Let’s talk about our needs”: world cafes to connect and engage communities

“World Café” is a method used to engage members of a community in a dialogue to share their knowledge and expertise in a friendly non-threatening discussion environment. It enables people to see new ways to make a difference in their lives and the lives of others by using the power of conversation. This presentation will focus on how we used World Café to gain information, and create engagement and connections in varied communities in British Columbia (BC), Canada. This project was part of the “After Stroke” strategy, which is delivered collaboratively in BC by the Stroke Recovery Association of B.C. and March of Dimes for community stroke recovery in Canada. The team used the World Café method in collaboration with academic researchers to develop an understanding among a variety of stakeholders of the unique needs and issues faced by stroke survivors regarding their participation in their communities. This represented an essential first step to inform the development of relevant community-based services and programmes through the establishment of networks to facilitate community change. The World Cafés for stroke recovery were conducted in three communities with different and specific challenges: one rural setting, one urban-multicultural setting and one indigenous and remote setting. The World Cafés allowed for enough flexibility to adapt and respect each of the context specificity and to involve stakeholders (stroke survivors, caregivers, clinicians, community-based organizations, decision makers, researchers). Because of its informal character, exchanges facilitated contributions equally from all people taking into consideration the usual power dynamics between the participants that are health and community providers and users of services. These world cafés required careful planning which were both time and resource consuming for the community-organization to assure representativeness of a variety of points of view. Sustainability of stakeholder engagement needs ongoing work and will be discussed.

Reciprocity and connection: Perspectives of a local community telephone support service

An increasing number of older Australians are more likely to live alone and are more likely to go out less often (Pate, 2014; ABS 2016). In response, local governments are attempting to create age-friendly communities by removing the barriers to social participation. This presentation reports finding from a qualitative study that explored perspectives of one such initiative: a local Community Register. The Register is a partnership program between a local government authority, Victoria Police and the local community. The telephone based program aims to enhance the safety and confidence of people on the register by offering friendly contact, assistance, information and referral through regular phone calls from supervised volunteers. The service has been operating for 10 years, has over 400 current service users and is free to residents of the local government area who live with disability and/or are aged 50 years and over.
Ten volunteer callers (age range 35-75) and ten users of the Register (age range 70-85) participated in individual in-depth telephone interviews. More than half of all participants were female. Interviews were recorded and transcribed; data was analysed thematically.
Volunteers described the personal rewards they gained through their regular telephone contact with Register users. These rewards include a feeling of community connectedness, satisfaction at making a positive difference in other’s lives. They also spoke of the privilege of being welcomed by other people into their lives. For the Register users, rewards gained from receiving regular phone calls from the Register volunteers include a sense of increased connection to the community, having a safe relationship in which they do not feel judged, and the importance of feeling that they matter to another human being. Receiving a personal call also provides a conduit for accessing information about council and other local services and support. Both groups identified the central importance of reciprocity and trust and expressed gratitude for the Register and its capacity to facilitate establishment and support of these relationships.

The perception and correlates of prison culture at Ravenhall Correctional Centre

Psychologists’ work in the criminal justice systems has been criticized to be too individualist, if not colluding with the failed system to blame the victim. In parallel, some critical psychologists or theorists’ stance as manifested in the form of decarceration may be too far from realization in the near future. Given the challenging, if not painful, journey facing many offenders, the recent focus in the international space in promoting a rehabilitative culture of the prison may be a rare opportunity to facilitate a more humane and person-centred approach and intervention, aligned with key community psychology principles.
Ravenhall Correctional Centre (RCC) opened in 2017, and since beginning its operations has focussed on promoting a positive culture that helps to facilitate the rehabilitation of prisoners. This paper will share the experience of RCC with its unique approach to offender rehabilitation and reintegration via promoting a more rehabilitative culture in the centre. Furthermore, preliminary findings of the quantitative measurement of prison culture at RCC and its associated influence on staff and prisoners will be reported.
The staff component of this study aims to provide empirical evidence to demonstrate how perceptions of prison culture is related to prison staff work engagement, job outcomes, and subjective well-being, beyond the influence of the individual characteristics. In parallel, the prisoner study would examine how prison culture is related to the prisoner well-being and readiness to engage in activities in the prison.
Given the importance of the psychosocial environment of a prison on the people involved, this study would provide invaluable insight on understanding whether and how the prison culture impacts the prisoners and staff’s work and well-being. The implication for psychologists’ work in the prison setting will also be discussed.

“What are you doing here?”: Undercover community psychologist- mental health consumer movement

From 1990 I had a lived experience of mental ill health and recovery, the story of which was in parts written but not told. I became dramatically unwell in 2008 and spent three weeks in a public mental health unit, my family said they could not keep the secret any longer. I was then exposed to autoethnography as a way of knowing and shedding light on broader societal structures and processes.
In this presentation I will use autoethnography to trace the narrative of my involvement in the mental health consumer movement, and particularly in the “lived experience” workforce from 2011 to present day, where “lived experience” is defined as “the knowledge and understanding you get when you have lived through something” (South Australia Health), and in which a key delineation is between consumer and carer lived experience workers.
The story moves from years of hiding my “mental illness” to years of hiding or underplaying that I was a psychologist. I found myself in a space in which the heterogeneity of lived experience could make me less part of the club: Had I experienced psychosis? Had I been hospitalised in the public system? Was my experience “lived” or “living”?
Along the way, I heard about lived experience workers being retraumatised by their work and being bullied in the workplace. I got physically sick every time I provided an in-person advocacy service to someone detained in the high dependency unit of a public mental hospital. I noticed that systems were not in place and wondered if it would be seen as “clinical” to ask or advocate for such.
In 2019 I changed my LinkedIn profile to show I am a community psychologist and have lived experience. The worlds had come together (publicly) and there was much more to be done.