Judah Viola

Economic costs of Oxford House inpatient treatment and incarceration: a preliminary report.

Abstract The Oxford House model for substance abuse recovery has potential economic advantages associated with the low cost of open-Address correspondence to: Bradley D. Olson, DePaul University, Center for Community Research, 990 West Fullerton Avenue, Suite 3100, Chicago, IL 60614-2458. The authors appreciate the financial support from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (Grant # DA13231) and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (Grant # AA12218). ing up and maintaining the settings. In the present study, annual program costs per person were estimated for Oxford House based on federal loan information and data collected from Oxford House Inc. In addition, annual treatment and incarceration costs were approximated based on participant data prior to Oxford House residence in conjunction with normative costs for these settings. Societal costs associated with the Oxford House program were relatively low, whereas estimated costs associated with inpatient and incarceration history were high. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Measuring In-Group and Out-Group Helping in Communal Living: Helping and Substance Abuse Recovery

With a national U.S. sample of communal-living residents in substance abuse recovery, the tendency to help members both inside and outside their community was examined. Study 1 (n = 670) developed the Communal Living In-Group Helping Scale to distinguish helping directed toward housemates vs. others. Study 2 (n = 419) used this communal helping measure and a general altruism scale to explore gender, ethnicity, and 12-step sponsorship related to in-group (housemates) and out-group (others in the community) behaviors. Results revealed significant sex differences, and significantly higher helping for both men and women was reported among 12-step sponsors along two dimensions. Implications focused on gender-related differences in social helping interactions and in-group formation in recovery communities.

School and Community-Based Childhood Obesity: Implications for Policy and Practice

This introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Prevention and Intervention in the Community on the topic of childhood obesity prevention lays some of the basis for the state of affairs of the childhood obesity epidemic in the United States as of 2012 and the need for and types of existing prevention and intervention efforts underway. At the intersection of public health and community psychology, each of the five articles presents some insights into how prevention and intervention efforts currently underway are fairing and offers some implications for program developers and policy makers to start to turn around the epidemic. Given the key role schools play, successful strategies for engaging schools are presented in the introduction. The authors of this special issue also emphasize the need to involve whole communities in order to attain the intended changes of reductions in overweight and obesity rates and increases in positive health outcomes.

Including Students With Disabilities in Urban Public Schools: Community Psychology Theory and Research

Since prior to Swampscott, community psychologists have been concerned about the oppressed—those who have not received their fair share of society’s resources (Sarason, 1974). These include women, people who are racially and/or ethnically diverse, people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ), and people with disabilities, among others. Although people with disabilities are an important underserved population constituting 56.7 million people, or 19% of the population of the United States, there has been only one issue of a U.S. community psychology journal to date explicitly devoted to the study of disability (Keys & Dowrick, 2001). Further, many community psychologists have attended to schools and youth, yet only a few have focused their publications on students with disabilities (e.g., Dowrick et al., 2001; Garate, Balcazar, & Keys, 2004), or even explicitly included students with and without disabilities (e.g., McMahon, Keys, Berardi, & Crouch, 2011; McMahon, Parnes, Keys, & Viola, 2008). Therefore, we are pleased to present the first themed issue in community psychology concerning the education of students with disabilities in the United States. Our focus includes predominantly low-income African American and Latino students with disabilities in urban public schools. Historically, children and youth with disabilities have often been treated as much less than capable. Their actual impairment may have been considered not simply a specific limitation to address, but an indication that the student with a disability was less than fully functional across many areas of academic, social, and physical activity. Consequently, children and youth

A Vision for the Future of Community Psychology Education and Training

As we reflect on the founding vision of the field of community psychology in the United States, we assess our progress toward achieving, building upon, and refining this vision. We review early literature regarding the US vision of the field, provide a historical overview of education and training within the field, and provide recommendations to guide and strengthen our approach to education. Our recommendations include the following: 1) serve as a resource to communities, 2) promote a sense of community within our field, 3) diversify students, faculty, and leadership, 4) evaluate our efforts, 5) be current and relevant, 6) enhance the visibility and growth of our field, and 7) create globally minded and innovative CPists. We provide strategies for programs, faculty, linkages between researchers and practitioners, and the Society for Community Research and Action. We conclude that community psychology education and training continues to reflect the early vision; however, we believe we must make more intentional efforts to align with the mission and values of the field, and to engage in a critical analysis of our pedagogy. Enhancing and growing undergraduate and graduate education can facilitate the achievement of our goals to promote social justice, prevent and address social problems, and build community connections to become more effective, impactful, and global social change agents.

A Temporal Model of Community Organizing and Direct Action. .

Psychology has much to contribute to engagement in community organizing and direct action. Such organizing and action is psychological: it is motivational, cognitive, attitudinal, and emotional. Psychological knowledge is a cost-free resource. It can be used to counter unjust power structures and their tendency to maintain policies and systems of social harm and inequality. A theoretical model of organizing and direct action that integrates knowledge from community psychology and related disciplines with historic and modern action campaigns is needed. Theory helps us learn from the past to guide us toward more effective future outcomes.

Online Grief Support Communities Therapeutic Benefits of Membership

Online grief support communities have become popular in recent years for those seeking information and empathetic others following the death of someone close to them. Hundreds of Facebook pages and Web sites are now devoted to bereavement—and health-care professionals need to assess what therapeutic benefits virtual communities might offer to help people manage grief and integrate death into their lives. In the current study of online grief support networks (N = 185), individuals report less psychological distress as a result of joining these groups—and this psychosocial benefit increased over time. Individuals who were members for a year or more characterized their grief as less severe compared with those who had a shorter tenure in the community. Additional findings and implications are discussed.