Community psychology

1. Introduction

Version followed: the Society for Community Research and Action (SCRA, APA Division 27) Competencies for Community Psychology Practice (Dalton & Wolfe, 2012; 18 competencies in 5 groups) as the organising frame. Concepts come from the open textbook Introduction to Community Psychology (Jason, Glantsman, O'Brien & Ramian, eds., 2019, Rebus), chapters 5 and 7. Tool-level procedures come from named primary tools: the Kansas Community Tool Box concerns-survey method, the Tri-Ethnic Center Community Readiness handbook (Plested, Edwards & Jumper-Thurman, 2006 edition), RAND Getting To Outcomes (GTO, 10-step version CP-793-1, 2017), CBPR principles (Israel et al., 1998; Israel et al., 2013), photovoice (Wang & Burris, 1997) and Asset-Based Community Development (Kretzmann & McKnight, 1993).

What it is. Community psychology is a field of psychology and a practice tradition. It is not a psychotherapy, and it has no single treatment manual. SCRA describes its members as committed to promoting health and empowerment and to preventing problems in communities, groups and individuals. The competencies are offered as a framework for discussion, not as accreditation standards. [source: communitypsychology.com competencies page; Wolfe, ch. 7] It grew up in the United States in the mid-1960s as an alternative to individual clinical treatment. The usual founding marker is the 1965 Swampscott conference. [uncertain: not confirmed in a source]

How change happens. Problems are seen as arising from the fit between people and their settings: schools, neighbourhoods, workplaces, services and policies. Durable change therefore comes from changing those settings, the resources available in them and who holds power over them. This is second-order change, which rearranges relationships, roles and power so that settings become more just and health-promoting. It is contrasted with first-order change, which only changes individual behaviour. Practitioners work with communities rather than for or on them. They build local capacity to act and sustain change without outside help, and they favour prevention and strengths over treating deficits. [source: Wolfe, ch. 7; ch. 5 Theories]

How a psychotherapist uses this guide. It supports three roles. (a) Bring an ecological, multi-level view into case formulation and treatment planning. (b) Link clients to settings that supply resources and belonging, such as recovery residences and mutual-help groups. (c) Step outside the consulting room into consultation, prevention, coalition, evaluation and advocacy work. Role (a) and the in-session uses of (b) are clinical adaptations, marked [synthesis] where they appear. The community procedures themselves are taken from the named sources.

2. Framework

Community psychology has no session-based protocol. The phases below are a working cycle assembled from GTO's 10 steps, the Community Readiness Model and CBPR principles. The sequence is [synthesis]; the content of each phase is sourced.

Phase	Goal	Typical format and duration	Move on when…
0. Entry and partnership	Define the community (geographic, subgroup, organisation or occupational group) and the issue. Build trusting relationships with residents and setting leaders, and agree how decisions will be shared. [source: CRM handbook; CBPR principles]	Informal one-to-one visits and small meetings, then forming a working group or core group. Weeks to months. [source: CTB checklist; ABCD via Participedia]	A working group exists that includes historically excluded members and has agreed operating norms. [synthesis]
1. Assessment	Map concerns, assets and readiness. [source: CTB; ABCD; CRM]	Concerns survey of about 30 items; asset mapping; 4–6 key-respondent interviews of 30–60 minutes each, scored by two raters. [source: CTB checklist; CRM handbook]	You have a readiness stage, a list of 5–10 strengths and 5–10 problems, and an asset map, and these have been fed back at a public meeting. [source: CTB checklist]
2. Planning (GTO steps 1–6)	Focus on a problem; set the target population and outcomes; adopt and adapt evidence-informed practice; check resources; make a who/what/when/where/how plan. [source: RAND GTO]	Working-group meetings and structured brainstorming of strengths, concerns and resources. [source: CRM handbook]	The plan fits the community's readiness stage, with the weakest dimensions targeted first. [source: CRM handbook]
3. Implementation and monitoring (GTO step 7)	Deliver the activities and track how planning and implementation went. [source: RAND GTO]	Months; regular progress reviews. [source: CRM stage 7 strategies]	Delivery is stable and data on fidelity and reach are being collected. [synthesis]
4. Evaluation and improvement (GTO steps 8–9)	Check whether the outcomes were reached; continuous quality improvement. [source: RAND GTO; SCRA competency 18]	Participatory evaluation with setting leaders and members.	Findings have been shared with all partners and changes made. [source: CBPR principle of shared dissemination]
5. Sustainability and hand-over (GTO step 10)	Keep successful work running under community ownership. [source: RAND GTO; CRM stage 9]	Diversified funding, advanced training, work on related issues. Reassess readiness after an interval. [source: CRM handbook]	The community runs the effort without the outside practitioner. [source: Wolfe, ch. 7, on capacity-building]

Time scale. Community projects run for months to decades, not sessions. Examples from the textbook include 25 years of DePaul–Oxford House collaboration and about 35 years of work on Fairweather's Community Lodge. [source: Wolfe, ch. 7] SCRA describes three levels of practitioner competence: exposure (learning about a competency), experience (supervised or independent use) and expertise (repeated use, able to teach and supervise). [source: Wolfe, ch. 7]

Clinician track. For a therapist working with individual clients, the same cycle shrinks to three steps: ecological assessment of the client's settings, linkage to resource-rich settings, and, where a pattern recurs across clients, escalation to consultation or community work. [synthesis]

