Strong Minds, Strong Lives: Co-designing a community-centred mental health strategy in Malawi

Mental health and wellbeing in children and young people in Malawi is an emerging priority. Recently researchers and practitioners in Malawi and Scotland joined together with local community members, experts by experience, policy makers and service providers to better understand need. In bringing together these diverse voices, a critical preliminary step was understanding how mental health is conceptualised so as to contextually inform the development of a place-based, strengths-based public mental health policy.
A descriptive qualitative study was undertaken involving 133 participants, incorporating a workshop-based design phase, followed by focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with members of communities.
We found that in the local Chichewa vernacular, wellness of the mind is referred to as “maganizo angwiro”, which translates to “perfect thoughts”. In contrast, mental illness was described as encompassing a variety of types of behavioural, physical and psychological symptoms which were attributed to a range of causes from medical conditions to drug use to witchcraft. Pathways to healing were similarly diverse with traditional healers being the first port of call, and professional services and hospital being the last resort. This novel interdisciplinary, cross-sector, cross-cultural and community-centred approach is informing the development of a unique place-based model for service.

Global lessons for community psychologists working with orphans and vulnerable children

The aim of this study was to explore and describe the psychosocial and educational experiences of orphans and vulnerable children in South Africa through a bioecological systems model taking their experiences at multiple levels into consideration, namely their homes, schools and local communities. The goal is to provide authentic and culturally relevant family, school and community-based psychosocial and educational support interventions for these learners. Qualitative data were collected from more than one hundred orphans and vulnerable children through individual interviews, focus groups, collages and autobiographical essays. Thematic and content analyses through Atlas ti software provided a vivid description of the learners’ living conditions, changing roles, community fears, and school experiences which inevitably affect their psychological, social and educational well-being. The results indicate the dire need for Family- School-Community-Based psychosocial and educational approaches to assist orphans and vulnerable children to overcome personal and interpersonal problems so that they could succeed at school and in their general lives. Based on the findings, the implications for community psychologists to design and implement authentic evidence-based and cross-culturally appropriate psychosocial and educational support interventions as a means of fostering and sustaining support for orphans and vulnerable children within their families, schools and communities are critically discussed. In conclusion, the global lessons that could be learned from a local South African context for community psychologists working with orphans and vulnerable children are presented.

Sense of Community in Early Adolescents

In the research literature on Sense of community referred to the neighborhood or town, a handful of studies have been conducted among early adolescents (e.g., Chipuer et al., 2003; DiClemente et al., 2016; Giardiello, 2016; Seider et al., 2013; Tarantino et al., 2017; Vieno et al., 2007). However, such works relied on measures developed for adults or ad hoc scales. It remains, therefore, unclear whether such instruments could be used to reliably capture the peculiar nature and the experience of SOC of youth of this age. The aim of the present study was to contribute to the validation of a scale of Sense of Community in Early Adolescents (SoC-EA) using a three-year longitudinal study. Participants were 576 Italian students attending middle schools. Participants filled out a questionnaire three times, in the second term of their first second, and third middle school years. We measured sense of community, well-being, social support, satisfaction with the classroom environment, relationships with teachers, and pubertal development across the three years. Results provided support for a five-factor model and both bifactor and ESEM models had excellent fit. The SoC-EA can be scored according to each subscale or a total score. In addition, based on the results of the current study, the SoC-EA demonstrated (1) longitudinal measurement invariance across the middle school years; (2) good internal consistency, test–retest reliability, and test–retest correlation across the three years; and (3) adequate construct validity. Findings support the use of the SoC-EA to measure sense of community in early adolescence. Moreover, sense of community appears to be related to indicators of early adolescents’ well-being and quality of relationships. Implications of the findings for interventions to enhance SoC will be discussed.

Ecological contexts and citizenship orientations among adolescents: Person-centred longitudinal study

Several authors suggest that low civic and political activity are not necessarily indicative of complete disengagement, but could be accompanied by interest and latent involvement stemming from either a monitorial attitude (Amnå & Ekman, 2014) or from an attitude of distrust and need of critical supervising (Geissel, 2008). Adolescence is a crucial formative period for the development of socio-political orientations and related attitudes, while being influenced by multiple living environments (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2007). The present research aims to examine through latent profile analysis, different patterns of citizenship orientations among adolescents identified by civic and political participation, political interest and trust. Furthermore, we investigate how membership in the groups can be longitudinally influenced by socio-demographic characteristics and perceived contextual features related to school, neighbourhood, family and peers. The study presents data collected through a two-wave questionnaire with upper secondary school students (N = 1943, 53.4% female, MAGE = 16.35) from Italy, Germany, Sweden, Greece and the Czech Republic. The results identify profiles of different levels of engagement, each characterized by either satisfied or dissatisfied attitude towards political institutions. These findings highlight that for some youth political distrust may be accompanied by the urge for critical supervision and even action in the face of perceived inefficacy of the system. Family background and democratic school climate at T1 seem to foster more trustful citizenship orientations at T2, while school participation and opportunities for reflection on participation at T1 predicted critical engagement at T2. Sense of local community at T1 predicted less apathetic orientations at T2. Our results contribute to the conceptualizations of the different ways of relating to the political sphere among adolescents, which can be useful in the promotion of civic development in educational and community contexts.