Abstract:

Late 2010, executives of a well-known cement company in northeast Mexico, invited the Academic Department of Psychology at Universidad de Monterrey to a joint venture. The initiative was to create a sense of community in a group of 20 families who had lost their belongings during Hurricane Alex. A group of eight students of the University volunteered to assist in this project. These students were assessed by teachers. The focal point was to work together in an integral approach: the cement company would provide all the materials to build the blocks, with those blocks the families would build the 20 houses on a land donated by the municipal government. After all the houses were finished, the families could finally move into their new homes. From this need, the general objective of a year project was to develop systemic interconnections through a psychosocial intervention program based on psychoeducational approach to enhance the individual's resources and thereby foster family satisfaction and promoting a sense of community. A psychosocial diagnosis was conducted in order to assess the needs of the 20 families in the community. This was the basis for the creation of a community model of ecological-psychosocial intervention in order to work in the three developmental levels (individual, family and social) which were related to structures and systemic contexts wherein the person develops to achieve an improvement in the family interactions. These would promote the welfare and community integration. It is believed that the order of each stage of the program improved the model results. Quantitative and qualitative results increased in terms of family functioning and promoted the sense of community. The industrial partner was pleased with the results and will continue working with Universidad de Monterrey.

Keywords:

Sense of community, socioculturally deprivated families, ecological-psychosocial intervention, systemic contexts, psychoeducational approach.