3. Guiding principles

SCRA foundational principles. [source: Dalton & Wolfe 2012, via communitypsychology.com]

Ecological perspectives. Analyse every problem at several levels: individual, group, organisation, community and policy. In practice: never write a formulation that names only intrapsychic causes.
Empowerment. Use a collective approach that helps marginalised groups gain resources and a voice in community decisions. In practice: measure success partly by who now has more control.
Sociocultural and cross-cultural competence. Value, combine and connect different worldviews, cultures and identities. In practice: treat local explanations of the problem as data, not as error.
Community inclusion and partnership. Give real representation and respect to all members, and treat their differing views on social issues as legitimate. In practice: check who is missing from the table before every planning meeting.
Ethical, reflective practice. Keep identifying and responsibly addressing ethical issues; examine how your own values and experience shape your work; build a network for ethical consultation. In practice: keep a reflective log and name a consultation partner for each project.

Kelly's ecological principles (1966). [source: Jason et al., ch. 5]

Interdependence. Changing one part of a system ripples through the others. In practice: plan for and track side effects of an intervention, both good and bad.
Adaptation. A behaviour that works in one setting may fail in another. In practice: judge a client's or group's coping against the demands of their own setting.
Cycling of resources. Find and circulate local resources: skills, information, social support, equipment and cultural events. In practice: look for unused competencies before importing services.
Succession. Communities and their needs change over time. In practice: reassess regularly, and avoid stacking new structures on old ones. The textbook's example is an "over-coalitioned" community, where a second coalition weakened the first.

Further principles from the sources.

Second-order change. Aim to change roles, relationships and power, not only individual behaviour. In practice: for each objective, ask what in the setting will be different. [source: Wolfe, ch. 7]
Capacity-building, not doing-for. Provide training and technical assistance rather than doing the community's work. In practice: hand tasks over as early as possible and plan your own exit. [source: Wolfe, ch. 7]
Prevention and health promotion. Apply a prevention perspective. In practice: ask where upstream action would reduce new cases. [source: SCRA competency 7]
Sense of community as a value. Check every intervention for its effect on membership, influence, integration and fulfilment of needs, and shared emotional connection (McMillan & Chavis, 1986). The textbook judges an intervention that raises grades but erodes classroom community to be ineffective and potentially harmful. In practice: add sense-of-community indicators to outcome measures. [source: Jason et al., ch. 5]
Match the intervention to readiness. Efforts that are too ambitious for a community's stage tend to fail. In practice: raise awareness before launching programmes in low-readiness settings. [source: CRM handbook]
Strengths and assets first; outside resources last. Mobilise local assets before bringing in external support, which should supplement rather than replace them. In practice: begin assessment with an asset map, not a deficit list. [source: ABCD via Participedia]
Research with, not on. Partner with the community in every phase; balance knowledge with action; share results with all partners; commit for the long term. In practice: agree data ownership and dissemination at the start. [source: Israel et al. 1998, 2013 via CAPHE Detroit]
Community as a unit of identity; mutual learning; local relevance; iterative development. These are the remaining CBPR principles. In practice: define the community as members define it; expect to learn from residents; focus on locally pressing problems; plan in repeated cycles. [source: CAPHE Detroit CBPR page]
Praxis and dialectics (liberation psychology). Ground theory in practice aimed at changing oppressive conditions, and build knowledge through dialogue with and from the oppressed. In practice: let affected people frame the problem before experts do. [source: Jason et al., ch. 5]

4. Intervention inventory

The inventory follows the 18 SCRA competencies and adds the named tools that put them into practice. Every competency is covered, and some are grouped where the sources treat them together. The competency definitions come from Dalton & Wolfe (2012), and the tool steps come from the source named in each entry. The textbook and the competencies page name most competencies without giving step-by-step methods. Where steps are not in a cited source, they are marked [synthesis].

A. Assessment

4.1 Ecological (multi-level) case formulation

Purpose / when: Use with any individual client whose difficulties are tied to their settings: housing, school, workplace, service gaps, discrimination. It puts the ecological and empowerment principles to work inside therapy. [source: SCRA foundational principles; Kelly's principles, ch. 5] The clinical format below is [synthesis].
Steps: [synthesis]
1. List the client's main settings: home, work or school, neighbourhood, services, faith or cultural groups, online communities.
2. For each setting, note its demands and the client's fit (adaptation), the resources it offers or withholds (cycling of resources), and how a change in one setting affects the others (interdependence).
3. Note recent or coming changes in those settings, such as a move, a school change or a service closure (succession).
4. Mark the factors the client can influence, those others in the setting could change, and those that need policy change.
5. Write the formulation at three levels: individual (skills, beliefs), setting (relationships, rules, resources) and structural (policy, power).
6. Agree goals at each level: an individual goal, a linkage or setting goal, and, where appropriate, an advocacy goal.
Example language (illustrative): "We've talked about how the panic feels inside. Can we also map where it shows up and what those places are like? Some of what we change may be in you, and some may be in those places."
Watch for: Shifting all blame onto settings, which can undercut the client's sense of agency. Equally, ignoring structural causes and making clients responsible for injustice. Working signs: the client can name changes at more than one level, and treatment goals include at least one setting- or resource-level goal.

