The European Conference on Community Psychology (ECCP) will be arranged by the European Community Psychology Association (ECPA) in collaboration with the Norwegian Psychological Association (NPA), The European Federation of Psychology Associations (EFPA) and partners. The conference will be held in Oslo, Norway, from 3rd- 4th June 2021, with pre-conference workshops on the 1st (Norwegian) and 2nd of June.

Theme of the conference

What can Community Psychology do for Europe and beyond? - Social capital, competencies, values and critical visions for future communities.

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online conference

Due to uncertainty regarding the COVID-19 situation, the conference will be online. We will use a combination of online pre-recorded videos, podcasts, online discussion forums, videoconferencing and workshops in order to provide a creative experience for the participants. You will be given a virtual tour of Oslo, and will also be able to be connected with colleagues from all over Europe.

Context of the conference

The European Conference of Community Psychology has a long tradition of gathering colleagues from all corners of the world, to share different perspectives on contemporary problems. The lessons learned from the pandemic are about to be evaluated and transformed into new ways of coping with the crisis and preventing the causes behind it.

More important than ever, we need to rethink normality, and find ways to transform communities to foster well being for all. How can we stay connected, and feel safe at the same time? In Oslo we are committed to ensure people health and safety and will provide physical and virtual meeting places to meet these basic needs.

Scientific contributions

We have received around 100 reviewed scientific contributions covering topics within these thematic areas:

• Sense of Community
• Participation and Inclusion
• Competencies and training
• Community resilience
• Environmental engagement for climate action
• Building trust and solidarity
• Community memory and regeneration
• Transforming communities and social change
• Partnerships for community development
• Migration
• Social justice
• Gender equality.

Participants at the conference will be able to pick their own schedule of individual presentations and symposiums based on pre-recorded material and their focus of interest. Videos will also be available for a month after the conference has ended - making sure that you may have the possibility to both attend the live keynotes, and save some of your videos for later.

Aims of the conference

We aim to promote and exchange Community Psychology among scholars, students, activists, volunteers and policy makers, and to create room for professional, social and cultural meetings. We have ambitions to present a diverse and relevant conference addressing the most urgent issues of our time. The activities should reflect Community Psychology core values and competencies. Community Psychology has over the past 25 years oriented itself towards a systemic view of social and psychological problems.

integrating individual, group, community and societal levels of analysis, we aim to develop a value based psychology addressing the most urgent issues of our time.

Key note and plenary speakers

Isaac prilleltensky

“Wellness, Fairness, and Worthiness: Psychosocial Foundations for the Common Good”

Isaac Prilleltensky is the former dean of the School of Education and Human Development at the University of Miami, where he currently serves as vice provost for institutional culture. He was born in Argentina and has lived and worked also in Israel, Canada, Australia, and the United States. He is fluent in English, Spanish, and Hebrew, and proficient in Italian. He has given keynote addresses in 27 countries.

Isaac holds the inaugural Erwin and Barbara Mautner Chair in Community Well-Being. He has published 12 books and over 130 articles and chapters. His interests are in the promotion of well-being in individuals, organizations, and communities; and in the integration of wellness and fairness.

He was recipient of the 2010 "Distinguished Contribution to Theory and Research Award" of the Community Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association (APA), and of the 2014 “Lifetime Achievement Award in Prevention” by the division of Counseling Psychology of APA. In 2019 he also received the Seymour Sarason Award from the Division of Community Psychology.

Donata francescato

"Climate change action: What can community psychologists contribute as researcher, professionals and activists”

Donata Francescato is known in academia and the media for her work on sex roles, communes, and personal and organizational empowerment. Her work in community psychology led to the discipline being recognized in 1985 as a compulsory subject in Italian universities.

She was a Full Professor of Community Psychology at the University of Rome, a position she retired from in 2014 at the age of 70.

