Introduction
Welcome to this site: based in Manchester, it provides links to other sites and contacts relevant to Community Psychology in Britain and beyond, as well as some of our own material.  It does not intend to present a view that is necesarilly shared by all community psychologists in the UK, although we are open to contributions from such colleagues and comrades.
Community Psychology is still an underdeveloped area of applied psychology in Britain1.  This contrasts with the situation in the Americas and Australasia.
Community Psychology is orientated to the community rather than the individual as the basic unit of analysis and intervention4.  (It is not just the practice of individual applied psychology in community contexts.  For this reason we sometimes call our orientation Community Social Psychology, the term used widely in Latin America2).  Our orientation is broadly radical, underpinned by values of social justice, liberation, empowerment and inclusion of people marginalised by the existing order3.  However we also emphasise conceptual and methodological rigour, in the practice and the theory of community psychology - as research and as collaboration with diverse communities.


We welcome contributions and links broadly in line with
the above orientation.


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The footnotes
1 see Mark Burton and Carolyn Kagan Community Psychology: Why this gap in Britain?       - also see .....
2 see Montero, M. (ed.) 1994  Psicología social comunitaria: Teoría, método y experiencia  Guadalajara, Universidad de Guadalajara; Sánchez, E., Weisenfeld, E., and Cronick, K. 1991  Community Social Psychology in Venezuela Applied Psychology: An International Review  40, (2) 219-236
3 see Carolyn Kagan and Mark Burton Community Psychology Praxis for the 21st Century
4 Dalton et al., (2001, p. 5) define it like this:  'Community Psychology concerns the relationships of the individual to communities and society. Through collaborative research and action, community psychologists seek to understand and enhance quality of life for individuals, communities, and society.' Dalton, J.H., Elias, M. J. and Wandersman, A. (2001).Community Psychology:  Linking Individuals and Communities.  Belmont, California, USA:  Wadsworth.

Another attempt at definition (Burton, unpublished communication, 2004) is:
Community psychology is one alternative to the dominant
individualistic psychology typically taught and practiced in the high
income countries.  It is 'community' psychology because it emphasises a
level of analysis and intervention other than the individual and their
immediate interpersonal context.  It is community 'psychology' because it
is  nevertheless concerned with how people feel, think, experience and act
as they work together, resisting oppression and struggling to create a
better world.  Community psychology tries to offer its (pretty
rudimentary) insights and tools, with humility, to movements of people who
are (or are at risk of) being excluded or marginalised, hurt or
threatened, impoverished or oppressed, and to those trying to help people
in  these situations.