4.2 Behaviour-setting and social-climate assessment

Purpose / when: Use to understand why people act alike in a setting regardless of who they are. Barker's behaviour setting is a place and time with a standing pattern of behaviour; total institutions such as prisons produce similar negative outcomes. Moos's social climate covers three dimensions: relationships, support for personal development, and norm maintenance with support for change. Use before consulting to a ward, school, residential unit or team, or when an organisation faces discrimination. [source: Jason et al., ch. 5]
Steps:
1. Define the setting, its time boundaries and its standing behaviour pattern: what reliably happens there. [source: ch. 5, Barker] Observe or interview before forming hypotheses. [synthesis]
2. Assess the three climate dimensions with a validated climate survey (Moos-type scales; refined subscales exist, e.g. Leipoldt et al., 2017). Licensed instruments must be obtained from the publisher; items are not reproduced here. [source: ch. 5]
3. Break results down by sub-unit to find where problems concentrate. The textbook's example uses a climate survey to locate the departments most affected by discrimination. [source: ch. 5]
4. Feed results back to setting leaders and members, and plan changes to rules, roles and routines rather than to individuals. [synthesis, consistent with second-order change]
Example language (illustrative): "The survey suggests staff on the night shift feel least supported. Before we look at individual staff, can we look at what the shift itself is set up to reward?"
Watch for: Results used to single out individuals. Small units where respondents can be identified, so protect anonymity. Working signs: setting-level changes are agreed and repeat climate scores move.

4.3 Concerns survey and concerns report (Community Tool Box)

Purpose / when: Use to find a community's strengths and problems from residents' own ratings, as a starting point for public problem-solving. It is part of the broader concerns-report method. [source: CTB concerns-survey checklist]
Steps: [source: CTB checklist, paraphrased]
1. Plan for wide reach, budget staff time and materials, and form a working group to guide the survey.
2. Brainstorm candidate items with the working group and invite selected decision-makers to add items.
3. Write each item as a pair: how important the issue is to residents, and how satisfied they are with the community's efforts on it. Narrow the list to about 30 items and choose the demographics to collect.
4. Distribute by mail, with a cover letter and return envelopes, and at participating sites. Code envelopes if you need to track returns.
5. Screen returns for incomplete surveys and bad addresses. If the response rate is low, take steps to raise it.
6. For each item, compute mean importance and mean satisfaction.
7. Write a brief report: an overall approval rating (mean satisfaction across items) and 5–10 strengths and 5–10 problems. The CTB organises these around health risks, services and public perceptions.
8. Share findings with staff and decide whether more surveying is needed. Then hold a public meeting to review results and brainstorm solutions.
9. Write a one-page narrative per issue discussed, then compile the concerns report: executive memo, brief report, data table, problem-solving summary, demographics, and recommendations for planning.
Example language (illustrative): "These are the issues residents rated very important but are least satisfied with. Tonight we want your ideas on what could be done about each one."
Watch for: Samples that miss renters, non-native speakers or people without stable addresses. Using mail-only distribution and translated versions only where needed is [synthesis]. Working signs: the public forum produces concrete proposals and the report is used in planning.

4.4 Asset mapping (Asset-Based Community Development)

Purpose / when: Use at the start of any community effort to build on existing gifts and associations rather than deficits, and to strengthen local relationships while doing so. ABCD was developed by Kretzmann and McKnight at Northwestern University and set out in their 1993 book. [source: Participedia ABCD entry]
Steps: [source: Participedia, paraphrased]
1. Collect stories. Hold informal conversations and interviews that surface unused assets and build residents' confidence.
2. Organise a core group. Identify emerging leaders and connect them to one another.
3. Map assets. Residents map five categories: individuals' gifts, skills and capacities; associations; local institutions (services, equipment, communication links); physical and natural resources (land, water; private or commons); and the local economy. Capacity inventories of individuals are part of the tradition, but the source does not detail them. [uncertain]
4. Convene a broad group. Set a shared vision and plan with concrete activities.
5. Mobilise assets. Link associations with similar interests.
6. Leverage outside resources only after local assets are in use, and only for locally defined goals.
Example language (illustrative): "Before we talk about what's missing here, who on this street is good at something? Who do people go to when the boiler breaks, or when a kid needs help with reading?"
Watch for: The ABCD sources themselves name several risks: dependence on the outside facilitating agency; misuse by private agencies for their own ends; hostile settings or social hierarchies that exclude people; fragmented local strategy; and local assets alone being insufficient for major development challenges. Working signs: residents, not staff, lead the mapping, and new connections between associations form.

