Counseling People Of African Ancestry Edited By Elias Mpofu

This volume advances a uniquely Afro-centric, sociocultural understanding of health maintenance and risk reduction in African cultural heritage populations. It unites a diverse group of leading African and Africanist scholars in an exploration of common cultural values in African heritage communities and their practical applications in contemporary counseling. The chapters highlight the prominent health issues faced in Africanist settings today and use real-world experiences to illustrate core lessons for effective community action. The approach spans complex cultural milieus, from diversity counseling to conflict resolution. Each chapter includes field-based experiential tasks, discussion boxes, research boxes and case studies, which serve as valuable resources in both coursework and casework. Counseling People of African Ancestry is an essential primer for community health workers, counselors and educators seeking a better understanding of African cultural heritage settings to promote community health, well-being and development.

Leading African and Africanist scholars explore common cultural values in African heritage communities and their practical applications in contemporary counseling.

This book traces the development and impact of regional economic communities (RECs) in Africa and addresses a timely question: do REC members, and the REC itself, positively influence member states’ behaviors towards other members and more broadly, regionally and continentally due to REC membership? ‘Changing member states’ behaviors’ is measured across three ‘interconnected, fundamental dimensions of societal-systems’ proposed by Marshall and Elzinga Marshall in CSP’s Global Repot 2017. These are i) the persistence of conflict or its counterpoint, achieving peace, ii) fostering democratization and better governance, and iii) achieving socio-economic development and (as proposed by this research, a fourth dimension), iv) being active participants in multilateralism? Is membership in a REC ultimately beneficial to the member and other countries in the region? While there are no clear and obvious – at least, discernible traditional – benefits such as increase in trade (perhaps because Africa’s overall trade relative to the world is about 3 percent), there are other non trade benefits (e.g., decrease in conflict, coercion to take certain actions towards peace and refrain from others, coups and wars) presenting in REC member states. These in/actions, abilities, coercions, exclusions and cooperation instances are outlined and discussed in the book.

Grounded in a transdisciplinary approach, this groundbreaking text provides extensive, evidence-based information on the value of communities as the primary drivers of their own health and well-being. It describes foundational community health concepts and procedures and presents proven strategies for engaging communities as resources for their own health improvementñan important determinant of individual well-being. It is based on recommendations by the World Health Organization's International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health and on the premise that healthy communities are those with populations that participate in their own health promotion, maintenance, and sustenance. The book is unique in its integration of environmental and social justice issues as they significantly affect the advancement of community health. The text focuses on community-oriented health interventions informed by prevention, inclusiveness, and timeliness that both promote better health and are more cost effective than individually focused interventions. It addresses the foundations of community-oriented health services including their history, social determinants, concepts, and policies as well as the economics of community-oriented health services and health disparities and equity. It covers procedures for designing, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating sustainable community health coalitions along with tools for measuring their success. Detailed case studies describe specific settings and themes in U.S. and international community health practice in which communities are both enactors and beneficiaries. An accompanying instructor's manual provides learning exercises, field-based experiential assignments, and multiple-choice questions. A valuable resource for students and practitioners of education, public policy, and social services, this book bridges the perspectives of environmental justice, public health, and community well-being and development, which, while being mutually interdependent, have rarely been considered together. KEY FEATURES: Offers a new paradigm for improving public health through community-driven health coalitions Includes evidence-based strategies for engaging communities in the pursuit of health Demonstrates how to design, implement, monitor, and evaluate community health partnerships Presents transdisciplinary approaches that consider environmental and social justice variables Includes contributions of international authors renowned in community health research and practice

Although Hip Hop is known to come from the streets of South Bronx, New York, its origins go far deeper than that. Unconsciously, the innovative souls of the 1970s Hip Hop movement demonstrated the captivating, vibrational sound of the five regions in Africa: Northern Africa, Western Africa, Eastern Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Thus, The Griot Tradition as Remixed through Hip Hop: Straight Outta Africa fleshes out the common threads of Hip Hop’s creative genius across the African diaspora and provides an analytical rubric as a guide to a greater understanding of Hip Hop. The author, Frederick Gooding, examines why Hip Hop holds such an important place within contemporary culture in order to determine how a genre that was so controversial and marginal could become mainstream and central. Through the use of various genres, artists, styles, sounds, images, and rhetorical techniques, Gooding analyzes how Hip Hop, when seen through the lens of African connection, can be appreciated for its regenerative and connective power to create relationships between people both nationally and internationally.

Applying a trans-disciplinary approach, this book provides a comprehensive, research-based guide to understanding, implementing, and strengthening sustainable community health in diverse international settings. By examining the interdependence of environmental, economic, public health, community wellbeing and development factors, the authors address the systemic factors impacting health disparities, inequality and social justice issues. The book analyzes strategies based on a partnership view of health, in which communities determine their health and wellness working alongside local, state and federal health agencies. Crucially, it demonstrates that communities are themselves health systems and their wellbeing capabilities affect the health of individuals and the collective alike. It identifies health indicators and tools that communities and policy makers can utilize to sustain truly inclusive health systems. This book offers a unique resource for researchers and practitioners working across psychology, mental health, rehabilitation, public health, epidemiology, social policy, healthcare and allied health.

This innovative book applies contemporary and emergent theories of identity formation to timely questions of identity re/formation and development in immigrant families across diverse ethnicities and age groups. Researchers from across the globe examine the ways in which immigrants from Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America dynamically adjust, adapt, and resist aspects of their identities in their host countries as a form of resilience. The book provides a multidisciplinary approach to studying the multidimensional complexities of identity development and immigration and offers critical insights on the experiences of immigrant families. Key areas of coverage include: Factors that affect identity formation, readjustment, and maintenance, including individual differences and social environments. Influences of intersecting immigrant ecologies such as family, community, and complex multidimensions of culture on identity development. Current identity theories and their effectiveness at addressing issues of ethnicity, culture, and immigration. Research challenges to studying various forms of identity. Re/Formation and Identity: The Intersectionality of Development, Culture, and Immigration is an essential resource for researchers, professors, and graduate students as well as clinicians, professionals, and policymakers in the fields of developmental, social, and cross-cultural psychology, parenting and family studies, social work, and all interrelated disciplines.

Inclusion as Social Justice: Theory and Practice in African Higher Education unravels the practical dimensions and complexities involved in the implementation of social justice in African higher education systems in the broader theoretical context of epistemological dynamics working for or against diverse student populations in higher education.