ABSTRACT
In its original form (Lorion, Brodsky, Flaherty, & Holland, 1995), this chapter invited
readers to think about community both as a locus and as a focus for efforts to prevent
emotional and behavioral disorders in children and adolescents. Relevant to community
as focus, conduct disorders in girls and affective disorders in boys were offered as
counterintuitive examples of how contextual factors contribute to the etiology,
maintenance, and remediation of psychological problems in youth. Relevant to
community as locus, the value of incorporating preventive interventions within and
across the natural settings and systems in which children live, learn, play, and relate to
others was made clear.