4.5 Community Readiness Assessment (Tri-Ethnic Center model)

Purpose / when: Use to find how ready a community is to act on one specific issue, so that strategies fit its stage. It is also used for evaluation and for funders' fit decisions. [source: Plested, Edwards & Jumper-Thurman, 2006]
Steps: [source: CRM handbook, paraphrased]
1. Name the issue and define the community: geographic, subgroup, organisation or occupational group.
2. Adapt the handbook's interview questions to the issue. Have two people review the adaptation, pilot-test it, and back-translate if needed. The question set is not reproduced here.
3. Interview roughly 4–6 key respondents from different sectors: schools, government, health, social services, faith groups and residents. Each interview takes 30–60 minutes. Do not rely only on issue professionals, whose readiness runs higher than the community's. Record answers without adding your own interpretation.
4. Two scorers independently read every full transcript and score six dimensions against anchored scales: community efforts; community knowledge of the efforts; leadership; community climate; community knowledge of the issue; and resources. A higher score requires every lower anchor to be met.
5. The scorers meet and agree a consensus score for each interview and dimension.
6. Average each dimension across interviews, average the six dimensions, and round down to get the stage.
7. Interpret the stage on the nine-stage scale: no awareness; denial/resistance; vague awareness; preplanning; preparation; initiation; stabilisation; confirmation/expansion; high level of community ownership. Work on the lowest dimensions first, because readiness must be roughly even before moving on.
8. Run structured brainstorming of strengths, concerns and resources to build an action plan, and reassess after an interval.
9. Brief variant: a group reaches consensus on each dimension directly, in steps of about 0.25.
Example language (illustrative, for interviewers): "I'm going to ask about what's happening in your community around this issue. There are no right answers; we just want your view of how things stand now."
Watch for: Over-scoring when informants are all professionals. Scorer drift, so use the anchors strictly. Choosing an issue too broad to score. Working signs: two scorers converge, and the stage matches what local partners recognise. The model does not prescribe specific actions and cannot make people act on beliefs they do not hold. [source: CRM handbook]

4.6 Readiness-matched strategy selection

Purpose / when: Use after 4.5 to choose actions the community can absorb. [source: CRM handbook]
Steps: Select goals and tactics by stage. [source: CRM handbook, paraphrased]
- (1) No awareness: raise awareness through one-to-one visits and small-group contacts.
- (2) Denial/resistance: show the problem exists locally, using local examples and newsletters of churches and clubs.
- (3) Vague awareness: show the community can act, through events, posters, informal surveys and editorials.
- (4) Preplanning: give concrete ideas through presentations, reviews of existing efforts and focus groups.
- (5) Preparation: gather planning information through surveys, public forums and evaluation planning.
- (6) Initiation: provide community-specific information through provider training, publicity, consumer interviews and basic evaluation.
- (7) Stabilisation: keep efforts steady through progress reviews, training, recognition events and networking.
- (8) Confirmation/expansion: broaden reach through formal agreements, risk profiles, directories, data systems and policy work.
- (9) High ownership: sustain momentum through diversified funding, advanced training, outcome tracking and work on related issues.
Example language (illustrative): "People here don't yet see this as a local problem. So our first job isn't a programme; it's getting a few local stories in front of the people who'll listen."
Watch for: Jumping stages, such as launching a programme in a denial-stage community. Working signs: reassessment shows dimension scores rising.

B. Programme development, research and settings

4.7 Getting To Outcomes (GTO) planning–implementation–evaluation cycle

Purpose / when: Use to plan, deliver, evaluate and sustain a prevention or community programme accountably. GTO was developed by Wandersman, Chinman and colleagues at RAND, and the 2017 flyer CP-793-1 supersedes the 2015 version. It covers SCRA competency 6 (programme development, implementation and management). [source: RAND GTO page]
Steps: [source: RAND, paraphrased]
1. Focus: choose the problem or problems.
2. Target: set goals, the target population and the desired outcomes.
3. Adopt: find existing programmes and best practices.
4. Adapt: modify them to fit the local context.
5. Resources: assess capacity, including staff and funding.
6. Plan: set who, what, when, where and how.
7. Monitor: track planning and implementation.
8. Evaluate: check whether the desired results were reached.
9. Improve: plan continuous quality improvement.
10. Sustain: plan how to keep a successful programme going.
RAND supports GTO with training, technical assistance and topic toolkits (substance-use prevention, teen pregnancy prevention, underage drinking, home visiting, positive youth development, homelessness). Use the toolkit for your topic. Its worksheets are not reproduced here.
Example language (illustrative): "Before we pick a programme, let's agree on step 2: who exactly is this for, and what would be different for them in a year?"
Watch for: Skipping step 4, adaptation, or adapting away core components; skipping step 5, the capacity check. Working signs: monitoring data exist before outcome evaluation starts, and the improvement and sustainability plans are written down.

4.8 Prevention and health-promotion programming

Purpose / when: SCRA competency 7: apply a prevention perspective, and implement prevention and health-promotion programmes. [source: Dalton & Wolfe 2012] Kelly's ecological principles were framed specifically to guide the assessment, development and evaluation of preventive interventions. [source: ch. 5]
Steps: The sources used here give no separate prevention protocol. Use GTO (4.7) as the procedure, with these additions [synthesis]:
1. Define the population upstream of the clinical problem you see repeatedly.
2. Choose an evidence-informed programme in GTO step 3.
3. Check readiness (4.5) before launch.
4. Measure both risk and protective factors and sense of community (4.12).
5. Trace ripple effects (interdependence). The textbook's example is neighbourhood mini-grants that refurbished schools, houses and parks and also built relationships among neighbours, which evaluators then tracked. [source: ch. 5]
Example language (illustrative): "Half of my referrals from this estate are teenagers after school exclusion. Could the school and the youth club look at what happens in the term before exclusion?"
Watch for: Programmes imported without local adaptation, and outcomes measured only at the individual level. [synthesis]

4.9 Programme evaluation (participatory)

Purpose / when: SCRA competency 18: partner with setting leaders and members to improve programmes and make them accountable to stakeholders and funders. Use from the planning stage onward. [source: Dalton & Wolfe 2012; GTO steps 7–9]
Steps: [synthesis, built on GTO and CBPR principles]
1. Agree evaluation questions with community partners, not only with funders.
2. Write a logic of change from activities to outcomes, including setting-level outcomes.
3. Collect process (monitoring) data and outcome data.
4. Interpret the data jointly with partners.
5. Share results with all partners first, then more widely (CBPR shared dissemination).
6. Feed results into an improvement plan (GTO step 9).
Example language (illustrative): "What would count as success to you, as opposed to what the funder asks us to count?"
Watch for: Evaluation that serves only funders. Working signs: partners use findings to change practice.

