The paraprofessional movement as a paradigm community psychology endeavor

Community psychology can be seen as a vigorous, action‐oriented movement. It is, however, still in the developmental stage characterized by the continued attempts to specify the goals and parameters of the field. The growing paraprofessional movement shares similar origins to community psychology and appears to provide answers to some of the questions raised about the accomplishments of the practitioners of community psychology. Some of the stated goals of community psychology are briefly reviewed and the paraprofessional movement is described in greater detail in an attempt to demonstrate the relationship between the accomplishments and trends of the paraprofessional movement and the goals espoused by community psychologists.