Do we want/need competencies for Community Psychologists in the UK?

One issue that became salient to me recently at a conference was the desirability of community psychologists having a set of competencies by which they should measure their progress/level of professional develoment. Some colleagues were fully bought in on this ethos and saw it as highly desirable, particularly in protecting the territory and funding potentials that community psychologists may be able to have. However, I think this trend should be resisted.  Do we really want to create an elite community psychologist role? 

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Glenn, Thanks for posting this. It is very pertinent at European level, where there seems to be a need to specify these for Masters programmes, and also to signal how community psychology can be distinguished from other sorts of applied psychology. I'd be interested to hear others' thoughts about this move, which might be seen as a 'professionalisation' of CP.

Thank you very much, Jacqui, for highlighting this problem to tackle too.  In fact, it is very much a hot topic in the field at the moment. The Global Journal of Community Psychology Practice has just published a special issue in the area of core competencies in Comm Psych and it relates to how community psychologists are looking at this issue worldwide.  There are also some videos (from years gone by!) on the topic too.  I'd recommend Ning members have a look at the special issue, which can be found via:

http://www.gjcpp.org/en/

Thought-provoking stuff!

Cheers

Glenn 

I agree with Glenn that there is something wrong with the idea of competencies.  I don't think the problems and a possible way forward can be much better stated than in the GJCPP article by the Australian group - Peta Dzidic, Lauren J. Breen, & Brian J. Bishop see http://www.gjcpp.org/en/article.php?issue=16&article=78  Similar arguments have been made in management studies (perhaps surprisingly, but this relates to the turbulence in organisations and their environments - sound familiar?) and could be extended to fields like clinical psychology where we can see how the mechanistic thinking drives the discipline into routinised, a contextual practices.  Ultimately there is no such thing as commun ity psychology - just an orientation to the practice of psychology (and related things?),and to define supposed competencies reifies it.
Let's try a metaphor to explore.  I tend to think of other crafts to understand what this might all be about.  I learned woodwork at school, so can measure, mark out, true, joint, and know how to use hand tools.  I use those basic competencies to make things from time to time, but that doesn't mean there are (entirely) separable sets of skills for garden woodwork or furniture woodwork.  So while there may be lower level competencies/skills in psychology as a discipline, and in some of the ancilliary areas you need to work in the real world, I'm not sure if there is a set of separable skills/competencies for something called community psychology.   The idea of dynamic, reflective response to a dynamic, changing and contextual set of social realities seems to make more sense, just as (back to woodwork) I respond drawing on some simple skills to a construction challenge that consists of intended use, materials available, my capacity and energy, tools, others' preferences and requirements.
Does the metaphor work?  Not quite, because the level of complexity in the community practice example is an order or two greater than when I'm making a garden gate.  That surely means that the ratio between the dynamic/reflective component and the simple application of technique component is similarly greater.
My doubt then is that a list of competencies can capture what we mean by CP, other than at a very basic level.  So how do we nurture creative, innovative, moral and sensitive thinker-practitioners?

Glenn Williams said:

Thank you very much, Jacqui, for highlighting this problem to tackle too.  In fact, it is very much a hot topic in the field at the moment. The Global Journal of Community Psychology Practice has just published a special issue in the area of core competencies in Comm Psych and it relates to how community psychologists are looking at this issue worldwide.  There are also some videos (from years gone by!) on the topic too.  I'd recommend Ning members have a look at the special issue, which can be found via:

http://www.gjcpp.org/en/

Thought-provoking stuff!

Cheers

Glenn 

I am pretty much persuaded by mark's analysis - but depsite my reservations I have to work with the notion of competencies in my role as trainer of clinical psycholgists., where i do my best to bring these to real world life by applying them as creatively as is compatible with professional gate keeping requirements. this is a tension, for all the  reasons mark outlines, but i believe that we partly manage it,

 t it would be excellent, and in the spirit of the values of our discipine  if critical community psychologycould stay outside the rather mechanistic mind set of competencies ( if this sort of idea has to be used, i prefer the rather more fluid notion of capabilitites...)

. having said that, i do think that one can bend concepts... so I and Rachel Purtell did write a chapter for a text book on Clinical Psychology on this topic, and we identified 3 core competencies:

•Critical reflection
•Networking
•Facilitation

Mitchell, A. and Purtell, R. (2009) Community approaches, social inclusion and user involvement. In Clinical Psychology in Practice, Beinart, H, Llewelyn, S and Kennedy, P.(Eds)  BPS/ Blackwells.

 

I agree with Glenn that there is something wrong with the idea of competencies.  I don't think the problems and a possible way forward can be much better stated than in the GJCPP article by the Australian group - Peta Dzidic, Lauren J. Breen, & Brian J. Bishop see http://www.gjcpp.org/en/article.php?issue=16&article=78  Similar arguments have been made in management studies (perhaps surprisingly, but this relates to the turbulence in organisations and their environments - sound familiar?) and could be extended to fields like clinical psychology where we can see how the mechanistic thinking drives the discipline into routinised, a contextual practices.  Ultimately there is no such thing as commun ity psychology - just an orientation to the practice of psychology (and related things?),and to define supposed competencies reifies it.
Let's try a metaphor to explore.  I tend to think of other crafts to understand what this might all be about.  I learned woodwork at school, so can measure, mark out, true, joint, and know how to use hand tools.  I use those basic competencies to make things from time to time, but that doesn't mean there are (entirely) separable sets of skills for garden woodwork or furniture woodwork.  So while there may be lower level competencies/skills in psychology as a discipline, and in some of the ancilliary areas you need to work in the real world, I'm not sure if there is a set of separable skills/competencies for something called community psychology.   The idea of dynamic, reflective response to a dynamic, changing and contextual set of social realities seems to make more sense, just as (back to woodwork) I respond drawing on some simple skills to a construction challenge that consists of intended use, materials available, my capacity and energy, tools, others' preferences and requirements.
Does the metaphor work?  Not quite, because the level of complexity in the community practice example is an order or two greater than when I'm making a garden gate.  That surely means that the ratio between the dynamic/reflective component and the simple application of technique component is similarly greater.
My doubt then is that a list of competencies can capture what we mean by CP, other than at a very basic level.  So how do we nurture creative, innovative, moral and sensitive thinker-practitioners?

Glenn Williams said:

Thank you very much, Jacqui, for highlighting this problem to tackle too.  In fact, it is very much a hot topic in the field at the moment. The Global Journal of Community Psychology Practice has just published a special issue in the area of core competencies in Comm Psych and it relates to how community psychologists are looking at this issue worldwide.  There are also some videos (from years gone by!) on the topic too.  I'd recommend Ning members have a look at the special issue, which can be found via:

http://www.gjcpp.org/en/

Thought-provoking stuff!

Cheers

Glenn 

Those are great papers thanks, I think this discussion really helps when thinking about whether one is or is not a community psychologist.  This is a tension that I often feel and hear others sharing too.  I like the idea of resisting the notion of competencies, as it also opens ground for marking out territory that belongs to those that are competent and those that are not.  

Furthermore I like Dzidic et al. idea regarding values and would extend this to also include skills and abilities but not in a hierarchical sense, rather in a way of being able to appreciate and explore complexity without resorting to or employing networks of power.  This involves people's ability (arguably based on their values?) to read wider than their subject area, drawing on different contexts, theories and practices without valuing one more than the other.

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