Community psychology developments in Europe

by Dr Jacqui Akhurst from York Uni

I represented the BPS on the EFPA (European Federation of Psychologists’ Associations) Community Psychology (CP) taskforce (TF) from May 2012 to July 2013, when the TF presented its report to EFPA. The full report may be accessed at:

 www.efpa.eu/download/2b9af38b95e7f4781ff0555a421dffb3

In brief, the TF investigations showed that Community Psychology Section (CPS) of the BPS represents the largest official grouping of community psychologists in Europe; and the UK is one of only four countries in Europe offering Communitypsychology programmes at postgraduate level. As a result of this report, EFPA decided that Community Psychology should become one of its Standing Committees, a recognition of the potentially useful role that CP might play in developing psychology in the future of the EU. The BPS will fund a representative on this Standing Committee, to further develop a competence model for CP's training, and potentially write guidelines to initiate a European Masters programme in CP.

The next ECCP conference is in Naples 7-9 November – see: 

http://www.9eccp2013.org/