CFS's Mario Hernandez and Sharon Hodges Contribute to Special Issue of the American Journal of Community Psychology

CFS’s Mario Hernandez and Sharon Hodges, along with David Julian from Ohio State University, have edited a special issue for the American Journal of Community Psychology. The Journal, published by the Division of Community Psychology of the American Psychological Association, offers research on community psychological interventions at the social, neighborhood, organizational, group, and individual levels.

The special issue, published December 2006, focuses on a social planning approach aimed at benefiting large numbers of people while shifting power from traditional community actors to other social groups. Four exemplary ways of intervening at the community level will be highlighted.

“ We decided to highlight the social planning approach to community practice because, in our opinion, it is most prevalent and offers a viable means of practicing at the community level,” wrote the editors in their introduction. “It is our hope that the collection of articles will provide readers with appreciation of the skills necessary to competently practice at the community level.”

In addition to serving as editors of the special issue, Hernandez and Hodges also contributed a paper, Applying A Theory Of Change Approach To Interagency Planning In Child Mental Health. The paper describes the use of a theory of change approach to community-based cross-agency service planning for children with serious emotional disturbance and their families. Defined as “the articulation of the underlying beliefs and assumptions that guide the development and implementation of a strategy,” a theory of change may include beliefs about what funding agencies, planners and implementers have about the needs of children with emotional and behavioral disorders and their families, and incorporates multi-agency strategies to meet those needs.

“Across a variety of approaches to planning, the use of logic models has demonstrated great promise for addressing barriers to effective collaboration at the local level,” said the authors.

In their paper, Hernandez and Hodges provide details of a planning process that involves three Contra Costa, CA county agencies: Department of Mental Health, Department of Juvenile Probation, and Department of Education. Planners focused on the county’s population of youth identified by the Department of Mental Health as having mental health needs and who had been arrested and involved with local Juvenile Probation. The goal of the process was to organize the county’s programs and services targeted for probation involved youth with mental health needs into a community wide strategic, cohesive, and collaborative whole. The paper presents the resulting plan along with a description of the process.

For universities and institutions who have access, the article can be viewed at SpringerLink, which provides leading interactive databases for researchers and scientists on high-quality Scientific, Technical and Medical journals, book series, books, reference works and the Online Archives Collection. According to the SpringerLink website, the American Journal of Community Psychology's wide-ranging topics include individual and community mental and physical health; educational, legal, and work environment processes, policies, and opportunities; social welfare and social justice; studies of social problems; and evaluations of interventions.

Additional information can be obtained by contacting Mario Hernandez, hernande@fmhi.usf.edu, or Sharon Hodges, hodges@fmhi.usf.edu.