Suchergebnisse

In recent years, a strong focus has emerged towards developing and implementing guidelines, policies, governmental strategies, and research agendas that best support a growing ageing population. However, policies and theoretical understandings of ageing have been questioned in regard to their continued medicalisation, problematising, and objectification of the ageing experience. To explore the different ways in which older adults make meaning of their experiences of ageing, a qualitative methodology, guided by the theoretical underpinnings of phenomenology and social constructionism was used. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants from four distinct contexts, three of which were located in Western Australia (WA), including 17 participants from a healthy ageing program; 12 participants who have withdrawn from a healthy ageing program; and 15 participants from a community sample. The fourth sample comprised of 15 participants from a community sample in Wales, United Kingdom (UK). The data revealed that whilst participants described feeling that the dominant discourse in wider society caused them to anticipate ageing as a stage in life centred on experiencing decline and loss (e.g., a decline in mental functioning, or a loss of mobility), it was also evident that psychological, social, and political aspects were of equal, or greater significance to the meaningful understandings they constructed about their personal ageing experience. Further, the data contends that a pressing need exists to evaluate the way in which ageing policy is effectively translated into practice, that is, in a way that closely aligns with the lived experiences of ageing as had by individuals.

In November 2010, the areas of practice known as community psychology and health psychology were endorsed by the Australian Health Workforce Ministerial Council (AHWMC). This was a major reversal of the Council's earlier decision in April that year to limit the endorsed areas of practice to those represented by the other seven Colleges of the Australian Psychological Society. This paper describes the intense lobbying effort coordinated by the National Committee of the Australian Psychological Society College of Community Psychologists and their supporters, which was sustained over many months and led ultimately to a changed decision by the Australian Health Ministers. The story is important for community psychology as it demonstrates the power of collective, integrated and focussed political lobbying, in this case to promote and to inform others of the key contributions of community psychology to health policy, illness prevention and primary care. Without endorsement there would be little incentive for universities to offer postgraduate programs in Community Psychology, which would then choke the only pathway to future membership of the College, rendering it unviable. With no further training offered, and eventually no representative body within the APS, there would be direct implications for the sustainability of the whole discipline and practice of community psychology in Australia.