4.10 Community-based participatory research (CBPR) partnership

Purpose / when: SCRA competency 17: partner with community members to plan and conduct research that meets high scientific standards and fits its context, then report findings in ways that build community capacity. [source: Dalton & Wolfe 2012] Use whenever you study a community or service.
Steps: Set up the partnership on the nine CBPR principles (Israel et al., 1998; Israel et al., 2013, pp. 8–11). [source: CAPHE Detroit]
1. Recognise the community as a unit of identity, defined by its members.
2. Start from existing strengths and resources.
3. Run equitable partnership in every phase, sharing power and addressing inequality.
4. Build in mutual learning and capacity-building.
5. Balance knowledge generation with action that benefits all partners.
6. Focus on locally relevant problems and their many determinants.
7. Develop the work in iterative cycles.
8. Disseminate results to and with all partners.
9. Commit for the long term.
The partnership mechanics are [synthesis]: a steering group with community majority or parity, written operating norms covering decision rules, data ownership, authorship, budget sharing and conflict resolution, and review of every instrument by community partners. The Detroit Urban Research Center publishes its own operating norms; they are not drawn on here. [uncertain]
Example language (illustrative): "We'd like the steering group to decide the research questions. The university will bring methods, and you bring knowledge of what matters here."
Watch for: Tokenistic advisory boards and extractive data collection. A resident's suggestion can reshape the research: in the DePaul–Oxford House partnership, a resident proposed measuring tolerance, which was then tested in a randomised study. [source: Wolfe, ch. 7]

4.11 Photovoice

Purpose / when: Wang & Burris (1997) describe photovoice as a participatory method with three goals: recording community strengths and concerns, prompting critical group dialogue about them through photographs, and reaching policymakers. Use it with groups whose voices are rarely heard. [source: Deep Blue record of Wang & Burris 1997] The three-meeting steps below come from the Oklahoma State Extension fact sheet, a secondary source. The original paper's own step list is not drawn on here. [uncertain]
Steps: [source: OSU Extension, paraphrased]
1. Meeting 1, recruitment and orientation. Recruit about 10–15 participants. Explain the goals, the timeline and how photos will be used. Obtain consent, including guardian consent for minors. Train participants in basic photography and ethics. Build trust, affirm that lived experience is valid data, and issue tailored photo prompts. Assess access to technology and provide low-cost or disposable cameras if needed.
2. Between meetings. Participants photograph in response to the prompts and submit images, with help offered for submission.
3. Meeting 2, discussion. Show the photos, grouped by theme or prompt. Each photographer works through a structured reflection: what the image shows, what is happening, why they took it, what it says about life in the community, and how it could inform change. This is the P.H.O.T.O. framework. The SHOWED framework is a widely used alternative; it is not drawn on here. [uncertain] Record or note the discussion as data. Participants write their own captions.
4. Meeting 3, exhibition. Participants choose the format (reception, public gallery in a library or courthouse, photo book or calendar) and the captions. Invite decision-makers. [source for the policymaker audience: Wang & Burris abstract]
Example language (illustrative): "Take pictures of what helps you stay well around here, and what gets in the way. Before photographing anyone, ask them and use the consent form."
Watch for: The facilitator interpreting images for participants, which the fact sheet warns against. Photographing identifiable people without consent [synthesis]. Exhibitions that expose participants to stigma or retaliation [synthesis]. Working signs: participant-led themes emerge, and the exhibit leads to dialogue with decision-makers.

4.12 Sense-of-community assessment and strengthening

Purpose / when: Sense of community is a core value, and interventions should be checked for their effect on it. [source: ch. 5] Use it as an outcome for any setting-level work, and to plan belonging-building.
Steps:
1. Assess the four McMillan & Chavis elements: membership (clear boundaries of who belongs), influence (members can shape norms), integration and fulfilment of needs (a network that shares values and exchanges resources), and shared emotional connection (shared events and rituals). A validated measure is available: Jason et al. (2015) published a brief nine-item scale. Its items are not reproduced here. [source: ch. 5]
2. Strengthen weak elements [synthesis]. For membership, use clear joining rituals and visible markers of belonging. For influence, give members real decision roles. For needs, create resource exchange. For emotional connection, hold shared celebrations.
3. Re-measure after setting-level changes.
4. Consider network structure. A Colombian study found that the density of personal networks was associated with sense of community, and that housing-based segregation can hinder reintegration (Maya-Jariego et al., 2019). [source: ch. 5]
Example language (illustrative): "Who decides how things run in this group? Would members say they have a say?"
Watch for: Strong boundaries excluding newcomers or minorities [synthesis]. Working signs: rising scores and wider participation.

