Journal of community psychology最新文献

Mentoring is a highly individualized educational measure that can support youth development in communities, schools, and talent domains. Depending on the target population, goals, structure, and medium, mentoring for youths can differ considerably. This article first reviews the main types of mentoring programs and practices for youth development in communities, schools, and talent domains. Despite the popularity of mentoring programs, many programs fail to realize the full potential of mentoring as meta-analyses consistently show relatively small effects of mentoring. The discrepancy between the potential and actual effect of mentoring is referred to as the mentoring paradox. Crucial aspects that are held responsible for the mentoring paradox, such as adequate planning and implementation of mentoring programs, adherence to research-based mentoring practices, as well as quality assurance of mentoring programs through systematic program research and evaluation are described. Finally, implications on how to professionalize mentoring are provided for different stakeholders.

There are tens of millions of children and youth in street situations (CYSS) worldwide, the majority of whom are males living in low- and middle-income countries. Many of these children demonstrate impressive adaptability and resilience. The focus of the current research was on the resilience of male CYSS in León, Nicaragua. Qualitative data were collected through individual interviews and focus groups with CYSS, their family members, community members, and staff of a local nonprofit, with the objective of exploring and consolidating local understandings of resilience. Grounded theory analysis of qualitative data yielded a context-specific conceptual model of resilience as it pertains to CYSS in León. Six qualities were identified to represent the experience of resilience in this group: agency, belonging, flexibility, protection, self-regulation, and self-worth. The knowledge generated from this research can serve as a foundation to develop and implement resilience-promoting interventions for CYSS.

Youth living with HIV (YLWH) have higher rates of common mental disorders (CMDs) when compared with HIV-negative youth. We adapted the Friendship Bench to create a problem solving-based counselling intervention in Botswana delivered by near peer youth lay counsellors for YLWH called Safe Haven. In August 2020, and from June to August 2021, we conducted 22 semistructured interviews with youth aged 13–25 years with mild-to-moderate symptoms of CMDs. Two independent coders carried out an inductive thematic analysis of the transcribed interviews with discrepancies discussed to consensus. Safe Haven was seen as largely acceptable among the youth. Youth felt Safe Haven was a place where they had freedom of expression and could receive practical advice from well-trained and approachable counsellors. Trained youth lay peer counsellors show promise to meet the mental health needs of mild and moderately symptomatic youth, where mental health professionals are in short supply.

The objective of this study is to examine interventions implemented to increase vaccine uptake among people who live and work in prisons around the world. Peer-reviewed and gray literature databases were searched systematically to identify relevant information published from 2012 to 2022. Publications were evaluated by two researchers independently and underwent quality assessment through established tools. Of the 11,281 publications identified through peer-reviewed (2607) and gray literature (8674) search, 17 met the inclusion criteria. In light of limited data, the identified interventions were categorized into two categories of educational and organizational interventions, and are discussed in the text. The lack of availability of vaccination services and interventions to increase vaccine uptake among people who live and work in prisons, worldwide, is a serious public health concern. These interventions reported in this review can be adapted and adopted to mitigate the burden of infectious diseases among people who live and work in prisons.

Using the Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, we aimed to determine whether university students' loss and gain in resources during the pandemic mediated the relationships between COVID-19 exposure/concern and depression and anxiety. In 2021, 7013 Israeli university students completed online questionnaires. We assessed the data using structural equation modeling. We found that resource loss was directly related to concern (β = 0.32, p < 0.001). Depression and anxiety were both directly related to loss of resources (depression: β = 0.75, p < 0.001; anxiety: β = 0.69, p < 0.001) and concern (depression: β = 0.06, p < 0.001; anxiety: β = 0.12, p < 0.001). Resource loss had an indirect effect on the relationships between concern and depression (β = 0.24, p < 0.001) and concern and anxiety (β = 0.22, p < 0.001). COR theory may help explain the mechanisms behind university students' mental health during the pandemic and provides a framework to better understand preparedness for future pandemics, epidemics, and major disasters. Governments and universities should help prevent the loss of resources during future emergencies.

In 2017, Hurricane Harvey flooded more than 300,000 buildings causing an estimated $125 billion in damages and resulting in 68 deaths (National Hurricane Center). This actual or threatened loss of life and physical harm led many to report negative effects on mental well-being and greater mental illness. However, many individuals have been able to experience similar adverse events without a significant negative impact on their mental health and well-being. Positive thinking factors such as hope, optimism, and self-efficacy have been proposed as protective factors in the face of difficult life events. Hope, optimism, and self-efficacy are related but distinct constructs that have often been studied separately, but whose unique impact on well-being and mental illness is less clear, especially in the context of a natural hazard. The current study uses structural equation modeling to measure the unique contribution of hope, optimism, and hurricane-coping self-efficacy on mental well-being and mental illness in a community sample of 300 subjects who experienced Hurricane Harvey, recruited from Mechanical Turk.