Dear All,
It seems to me that the organisers of the request for a vote for a
Community Psychology Section
of the BPS, who also form a potential nucleus of a future Committee,
have been unaware of the deadlines to set a fee structure and the
implications of this.
This can be through inexperience of dealing with a large organisation
such as the BPS, which has set procedures for all its Sections and
Members, which is necessary given the size and complexity of its
membership and their interests.
I am not aware of any systematic attempts to find out the views of
existing contributors to the discussion list, until very recently.
If I am correct, this means that inadvertently (probably) discussants
and other supporting members of the BPS for the Community Psychology
Section will be disenfranchised, unless agreement is reached on a fee
structure to put forward tomorrow, to the relevant BPS Committee.
In this case, I propose to contact the BPS Committee direct, as a
member affected by this situation, requesting that they set a fee
themselves, as the organisers have unintentionally failed to deal
with this issue by the required deadline.
Nicola Swan's letter sets out in an exemplary way, the need for a
Community Psychology Section. Being members of a Section of the BPS
could also have an effect on the availability of funding for
community psychology work in the coming year. This is a penalty
that should not be arbitrarily imposed on researchers in this
field. It would be helpful if Nicola would agree to my appending
her letter, giving a reasoned explanation of some of the support for
this Section.
My credentials are that I have been a discussant on the Community
Psychology list for probably at least a year and have engaged in
community studies on the ground which I have reported on the list.
The psychologist employed on the study was someone extremely senior
in the BPS,
namely Dr. R. J. Cameron, at the time Chairman of the Steering
Committee of Fellows of the BPS and a founder member of the Positive
Psychology group. I have been a member of the BPS since the mid
1970's and I am currently a member of the Counselling, Qualitative
and Social Psychology Sections, and my membership number is
002118. My highest degree is M.Sc. in Social Psychology with
Distinction from LSE in 1971 and I am continuing with my own
research, though retired (not Community Psychology directly, but with
some implications for the same).
The study which I reported has been criticised by David Fryer, in
particular as not being community psychology, yet the report was
entitled "Belonging in Tybalds", and explored ways in which a sense
of belonging and commitment to a central London council estate could
be enhanced, and was based on interviews with residents, by the above
psychologist. Subsequently, I used my knowledge, and network
contacts as a psychologist, to try to ensure that future council
employees on the estate were selected according to willingness to
engage with the residents and with the necessary tasks. No reasoned
explanation has been put forward as to why this was not community
psychology in action.
It would be helpful if the Community Psychology network committee
members concerned with the issue of fee setting could explain why
this has not been addressed so far in more detail, and in time for
the BPS Committee. In the meantime, I see no reason why I should
not act independently as proposed above, to speak as one of the many
members of the BPS who supported the move for a Community Psychology
Section, who may be disenfranchised over this issue, otherwise.
Erica Brostoff
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