4.13 Creating alternative settings and linking clients to them

Purpose / when: Build or connect people to settings that supply what services cannot: belonging, roles, mutual support. The textbook gives two examples. Oxford House is a recovery-home network studied with DePaul University for 25 years; it later received federal "gold standard" endorsement and serves over 20,000 people. Fairweather's Community Lodge was a community-living setting for people with mental illness leaving hospital, built after years of research on group problem-solving. [source: Wolfe, ch. 7] Mutual-help settings are not treatments the clinician runs.
Steps (clinician, for referral and linkage): [synthesis]
1. Identify clients whose recovery is limited by isolation, unstable housing or lack of roles.
2. Learn the local settings first-hand: their rules, governance and costs.
3. Discuss fit with the client: values, rules and the client's readiness for self-governance.
4. Arrange a warm introduction, such as a joint visit or contact with a member.
5. Review the experience in sessions and problem-solve conflicts in the setting.
6. Keep therapy separate from the setting's self-governance.
Steps (developing a setting): Work in long-term partnership with members; study the setting with them (CBPR, 4.10); disseminate the model to other practitioners, as the Fairweather team did. [source: ch. 7] The details of setting design are [synthesis].
Example language (illustrative): "Some people find it easier to stay sober living with others doing the same, in a shared recovery house. Would you want to visit one with me before deciding?"
Watch for: Pushing clients into settings that conflict with their values. Clinicians overriding member governance. Working signs: the client takes on roles in the setting and has a wider network.

C. Capacity-building and social change

The sources used here define these competencies but give few steps. The steps below are [synthesis] unless tagged, and are built to honour the definitions and principles in section 3.

4.14 Consultation and organisational development

Purpose / when: SCRA competency 11: help organisations build their capacity to reach their goals. Use when a school, agency or team asks for help, or when many of your clients are harmed by one organisation's practices. [source: Dalton & Wolfe 2012]
Steps: [synthesis]
1. Contract clearly: who the client is (the organisation, not individuals), the goals, confidentiality and the exit plan.
2. Assess the climate and behaviour settings (4.2) and readiness (4.5).
3. Feed data back to the whole system.
4. Co-design changes to roles, routines and policies.
5. Provide training and technical assistance rather than doing the work yourself, as in the textbook's rural collaboratives consultant example. [source: Wolfe, ch. 7, case 7.1]
6. Evaluate and withdraw on schedule.
Example language (illustrative): "My role is to help your staff design and run this, not to run it for you. By month six, you should not need me in the room."
Watch for: Becoming the indispensable expert. Being used to legitimise decisions already made. Working signs: internal staff carry the work.

4.15 Small- and large-group process facilitation

Purpose / when: SCRA competency 9: intervene in group dynamics so community groups can work together productively. Use in coalitions, working groups and public forums. [source: Dalton & Wolfe 2012]
Steps: [synthesis]
1. Agree ground rules and decision rules before contentious topics come up.
2. Use structured formats, such as rounds, small-group breakouts that report back, and structured brainstorming of strengths, concerns and resources. [source for structured brainstorming: CRM handbook]
3. Track who speaks, and actively invite quieter and marginalised members.
4. Name conflict and turn it into decision options.
5. Close each meeting with written actions, owners and dates.
Example language (illustrative): "We've heard a lot from the agencies. Can we go round and hear from residents first on this one?"
Watch for: Professionals dominating; unspoken power differences; meetings without decisions. Working signs: participation is distributed and actions get completed.

4.16 Community leadership and mentoring

Purpose / when: SCRA competency 8. Leadership: help individuals and groups lead effectively by engaging, energising and mobilising them around shared issues. Mentoring: help community members identify their personal strengths and the social and structural resources they can build on for empowerment, engagement and leadership. [source: Dalton & Wolfe 2012]
Steps: [synthesis]
1. Spot emerging leaders, as in the ABCD core-group step. [source: Participedia]
2. Agree development goals with each person.
3. Pair them with experienced mentors.
4. Give real responsibility with support, for example chairing, presenting findings or negotiating with officials.
5. Debrief regularly on strengths and resources used.
6. Hand leadership roles over progressively.
Example language (illustrative): "You got thirty neighbours to that meeting. What did you do that worked, and who else could learn it?"
Watch for: Relying on the same few leaders, which leads to burnout and gatekeeping. Working signs: new leaders run activities without you.

4.17 Resource development

Purpose / when: SCRA competency 10: identify and combine human and material resources, including community assets and social capital. This puts Kelly's cycling of resources to work. [source: Dalton & Wolfe 2012; ch. 5]
Steps:
1. Start from the asset map (4.4).
2. Find under-used resources: skills, information, social support, equipment, cultural events. [source: ch. 5]
3. Match people with settings that offer what they need, or uncover competencies already present. [source: ch. 5]
4. Combine resources across associations. The textbook's examples are community gardens, which turn unused land into low-cost food and teaching space, and neighbourhood mini-grants. [source: ch. 5]
5. Seek outside funds only to supplement local assets. [source: ABCD]
Example language (illustrative): "The church hall sits empty on weekday mornings and the parents' group has nowhere to meet. Who could we put in touch?"
Watch for: Grant dependence, and resources flowing to the best-connected groups. Working signs: exchanges continue without facilitation.

