Community Psychology: Importance of Research and Needs Assessment

This article discusses the importance of research in community psychology and the need for conducting needs assessment surveys to identify the requirements of the community. It also compares two examples of successful needs assessments.

Running head: COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY
COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY
Answer 1:
Community psychology is seen to possess fundamental connections with the relationship
between individual well being and social systems in the community context. Therefore,
researchers of community psychology need to conduct different scientific studies for grappling
with different arrays of mental as well as social health programs not only in public but also in
private community setting (Moritsugu et al., 2015). Due to the rapid development and constantly
changing nature of the societies, researchers need to conduct researches that would emphasize
both applied service delivery to the community as well as they need to conduct theory based
research on social environmental processes. They need to develop ideas about the psychology
that focus not only on individuals but on the procedures of working of community, they also
need to find out the best ways by which the evolving problems of the community can be solved
and better health and conditions of community can be assured. Therefore, constant scientific
research is important to provide evidence based intervention to communities.
Researchers like Abury, Nelson and Tsemberis, (2015) wanted to find out an effective
strategy for assisting people with serious mental illness in a community who are homeless and
wanted to provide them quality life by proper interventions. A multicity randomised control trial
was conducted where it was proved that program namely Housing first that provides such
individuals with scattered-site apartment along with assertive community treatment (ACT) or
intensive case management (ICM) have positive results and help them to exit homelessness.
Answer 2:
Needs of the community are important to be assessed to develop deeper understanding of
the community and recognise their requirements in its own culture and social structure. It is also

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important to make community members learn how to use community resources or to know what
issues they are facing regarding community resources. It helps researchers to make decisions and
set priorities for program or system development. It helps researchers to gain complete ideas
before starting a project so that unexpected situations do not arise in middle of projects
(Ctb.ku.edu, 2018). Some of the methods for conducting need assessments of communities are
developing plan for identifying local needs and resources, conducting needs assessment surveys,
determining service utilisation, conducting interviews, conducting surveys and many others.
While comparing two examples, it was seen that health need assessment of the Ottawa
county had successfully identified the needs of the community residents like proper
environmental and sanitation services, preventive services and health promotion and education
services. They have provided detailed statistical interpretation of the data they received and have
thereby indentified the priorities of the community that needs to be met. On the other hand, needs
assessment of the Wyandotte county identified 11 important areas like abuse, neglect, basic
needs and basic skills, child development and others. Therefore, in the first assessment,
preventive measures are to be developed and in second example, curative measures need to be
developed.

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References:
Aubry, T., Nelson, G., & Tsemberis, S. (2015). Housing first for people with severe mental
illness who are homeless: a review of the research and findings from the at home—chez
soi demonstration project. The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 60(11), 467-474.
Ctb.ku.edu. (2018). 2. Assessing Community Needs and Resources | Community Tool Box.
[online] Available at: http://ctb.ku.edu/en/assessing-community-needs-and-resources
[Accessed 23 Apr. 2018].
Moritsugu, J., Vera, E., Wong, F. Y., & Duffy, K. G. (2015). Community psychology.
Psychology Press.