Manuel Riemer

The symptoms and functioning severity scale (SFSS): psychometric evaluation and discrepancies among youth, caregiver, and clinician ratings over time.

This paper describes the development and psychometric evaluation of the symptoms and functioning severity scale (SFSS), which includes three parallel forms to systematically capture clinician, youth, and caregiver perspectives of youth symptoms on a frequent basis. While there is widespread consensus that different raters of youth psychopathology vary significantly in their assessment, this is the first paper that specifically investigated the discrepancies among clinician, youth, and caregiver ratings throughout the treatment process within a community mental health setting. Results for all three respondent versions indicated the SFSS is a psychometrically sound instrument for use in this population. Significant discrepancies in scores existed at baseline among the three respondents. Longitudinal analyses reveal the youth-clinician and caregiver-clinician score discrepancies decreased significantly over time. Differences by youth gender existed for caregiver-clinician discrepancies. The average youth-caregiver score discrepancy remained consistent throughout treatment. Implications for future research and clinical practice are discussed.

The Peabody Treatment Progress Battery: History and Methods for Developing a Comprehensive Measurement Battery for Youth Mental Health

There is increased need for comprehensive, flexible, and evidence-based approaches to measuring the process and outcomes of youth mental health treatment. This paper introduces a special issue dedicated to the Peabody Treatment Progress Battery (PTPB), a battery of measures created to meet this need. The PTPB is an integrated set of brief, reliable, and valid instruments that can be administered efficiently at low cost and can provide systematic feedback for use in treatment planning. It includes eleven measures completed by youth, caregivers, and/or clinicians that assess clinically-relevant constructs such as symptom severity, therapeutic alliance, life satisfaction, motivation for treatment, hope, treatment expectations, caregiver strain, and service satisfaction. This introductory article describes the rationale for the PTPB and its development and evaluation, detailing the specific analytic approaches utilized by the different papers in the special issue and a description of the study and samples from which the participants were taken.

We did it together: a participatory action research study on poverty and disability

This article presents the perspective of both non-disabled and developmentally disabled people working together in a research project on poverty and disability. Our study used a participatory action research approach that challenges the norm of exclusion in the research process. Control of the research agenda has been inclusive and shared to varying degrees in accordance with the needs and desires of the members of an advisory committee of developmentally disabled people living with low income. We reflect on our process of working together according to four principles of participatory action research with disabled people. We discuss our successes and challenges enacting these principles in the hopes that future researchers can build upon our experience to be more inclusive of developmentally disabled people in their work.

Motivation for Youth’s Treatment Scale (MYTS): A New Tool for Measuring Motivation Among Youths and Their Caregivers

Treatment motivation can be important for treatment adherence and outcomes, yet few measures of motivation are available for youths in mental health settings. These authors describe the psychometric properties of the motivation for youth’s treatment scale (MYTS), an 8-item measure with forms for youths and caregivers that assesses their problem recognition and treatment readiness. Results indicate that the MYTS offers practitioners and researchers a brief, psychometrically sound tool for assessing treatment motivation of youths and their caregivers. Multivariate analyses of clinical and non-clinical characteristics of youths and caregivers show that youths’ symptom severity consistently predicts treatment motivation for both groups. However, the strain of caring for the youth adds significantly to caregivers’ recognition of the youth’s troubles. While caregiver and youth motivations correlate, their agreement is low. Caregivers are nearly always more treatment motivated than youths. The authors discuss the implications of their findings for measurement, treatment planning, and future research.

A model for developing and assessing youth-based environmental engagement programmes

In this paper, we argue that a fundamental cultural shift is needed to effectively address anthropogenic causes of climate change. Evidence suggests that youth are well positioned to create such transformation. While various studies have contributed empirical evidence to numerous youth-based non-formal environmental engagement programmes, what is missing in the environmental education literature is discussion of a systematic approach to the development and evaluation of these programs. In this paper, we draw on the youth civic engagement literature to propose a framework that can be used as a basis to guide further development of evidence-based practices. Five major components are described as follows: (1) the engagement activity; (2) the engagement process; (3) initiating and sustaining factors; (4) mediators and moderators; and (5) outcomes. This approach to youth engagement can inform both researchers trying to study effective ways of creating change and practitioners developing environmental programmes that aspire towards a culture of sustainability.

Developing Effective Research-Practice Partnerships for Creating a Culture of Evidence-Based Decision Making

With growing evidence that treatment as usual may have limited effectiveness in mental health the pressure on service providers to be accountable and produce evidence as to the effectiveness of their services has increased. Measurement Feedback Systems, such as the Contextualized Feedback System (CFS), have the potential to be powerful tools for service providers in assessing their own effectiveness at multiple levels with an organization. These systems represent an amalgamation of the data driven world of science and the experience driven world of clinical practice. However, the synthesis of these two worlds is not without significant challenges as these two very different cultures can easily clash. The key for successful collaboration in developing and implementing Measurement Feedback Systems is a good university-practice partnership that has a strong foundation in common goals and the positive relationships among its members. In addition, the partnership needs to be flexible so that it can adapt to new challenges and continuously grow with each obstacle. These are some of several lessons learned the authors of this article will share as part of their experience with developing and implementing CFS in one of the largest behavioral health service providers in the U.S.

