SoC Practice

This qualitative study examined meanings of community as they developed among older adults who participate in Master’s sports. Four themes emerged through data analysis that described what a sense of community meant to study participants: a shared sporting interest, comrades in continued activity, relevant life purpose, and giving back. These themes each lend general support to the four elements that constitute McMillan and Chavis’ (1986) sense of community construct. The findings of this study counter the claims that leisure-related experiences of community are largely episodic, emotional and fleeting, and do little to provide sustained experiences of community. This paper concludes with recommendations for further research.

The psychological sense of community is one of the most commonly investigated constructs in community psychology. Sense of community may be particularly important for individuals with serious mental illness (SMI) because they often face societal barriers to participation in community living, including stigma and discrimination. To date, no published studies have investigated the psychometric qualities of sense of community measures among individuals with SMI. The current study tested a series of confirmatory factor analyses using the Brief Sense of Community Index (Long & Perkins, 2003) in a sample of 416 persons with SMI living in community settings to suggest a model of sense of community for individuals with SMI and other disabilities. The resulting scale, the Brief Sense of Community Index-Disability, demonstrated good model fit and construct validity. Implications are discussed for how this scale may be used in research investigating community integration and adaptive functioning in community settings.  C 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The Association for the Study and Development of Community (ASDC) undertook the study presented here at the request of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Staff at the Casey Foundation expressed interest in exploring the history of comprehensive community initiatives (CCIs) to better understand how these complex efforts can reach the scope, scale, and sustainability needed to achieve lasting community change. While there has been a fair amount of discussion in the field about what has not worked, there has been less analysis of the specific practices, approaches, and mechanisms that do lead to success. This report examines those success factors as they relate specifically to the ability of a comprehensive community initiative to achieve the scope and scale required to generate community-level outcomes and to sustain those positive impacts over time.

The current health, social justice, violence, and environmental crises call for greater attention to strengthening our communities to care for their members and to take collective action to address the root causes of disadvantage, marginalization, and stress. Strengthening communities, especially those historically disadvantaged, will have the greatest and broadest impact on the well-being of individuals, families, and communities. Social and medical research over the past 150 years has shown that four strategic factors have the most far-reaching and powerful effect on the psychological, social, and physical well-being of people. These factors have been called many things in the literature, for instance, social capital, social networks, empowerment, collective efficacy, economic self-sufficiency, and more ...

Sense of Community Development for Healthier, Just, and Equitable Communities

Sentido de Desarrollo Comunitario para Comunidades m s Saludables, Justas y Equitativas

Sense of community is a concept that has considerable currency within a vast range of disciplines and practices. It serves as a criterion for the assessment of social capitol; the generation of social policies; the development of social and geographical communities; and the evaluation of community capacity building. Community psychologists consider it central to their value-based praxis in promoting social justice and social change. However, it is also employed as a common lay term to refer to feelings of belonging, identity and support. It occurs in public domain discourse such as reporting community response to disaster, promoting the value of a rural lifestyle, and advertising urban residential developments. For psychologists, and other professionals and policy makers, there is the real need to consider the processes that are inherent in living in a community, in providing services and interventions, in understanding processes of inclusion and exclusion, with resultant positive or negative impacts on mental and physical health.