She wrote the first Italian textbook on community psychology and co-founded Effe, a feminist magazine active from 1972 to 1982. She also co-founded the European Network of Community Psychologists (ENCP) which gave birth to the European Association Community Association (ECPA).

During her academic career Francescato developed the concept and practice of innovative online teaching methodologies to teach professional competences using computer-supported collaborative learning. She also developed intervention methodologies to promote individual, group, organizational and community empowerment, as well as many intervention programs for the empowerment of women, immigrants and members of disadvantaged communities.

Ottar ness & Dina von heimburg

Co-Creation of Public Values: Citizenship, Social Justice, and Well-Being

Ottar works as a Professor of Counselling at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and serves as the Head of the Research Group on ‘Relational Welfare and Well-being’. He did his PhD-research in Norway on a collaborative learning project on how therapists learn new ideas and practices together. His training, research, and policy interests focus on relational welfare and well-being focusing on citizenship, democracy, governance, public value, and social justice. Especially, I am interested in recovery in mental health and substance use. He is also interested in family therapy and relational therapies. He is also focusing on the theories of science, qualitative research methods, and the use of participatory action research and citizen science methodologies, especially with a focus on social constructionist theory and practice.

Dina is an Assistant Professor at NTNU. She is particularly interested in co-creation and relational welfare as approaches to local public health work, and how the settings of everyday life meeting places in the community can influence the development of health and well-being. Her main position is in Levanger municipality in Norway, where she work as a public health coordinator. Her PhD project (for PhD in sociology at Nord University) is an action research project called "It takes a village: social inclusion among families with children in kindergarten".

Niki Harre

The environmental crisis: A people-focused systems approach.

Professor Niki Harre from The University of Auckland will critique the “variables” approach of much of environmental psychology and talk about why we need to work with real actors in real settings. She will talk about complex systems thinking and about the people-focused approach to working with organisations. Her focus will be quite practical and more about organisations than communities as such.

David fryer

Aftermaths: global pandemics, capitalist violences, community psy- complexes – critical lessons?

David began an academic life of research with and for unemployed people as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Social and Applied Psychology Unit, England, continued it at the University of Stirling, Scotland, and then at Charles Sturt University, Australia as Professor of Community Critical Psychology. David retired from employment in Universities to spend more time on scholarly and intellectual work but is grateful to the University of South Africa Institute for Social and Health Sciences and Medical Research Council - University of South Africa Safety and Peace Promotion Research Unit, which he served as Professor Extraordinarius between 2013 and 2019 and to the University of Queensland, Australia for an honorary position which he has held there since 2012.

Clowns on the edge

Clowns on the edge – a symposium for fearless crisis management

This symposium explores the ancient roots of the symposium, where heavy drinking, sexual excess and bad behavior flourished, far away from present day dry and well behaved academic symposias. Will stiff and rationalistic academics play the game, and involve in the ritual? We think so.

In the symposium we want to reflect on and promote the importance of humor for our mental health in these times of crisis. Laughing in the midst of the trouble can bring relief and a sense of belonging/community. By allowing ourselves to making fun of and laugh in catastrophic times (with eco-crisis and pandemics), the clowns may gather us in a revolt against helplessness and apathic withdrawal?

Three clowns and one anthropologist will be your guides, and you are invited to take part from wherever you are. Be ready by your screen and bring with you a glass and a bottle of wine/juice, and something to eat.

This format draws upon the rich litterature on interactive learning, deep participation and crisis manaement (from anthropology, psychology and philosophy). The symposium is coproduced by three theatre companies (Prospero Teater, Apropos Teater and Simsalabim productions) and an anthropologist (Nord University).

In 2019 we performed a similar symposium at an academic conference in Bergen. Her you can view a short version of what we did there and then:

https://vimeo.com/522061833 Password: Apropos Teater

Prices for participation

• The conference - 1000 NOK (approx 100 EUR)
• The conference + 1 workshop - 1200 NOK (approx 120 EUR)
• The conference + 2 workshops - 1600 NOK (approx 160 EUR)

Workshops

Wednesday june 2

Community Resilience in Times of Pandemics

The pandemic has turned our global community upside down, causing grief and trouble. At the same time, intuitive and creative moments surprisingly have been emerging all over the globe, which we started to collect and share in http://www.ecpa-online.com/new-bank/.

