of knowledge of ideas as it related to their personal interests, pastexperiences, and their own construction of reality.In second-person inquiry, students received feedback from classmates and from the community members. Thisopened up venues for additional critical first-person reflection because students were required to speak withvarious people holding diverse perspectives related to his/her social issue of interests. Once 1 st person inquirywas established, students were allowed to choose and engage in a specific community agency or effort. Onestudent interested in at-risk youth spoke with the court officials, community leaders, after school programs, schoolofficials, and youth based programs. For another student, this process provided an avenue for understanding howher role as a Black woman may both hinder and/or enhance her influence on a Black-operated domestic violenceshelter in an urban city.Second person inquiry provided an opportunity for students to more deeply engage on a specific social issue ofinterests. One student was involved with a youth-based after school program which served at-risk youth from lowincomefamilies. Her social area of interest was to explore how to enhance and maximize services and programsto meet the needs of underserved at-risk youth. Another student became involved with a domestic violenceshelter that primarily served Black women enhancing her passion for understanding violence against Blackwomen. The last student brought community agencies together, school organizations and resources to supportcurrent efforts around Hurricane Katrina, a major recent natural disaster, and support disenfranchised, lowincomefamilies of color. It is was this stage where each student engaged in sharing, learning, and service to boththe organization and relevant community initiatives as a means to build a strong relationship and gain entry intothe community. By engaging in these first steps, all three students participated in creating a plan of action andsolidified practicum goals.Third person inquiry requires a greater level of inquiry, learning and engagement. The level ofengagement goes beyond the local context to a broader context. For example, the third person inquiry and284