4.18 Collaboration and coalition development

Purpose / when: SCRA competency 12: help groups with shared interests achieve together what they could not achieve alone. [source: Dalton & Wolfe 2012]
Steps: [synthesis, except where tagged]
1. Check existing coalitions first. Adding a second coalition in the same community spread resources thin and worsened the first coalition's outcomes (Campbell et al., 2012). [source: ch. 5]
2. Recruit across sectors and include historically excluded residents. [source: ch. 7, case 7.1]
3. Agree a shared vision, a structure (chair, workgroups, decision rule) and a memorandum of understanding.
4. Assess readiness (4.5) and run GTO (4.7) as the coalition's work plan.
5. Celebrate wins and rotate leadership.
6. Review membership satisfaction periodically. The Community Tool Box has a member-satisfaction section; it is not drawn on here. [uncertain]
Example language (illustrative): "Before we set up a new group, who is already meeting on this, and could we join them?"
Watch for: Being "over-coalitioned"; turf conflict; drop-off once funding ends. Working signs: joint actions that no single member could have achieved.

4.19 Community development

Purpose / when: SCRA competency 13: help communities develop a shared vision and take steps toward becoming healthier. [source: Dalton & Wolfe 2012]
Steps: Follow the ABCD sequence (4.4): stories, core group, mapping, broad convening to set a shared vision and plan, mobilising assets, then leveraging outside resources. [source: Participedia] Add readiness assessment (4.5) and evaluation (4.9). [synthesis]
Example language (illustrative): "If this neighbourhood were healthier in five years, what would we see on the street?"
Watch for: Outside agencies setting the vision. Working signs: a vision document that residents own and act on.

4.20 Community organising and community advocacy

Purpose / when: SCRA competency 14: work with community members to build the power to improve conditions that affect them. [source: Dalton & Wolfe 2012] Use when a problem's cause is a decision someone has the power to change.
Steps: [synthesis]
1. Hold one-to-one conversations to find shared self-interests.
2. Choose a winnable, concrete issue.
3. Research who decides, and what moves them.
4. Build a base of members.
5. Plan actions led by those affected, such as meetings with decision-makers, public testimony or media.
6. Evaluate after each action and build toward larger issues.
The clinician supports and does not speak for clients unless they ask. [synthesis, from the empowerment principle]
Example language (illustrative): "You and three other tenants have the same mould problem. Would you want to meet together and decide what to ask the landlord for?"
Watch for: Retaliation risk to vulnerable members, the clinician's own role conflicts, and burnout. Working signs: members lead actions and concrete concessions are won.

4.21 Public policy analysis, development and advocacy

Purpose / when: SCRA competency 15: build and keep effective communication and working relationships with policymakers, elected officials and community leaders. [source: Dalton & Wolfe 2012]
Steps:
1. Trace the problem across four ecological levels: the individual, others facing the same challenge, local policy and national policy. This is the Partners in Policymaking model; its example is accessible housing for wheelchair users. [source: ch. 5, case 5.1]
2. Analyse the relevant policy and its effects. [synthesis]
3. Build working relationships with officials and staff before you need them. [synthesis]
4. Bring data (4.3, 4.9) and lived-experience testimony together. [synthesis]
5. Propose specific changes. One textbook example is Debi Starnes, trained in both clinical and community psychology, who served 11 years on Atlanta's city council. Her Homeless Action Group helped lead to The Gateway, a central intake and assessment facility for people experiencing homelessness. [source: Wolfe, ch. 7, case 7.2]
Example language (illustrative): "Councillor, our clinic sees about forty families a year evicted after the same paperwork delay. We have a one-page proposal and two families willing to speak."
Watch for: Your employer's rules on political activity, and client confidentiality in testimony. [synthesis]

4.22 Community education, information dissemination and public awareness

Purpose / when: SCRA competency 16: communicate information to diverse public audiences to build awareness and skills or to support advocacy, and make community-psychology knowledge widely available. At low readiness, this is the main intervention. [source: Dalton & Wolfe 2012; CRM stages 1–4]
Steps:
1. Pick the channel by readiness stage: one-to-one and small groups, then local stories and newsletters, then events and editorials, then presentations. [source: CRM handbook]
2. Use local data and local voices. [source: CRM stage 2]
3. Write in plain language and translate where needed. [synthesis]
4. Return research findings to participants in usable forms. [source: CBPR principles]
Example language (illustrative): "We asked 300 of you what matters. Here are the top five concerns, and the meeting where we'll decide what to do."
Watch for: Messages that stigmatise the community. Working signs: rising knowledge scores on reassessment (4.5).

4.23 Liberation-psychology dialogue (praxis)

Purpose / when: Liberation psychology developed in Latin America in the 1970s for oppressed and impoverished communities. It focuses on power and on unequal resources, and aims to help people gain control over the resources that shape their lives. Its components are praxis (theory tied to action that transforms oppressive conditions) and dialectics (knowledge built through social dialogue, rethinking problems with and from the oppressed). [source: ch. 5] Use it where problems are rooted in oppression.
Steps: [synthesis; the founders' own texts are not drawn on here]
1. Convene those affected.
2. Start from their concrete experiences.
3. Ask questions that link the personal to the structural, such as who benefits and how it came to be this way.
4. Agree on an action.
5. Reflect on the action and repeat the cycle.
Example language (illustrative): "Several of you said you feel ashamed of being behind on rent. Let's look at what has happened to rents and wages here, and at what you might do together."
Watch for: The facilitator imposing their own political analysis. Working signs: the group names its own problem and acts on it.