• How did the COVID-19 Pandemic change the system of relationships in our societies?
• How did and do we as communities shape these ambiguous changes within our culture (individuals, families, social networks, institutions)?

The Sessions

The Workshop will contain three thematic sessions (90 min each) containing pre-recorded videos, texts, music or visual arts reflecting on the two main questions above. After each session the contributions will be discussed by the authors. Over all sessions, two ‘sensing discussants’ will resonate to contributions and discourses from both an artistic and a scientific point of view and will link main patterns and insights for a final joint discourse (60 min).

Tuesday june 1 (Norwegian workshop)

I kjølvannet av Covid-19: Alt du trenger å vite om forholdet mellom usikret og uhåndterlig gjeld, psykiske helseproblemer og selvmord - hvordan du kan behandle det og forebygge at det oppstår.

I kjølvannet av Covid-19-pandemien har et stort antall husholdninger endt opp med økt gjeld på grunn av inntektstap. I lys av pandemiene vil vi i denne workshopen gå igjennom det vi vet om psykiske helseproblemer og selvmord som følge av usikret eller uhåndterlig gjeld, gjeldsproblemer somfølge av psykisk lidelse, effekter og kostnadseffektivitet knyttet til forebygging og behandling, samt eksemplifisere hvordan du kan arbeide med gjeldsproblemer i en terapeutisk setting. Vi legger opp til foredrag, diskusjon og samtaler både i grupper og plenum.

Problemene vil bli belyst ut fra fire ulike perspektiver. Norges fremste forsker på husholdningsøkonomi og gjeld under pandemien, seniorforsker Christian Poppe, gir en oversikt over utviklingen av husholdningenes økonomi og gjeldssituasjon i Norge under pandemien sett fra et sosiologiskståsted. Professor emeritus i helsepsykologi, Arne Holte, tar deg gjennom det vi vet fra den vitenskapelige litteraturen om gjeld, psykisk helse, psykiske lidelser, selvmord og effekter av og kostnadseffektivitet ved intervensjoner. En profesjonell gjeldsforebygger med personlig erfaring fraå leve med gjeldsproblemer, Arman Vestad, presenterer og drøfter problemet ut fra et erfaringsperspektiv. Til slutt demonstrerer spesialist i samfunnspsykologi, Ingvild Stjernen Tisløv, hvordan man kan arbeide med personlig økonomi i en terapeutisk setting.

Foredragsholderne har ett felles mål: Å øke psykologers og psykologistudenters bevissthet om den sterke sammenhengen mellom gjeld, psykisk helse, psykiske lidelser og selvmord generelt, i kjølvannet avCovid 19, og i klinisk og kommunepsykologisk praksis. Deltakerne vil få en liste over forskningslitteratur om emnet.

Kan psykologen hjelpe når penger er problemet? Meld deg på workshop 01.06.

National organizing committee

• Jonas Vaag, Norwegian Psychological Association, NPA
• Ingvild Stjernen Tislov, NPA
• Mona Cecilie Nielsen, NPA
• PUG (Psykologistudenter uten grenser)

International Scientific Committee

• Cinzia Albanesi (Italy), ECPA president
• Maria Vargas Moniz (Portugal), ECPA past president
• Wolfgang Stark (Germany), EFPA SC liason to Ecpa
• Nicholas Carr (Norway), EFPA SC of Community Psychology
• Fortuna Procentese (Italy), ECPA board
• Martina Barankova (Slovakia), ECPA board
• Anna Bokszczanin (Poland), ECPA board
• Francesca Esposito (Italy), ECPA board
• Maria Fernandes-Jesus (Portugal), ECPA board