Fostering Critical Thinking about Climate Change: Applying Community Psychology to an Environmental Education Project with Youth

This article argues for the participation of community psychology in issues of global climate change. The knowledge accumulated and experience gained in the discipline of community psychology have great relevance to many topics related to the environment. Practitioners of community psychology could therefore make significant contributions to climate change mitigation. To illustrate this assertion, we describe an education project conducted with youth engaged in a community-based environmental organization. This initiative was motivated by the idea that engaged and critically aware youth often become change agents for social movements. Towards this purpose, rather than using mass marketing strategies to motivate small behavior changes, this project focused intensively on a few youth with the vision that these youth would also influence those around them to rethink their environmental habits. This project was influenced by five community psychology concepts: stakeholder participation, ecological and systems thinking, social justice, praxis, and empirical grounding. In this article we discuss the influence of these concepts on the project’s outcomes, as measured through an evaluative study conducted to assess the impacts of the project on the participating youth in terms of their thinking and action. The contributions of community psychology were found to have greatly impacted the quality of the project and the outcomes experienced by the youth. Keywords: global climate change, environment, youth, education, community psychology Over its years of existence, community psychology has taken on increasingly diverse social issues for research and intervention. As the world advances in complexity and new problems emerge, it is important that our discipline continues to be responsive to the needs of humanity through our selection of priorities for research and intervention. Global climate change and the need for a shift toward a culture of environmental sustainability have been identified by several authors as prospective priority areas for community psychology (e.g., Culley & Angelique, 2010; Riemer, 2010; Riemer & Reich, 2011; Quimby & Angelique, 2011). Community psychology has the potential to play an important leadership role in developing mitigation strategies that are based on ecological and systems thinking and appropriately reflect the complexity of the environmental situation that the world faces today. In reflecting on existing efforts to address these environmental issues, we are reminded of Einstein’s often quoted insight that the problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them. Many psychology-informed behavior change strategies, for example, seem to accept financial and social status elements as essential to motivating individuals to make environmental choices, rather than challenging individuals in order to seek more complex methods of change that target other forms of motivation more likely to make significant impact (World Wildlife Fund [WWF], 2008). We agree with other authors (e.g., Clover, 2002; Harré, 2011; Riemer, 2010; WWF, 2008) that an alternative approach is needed, one that reflects a more complex method of individual and social transformation. In this paper, we present an example of how community psychology theory and principles can be used to create an environmental change program that reflects complex systems thinking through the mode of education. Mainstream psychology has focused much of its research regarding sustainability on the internal drivers of consumption behavior (Uzzell & Räthel, 2009). Axelrod and Lehman (1993), for example, identify three key factors associated with environmental behaviors: attitudes (“I believe, therefore I act”), sense of efficacy (“I can, therefore I act”), and motivation (“I desire, therefore I act”). These types of frameworks locate impetus for environmental change within individuals. From this orientation, methods are developed that apply marketing techniques, such as market segmentation and financial incentives, to motivate individuals to make small and painless life changes that are in line with society’s vision of green consumption (WWF, 2008). Global Journal of Community Psychology Practice Volume 4, Issue 1 March 2013

Community psychology and global climate change: introduction to the special section.

Global climate change is not just a distant environmental or future problem but a crisis that has a clear human face already causing the suffering of millions around the globe. It is an issue of high relevance for community psychologists and the communities we work with but has received little attention within the field of community psychology. This special section is intended to promote more thinking and dialogue on this important topic. Six articles are presented that feature both theoretical consideration and empirical research related to global climate change and related environmental issues.

Measuring Youths’ Perceptions of Counseling Impact: Description, Psychometric Evaluation, and Longitudinal Examination of the Youth Counseling Impact Scale v.2

The Youth Counseling Impact Scale (YCIS) is an empirically validated treatment progress measure that assesses youths’ perceptions of the short term effectiveness of therapy. Since its initial publication, the original 10-item measure has been shortened to ease measurement burden and revised to include a question about a youth’s insight into his or her strengths. The current study describes the development of the revised YCIS (v.2) and evaluates its psychometric properties. Additionally, this study examines whether the YCIS (v.2) total score or subscale scores change over time and investigates whether there are gender or age differences for youths’ perceptions of the impact of therapy. Results found the revised version obtained comparable information to that of the original measure, and that the revised version retained the factor structure of the original model with one primary general factor of Counseling Impact and two secondary factors (Insight and Change). Results also suggested that while the YCIS (v.2) total score and Change subscale score did not change linearly over the course of treatment, the Insight subscale score showed a small but significant linear increase over time. No significant differences in YCIS scores based on youth age or gender were found. The implication of these findings, the clinical and empirical utility of this measure, and its limitations are discussed.

A comparison of walk-in counselling and the wait list model for delivering counselling services

Abstract Background: Walk-in counselling has been used to reduce wait times but there are few controlled studies to compare outcomes between walk-in and the traditional model of service delivery. Aims: To compare change in psychological distress by clients receiving services from two models of service delivery, a walk-in counselling model and a traditional counselling model involving a wait list. Method: Mixed-methods sequential explanatory design including quantitative comparison of groups with one pre-test and two follow-ups, and qualitative analysis of interviews with a sub-sample. Five-hundred and twenty-four participants ≥16 years were recruited from two Family Counselling Agencies; the General Health Questionnaire-12 assessed change in psychological distress. Results: Hierarchical linear modelling revealed clients of the walk-in model improved faster and were less distressed at the four-week follow-up compared to the traditional service delivery model. Ten weeks later, both groups had improved and were similar. Participants receiving instrumental services prior to baseline improved more slowly. The qualitative data confirmed participants highly valued the accessibility of the walk-in model, and were frustrated by the lengthy waits associated with the traditional model. Conclusions: This study improves methodologically on previous studies of walk-in counselling, an approach to service delivery not conducive to randomized controlled trials.