The 13th Trans-Tasman Community Psychology Conference Information

Tell the world about the conference!

STOP PRESS: The conference was held and was a great success!  To access copies of presentations and presentations please visit the Resources and Publications Section of this website.

Conference Introduction

Welcome From Conference Chair

Keynote Speakers

                            The 13^th Trans-Tasman Community Psychology Conference

Co-hosted by the APS College of Community Psychologists

and Victoria University

In collaboration with the Institute of Community Psychology Aotearoa and

APA Division 27 - The Society for Community Research and Action

Thursday 20 – Saturday 22 April 2017

Uniting Church Centre for Theology and Ministry

29 College Cres, Parkville VIC

Key Conference Dates

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Welcome from the Conference Chair

Heather Gridley, Victoria University

Welcome back to Melbourne for the 13^th Trans-Tasman Conference in Community Psychology – the last Trans-Tasman held here was in 2001. And here’s a test – can you name the locations for the previous 12?? Pakatoa, Maralinga, Rotorua, Yarrabah, Toodyay... they get a bit less exotic after that.

The organising committee is busy plotting and planning for the conference, which might just be the biggest ever. The specific focus of the conference is to revisit the critical foundations of community psychology to promote critical reflexivity and identify opportunities for change. The theme of ‘critical conversations’ plays on the definitions of the term ‘critical’ in that the issues we discuss are urgent (time critical) as well as critical in the sense of looking at them through an alternative lens. Presentations include Indigenous sovereignty, multiculturalism and global migration, working with marginalised young people, climate change, gender identity, social determinants of health, psychology and neoliberalism, is community psychology really critical?...

A special edition of the Australian Community Psychologist is planned to emerge from this conference. Following the initial submission and review of abstracts, presenters accepted will have the option of submitting full papers by the end of April for peer review, with provision for authors to revise after the conference in line with their presentation.

The program will include a range of formats in addition to the standard individual papers, keynotes and symposia – roundtables, nuts & bolts practice sessions - and some creativity across the board.

A special feature on the Thursday is an optional tour of several Melbourne agencies, art installations and cultural centres, culminating in a not-to-be-missed Koori Heritage Trust walking tour.

And in the evening, Victoria University will host a reception for all participants, with a special presentation – watch this space for details.

Email enquiries to: [email protected]

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Keynote Speakers

Professor Nicola Gavey MA (Hons) DipClinPsych PhD, University of Auckland

Critical conversations about pornography: A New Zealand social action project

Nicola has wide-ranging interests within a critical psychology of gender. The central focus of her research has been understanding and challenging the ways that normative cultural values and practices support rape and sexual coercion. Her current work looks at the place of pornography within the ‘cultural scaffolding of rape’, and the ways in which critical engagement with the misogyny, sexism and racism within it is defused through the rhetoric of (neo)liberalism and postfeminism.

Professor Dennis McDermott, Flinders University

HAVING THE HARD CONVERSATIONS: Critical thinking, psychological praxis and Indigenous mental health and well-being

Follow this link to see the Abstract for the presentation by Professor McDermott

Dennis is the Director of the Poche Centre for Indigenous Health and Well-Being, Adelaide, at Flinders University.  He is also the Associate Head of Faculty, Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander Health within the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences.  Dennis is a psychologist, academic and poet.  A Koori man, his mother’s family are from Gadigal land (inner Sydney) with connections to Gamilaroi country (north-west NSW).  

Dennis’s teaching and research interests encompass early childhood, social determinants of Indigenous health, racism, incarceration, policy, equity, Indigenous social, spiritual and emotional well-being, workforce development, Indigenous health pedagogy, and the nexus of culture and context in service delivery.

In 2014 he was awarded a National Senior Teaching Fellowship by the Australian Government’s Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT).

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Program

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