4.24 Ethical, reflective practice routine

Purpose / when: SCRA foundational principle 5. Use it continuously. [source: Dalton & Wolfe 2012]
Steps:
1. Before entry, write down your values, interests and social position relative to the community.
2. Name the ethical risks of the project: dual roles, confidentiality, power, funder pressure.
3. Set up a standing ethics consultation network. [source: competency definition]
4. Review the project at each phase change.
5. Record decisions and their reasons.
Steps 1, 2, 4 and 5 are [synthesis].
Example language (illustrative, to a consultation partner): "I'm treating two people who sit on this coalition. Can we think through whether I should step back from the chair role?"
Watch for: Unexamined dual relationships. Working signs: issues are raised early and consultation is documented.

5. Handling problems

The sources used here address only a few of these problems directly; each source-based response is tagged. Everything else is [synthesis].

The community is "stuck": low readiness, denial or resistance.
- Do not launch programmes.
- Reassess readiness and work on the lowest dimension first.
- Use stage-appropriate tactics: one-to-one contacts and local examples in local newsletters. [source: CRM handbook]
- Re-run a brief group readiness assessment after a few months. [source: CRM handbook]
Interventions are too ambitious and fail. Step back one stage. The handbook warns that over-reaching efforts tend to fail. [source: CRM handbook]
Informant or partner bias, such as only professionals being interviewed. Add residents and other sectors, because professionals overestimate readiness. [source: CRM handbook]
"Over-coalitioning" or competing initiatives. Map existing groups and merge or align before creating anything new. Duplicate coalitions have been shown to dilute resources. [source: ch. 5]
Dependence on you or your agency. This risk is named for ABCD. [source: Participedia]
- Set an exit date at contracting.
- Train rather than do: you provide technical assistance and the community does the work. [source: ch. 7]
- Rotate roles and document procedures so others can run them.
Tokenism and power imbalance in partnerships.
- Revisit the CBPR principles with the group. [source: CAPHE]
- Change the decision rules, for example to community majority on the steering group or co-chairs.
- Share budget control.
- Hold meetings at times and places residents can attend, with childcare, interpreters and stipends.
Exclusion of minorities, or a history of racism in the setting. The textbook's consultant case involved collaboratives that lacked historically excluded residents in communities with histories of segregation. [source: ch. 7]
- Recruit through trusted local associations.
- Name the history openly in the group.
- Track who participates over time.
Low response or participation, for example a low survey return rate. Take steps to raise returns, such as distribution at sites. [source: CTB checklist] Also try door-to-door outreach, partner organisations, shorter forms and translations.
Hostile environments or rigid hierarchies. ABCD may be hard to apply here. [source: Participedia] Begin with smaller trusted subgroups, protect participants' anonymity, and consider whether advocacy by allied institutions is safer than resident-led public action.
Facilitator imposes meaning, as in photovoice. Ask participants to interpret their own images and write their own captions. [source: OSU Extension] Audit your summaries against transcripts.
Photographic and data ethics.
- Get consent from people photographed.
- Blur or exclude identifiable minors without guardian consent.
- Agree in advance who owns images and data, and who approves publication.
Participant overwhelm or retraumatisation in forums and photovoice.
- Screen and brief beforehand.
- Let people pass on any question.
- Have a support person present and offer a debrief.
- For therapy clients who join community action, check their capacity and pace their involvement within treatment.
Retaliation risk in organising or advocacy, for example tenants or undocumented residents. Assess risks with members, offer anonymous routes such as aggregated testimony or allied speakers, and know legal-aid referrals.
Non-adherence: partners do not complete agreed actions.
- Check whether the action matched their readiness and resources (GTO step 5). [source for capacity check: RAND GTO]
- Reduce scope and assign named owners with dates.
- Follow up between meetings.
Conflict or rupture between partners, such as university and community, or agency and residents.
- Name the rupture early and return to the written operating norms.
- Use a neutral facilitator.
- Acknowledge harms, such as extractive past research, and change the practice concretely.
- Show long-term commitment by staying through difficulty. [source for long-term commitment: CBPR principle 9]
Funder goals conflict with community goals. Negotiate dual outcome sets: funder-required plus community-defined. Make the trade-offs visible to partners. Decline funding that would undermine community control.
An intervention helps individuals but harms sense of community, as in the textbook's example of raised grades with reduced classroom community. Treat it as a failure to correct. Add sense-of-community measures and redesign. [source: ch. 5]
Succession: the community changes mid-project, for example ageing residents or new migrant groups. Reassess needs and readiness, and recruit the new groups into governance. [source for succession principle: ch. 5]
Clinician-specific difficulties.
- Dual relationships: you treat clients who are also coalition members or neighbours. Disclose the role overlap to your ethics consultant, avoid supervisory or decision roles over your clients where possible, and never use clinical information in community work.
- Confidentiality in advocacy: use aggregated, de-identified patterns, and use client stories only with explicit, revocable consent.
- Scope of practice: organisational consulting, research and policy work may need extra training. SCRA's three levels, exposure, experience and expertise, help you judge readiness. [source: ch. 7] Seek supervised experience first.
- Employer limits: check rules on political activity and on time spent outside direct care before committing.
- Collapsing the frame: if a client wants you to advocate for them, explore first whether they could lead, with your support. Keep therapy goals and advocacy goals distinct on the plan.
Burnout among practitioners and community leaders. Share leadership, celebrate small wins (recognition events are a stage-7 strategy [source: CRM handbook]), and set realistic multi-year timelines.

Sources

Sources: