Synthesizing the experience of implementing community-action initiatives; Explaining the importance of studying community dynamics and action; Comparing and contrasting the definitions of community using various perspectives; Analyzing functions of communities in terms of structures, dynamics, and processes A logic model is simply a way of thinking about something in a rational order -- one thought naturally follows another, and you build on ideas as you go. This, in turn, may affect more distal outcomes -- the long term goals the group is working for. Then, we'll discuss some principles, assumptions, and values that guide community evaluation and outline a "logic model" for our KU Center for Community Health and Development's system of evaluation. One such method is the use of behavioral surveys. these collaborations Community members can be systematically engaged in assessing the quality of a community-engaged initiative, measuring its outcomes, and identifying opportunities for improvement This chapter summarizes the central concepts in program evaluation rel-evant to community engagement programs, including definitions, categories, Community evaluation results, if positive, should be used to help sustain and promote widespread adoption of the community initiative and/or its components. Our ideas about evaluation and support for community initiatives are based on the model of community initiatives as catalysts for change we described earlier. Are You Ready to Evaluate your Coalition? Community helps society because it creates solutions, provides security and reveals dedication. to remain available. As long as people care about each other and the place they live, every community has the potential for such collective action. Green, L., &Kreuter, M.(1991). Connell, J., Kabisch, A., Schorr, L., &Weiss, C. ),Intervention research : Design and development for human service, 25-54. Detecting community capacity -- the community's ability to improve things that matter to local people -- is a particularly important challenge for community evaluation. Successful community programs entail the achievement of four actions known as the four pillars of community engagement. (Eds. Evaluators help provide and interpret data about what works, what makes it work, and what doesn't work. Equally common is the consistent transfer of responsibilities for services from government agencies to the private community sector. They include doing a lot of things on many levels with a lot of different people. By documenting these community or systems changes, community evaluation can prompt community members and leadership to discover where change is (and should be) occurring. This perspective informed our Community Action Model, which is relevant for a variety of community health goals. A framework to promote community mobilization for health youth development. Because of this, it is daunting to describe what's been done thoroughly enough for another community to try to do the same thing. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Your contribution can help change lives. They also use targeted approaches, which try to affect conditions for people who are at higher risk for the problem. When students take charge, they become more proactive, look for new ways to learn, grow, flourish, and take the lead. 2 "Rural Community Development." 155-178). ),Health Promotion at the Community Level. Practitioners and policymakers should encourage community initiatives to be a catalyst for change. Finally, renewal of funding -- and bonuses and dividends -- can be based on evidence of progress, with intermediate and longer-term outcomes. All of this should help to promote the institutionalization of the initiative. Self-mobilization is when community members decide to take action and . The community action plan is a road map for implementing community change in sanitation and water management by clarifying what will be done, who will do it and how it will be done. Community initiatives help launch interventions that are planned and implemented by community members. Later, the evaluation team can document the community's progress towards its goals. To see if this has happened, community evaluators use quantitative methods. Some of the more popular models include the Healthy Cities/Healthy Communities Model, the PRECEDE/PROCEED model, and the Planned Approach to Community Health [PATCH]. This helps determine the level of institutionalization of the initiative. An action plan provides your staff with responsibilities, tasks, and the necessary resources to align your efforts with strategy and make them feel relevant, impactful, and engaging. ),Community-based participatory research for health. It may also have much broader goals that involve several different objectives. Assess steps on how to conduct community action initiatives. Another quantitative method is finding archival records of outcomes. For example, an injury prevention initiative might work with the local clinic to assess risk behavior with surveys and determine how many deaths and injuries occurred that were related to violence, motor vehicle crashes, or other causes. Although different community groups have different missions, many of them use the same logic model or framework: that of a community initiative as a catalyst for change. This ability allows distinctions to be made between simple aggregates of people and actual communities. Annual Review of Sociology. When diverse individuals and their organizations interact with one another, they begin to mutually understand the needs and wants that are common to all residents (Wilkinson, 1991;Bridger, Brennan, andLuloff, 2011; McGovern, 2013; Phillimore & McCabe, 2015). Community is very important and has many factors like kinship, unity, and identity. Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press. for community-based problem-solving for other issues affecting the business community, such as economic development and education. Supporting collaborative planning, when done comprehensively, will include all of the following: Documenting community implementation, action, and change. This is why we recommend documenting intermediate outcomes such as changes in the community or broader system. By involving community members, people who haven't had a voice may gain the opportunity to better understand and improve local efforts. Community organizing involves mobilizing people to combat common problems and to increase their voice in institutions and decisions that affect their lives and communities. Welcome to our community of 19+ million annual readers, we are so grateful to have you here with us. Social . A. and J. W. Robinson. Francisco, V.,Paine, A., &Fawcett, S.(1993). That way, it can offer ongoing information and feedback to better understand and improve the initiative. 2013. Why Community Engagement Matters. A growing body of research confirms the benefits of building a sense of community in school. For the best experience on our site, be sure to turn on Javascript in your browser. In many communities, these conflicts are often rooted in differences between groups that seek to protect community quality and those that seek to exploit local resources (especially the local workforce and natural resource base) as a means of achieving economic development. But in adopting such approaches, leaders must avoid the temptation to act in a top-down manner. For example, efforts use multiple strategies, such as providing information about the problem or improving people's access to assistance. Leaders of nonprofit organizations need to know what works, what makes it work, and what doesn't work. Community is very important and has many factors like kinship, unity, and identity. "From Community Engagement to Community Emergence: The Holistic Program Design Approach." Students in schools with a strong sense of community are more likely to be academically motivated (Solomon, Battistich, Watson, Schaps, & Lewis, 2000); to act ethically and altruistically (Schaps, Battistich, & Solomon, 1997); to develop social and emotional competencies (Solomon et al., 2000); and to . At this stage, specific actions are taken, assessed, adjusted, and implemented again. Then, we'll describe some of the major challenges to evaluation. Practitioners should collect and share information on community members who become "community champions"--that is, who do great things for the initiative and the community as a whole. In order to minimize these challenges, the KU Center for Community Health and Development has developed a model and some principles that may provide guidance for people trying to evaluate the work done in their community. These, in turn, may guide implementation of interventions, actions, and changes. Researchers try to understand the issue, the history of the initiative, and the community in which it operates. In M. Minkler and N. Wallerstein (Eds.). 1. For example, they might look at and explain the amount of media coverage, number of community members and organizations participating, resources generated, and services provided. Practitioners should provide technical support and constructive feedback to help the initiative understand (and do!) Community participation, public participation or participatory planning are the terms which are used interchangeably but aims at involving people in the community to get the maximum benefit for the whole society. When not much happens over a long period, for example, evaluation information can be used to encourage leaders of the initiative to change what's going on. 42. (Pp. Climate Adaptation is a critical aspect of community engagement in climate action. Initiatives use universal approaches -- that is, they try to reach everyone who could possibly be affected by the concern. For example, annual renewal of grants might be based on evidence of high rates of community or systems change; bonuses could be given for groups that have done outstanding work; and outcome dividends for those showing improvement in community-level outcomes. For example, members of an initiative may wish to work on two problems, such as reducing child abuse and domestic violence, which share common risk and protective factors. Preventing Chronic Disease. Having both a strategic plan and an action plan in place helps your organization turn your strategy from a two-dimensional document into a demonstrable success. Evaluating program effectiveness. This step addresses the structures, organizations, and resources available within and outside of the community. Ashton, J., Grey, P., &Barnard, K. (1986). Community Engagement. Working Together for Healthier Communities: A Framework for Collaboration Among Community Partnerships, Support Organizations, and Funders, Section 8. . Such action provides local residents with the ability to retain community identities, maintain localcontrol over decision-making, and address their own development needs. Practitioners should collaborate with initiative members to develop meaningful ways to present evaluation data to key stakeholders. Evaluation should take place from the beginning of an initiative. "Phases and roles in community action." Because there aren't always suitable experimental designs or fitting comparisons (for example, it's hard to say that two towns are exactly alike), it is not always possible to say that the results were really because of the community initiative, and not because of something else that was going on. (Eds.) 35 (1): 54-68. The people's involvement . Diffusion of innovations. Agendas shape the choice of which issues should be addressed. Some initiatives try hybrid approaches that combine the use of these "tried and true" methods with the role of a catalyst. Community Development in Perspective. Prepared by Program Evaluation and Educational Research Associates. (Eds. Practitioners should provide feedback on how and where community changes have occurred to help understand and improve efforts to address community issues. Community initiatives engage community members and organizations as catalysts for change: they transform the community to have a better quality of life. From this they form plans for action that benefit all involved, and ultimately the community in general. 12:341-371. Health Education Research: Theory and Practice, 8, 403-416. The components of the model are also interrelated -- that is, they can't be taken separately. For example, a grant may give the most money in the first year, less money in year two, and even less in year three. Fawcett, S., & Schultz, J. Fawcett, S., Paine, A., Francisco, V., Schultz, J., Richter, K., Lewis, R.,Williams, L. Harris, K., Berkley, J., Lopez, C., &Fisher, J.. (1996). Second, because it has been modified to fit the community's needs, the program or policy is more likely to remain in existence. Community engagement ensures access and community empowerment. There are a lot of different models that describe how to best promote community health and development. (1990). When we look at the process of supporting and evaluating community initiatives, we need to look at what our ideas are based on. Alliances among community people have also focused on promoting urban economic development, access to decent housing, and quality education. first expressive essay for 402. (Eds. The evaluation phase is the fifth phase of the community change process. A cost-effective way to prevent decay. They do this by implementing core components, such as sexuality education and peer support for preventing adolescent pregnancy, along with developing new community changes, such as enhancing access to contraceptives, that are related to the group's desired outcomes. Atlanta, GA: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. For example, a teen pregnancy prevention project might survey students about reported abstinence or unprotected sexual activity. This type of community initiative tries to transform specific parts of the community. Community evaluation must understand and reflect the issue, and the context in which it is happening. Voluntary Sector Review, 6(2), 135-151. You show initiative when you act without being told what to do, persist in the face of inertia and difficulty, and see your idea through to a successful conclusion. The focus is more on the process of understanding and overcoming problems in order to rebuild people's lives rather than just physical development such as building houses, providing health services or recreational facilities for . In practice, these principles and others, are . Practitioners should use community members' knowledge of what's going on and build on this understanding by assisting with the interpretation and analysis of available information. In Fetterman, M.,Kafterian, S., &Wandersman, A. By providing a comprehensive assessment of local conditions that represents all segments of the community, more efficient and successful programs can be developed. CESC12 Q1 Mod1 The-Importance-of-Studying-Community-Dynamics v3. This may help promote adoption of the entire initiative or its more effective components by other communities. This means helping with long-range planning, providing training, and fading funding over time. Seeking supportsfor evaluation? That way, community members can improve on what they have done. This also gives them an edge over their peers leading to future success. Copenhagen, Denmark: World Health Organization - Europe. Because of this, community evaluation is a participatory process involving a lot of collaboration and negotiation among many different people. The concept of a "community-based initiative", sometimes called a grassroots initiative or simply a "CBI", is one of those things with a complicated name, but in reality is quite simple. 1994-2023The University of Kansas. 5 Pages. At the beginning, it helps the group decide on goals and strategies. There are many good reasons for a community group to evaluate its efforts. Max Carver. Practitioners should share information on what has happened, why and how it happened, and the resulting changes in the community. As the Community Action Plan takes shape, consider steps to maintain the momentum of your CHANGE activities. The Co-Intelligence Institute has developed the following seven core principles that effectively reflect the common beliefs and understandings of those working in the field of community engagement - conflict, conflict resolution, and collaboration. Often, one seems to need to give. . Throughout the world, people and organizations come together to address issues that matter to them. For an already overburdened organization, it may not be feasible to do all of this properly. Evaluation priorities (that is, what to evaluate) should be based on what's of most importance to community members, grantmakers, and the field. The five parts are: Agenda setting -- that is, deciding what issues and options should be acted upon--is one of the most important things a community initiative can do. It is important to understand these two because these will propel the success and stability of the communities. 1238 Words. Policymakers should support, and practitioners assist, community members in strategic planning. Community water fluoridation is one of the most efficient ways to prevent tooth decay. Communities wield significant power in protecting their members, particularly when it comes to public health issues. Koepsell, T., Wagner, E.,Cheadle, A., Patrick, D., Martin, D., Diehr, P., &Perrin, E.(1992). We'll also make some specific recommendations to practitioners and policymakers about how these issues can be addressed. Wilkinson, K. 1991. Dee Marques discovers seven ways in which community belonging can benefitboth you and those around you.Humans are social beings, and the need to belong is deeply ingraine. Health Promotion International, I, 55-60. Instead, it might collect information on the number of children living below the poverty level or other measurements of children's well-being. Developing community based initiatives. (1997). Some of the more important things to evaluate, such as the ability of the group to successfully accomplish its goals or the quality of life of community members, can be very difficult to measure. Although there are models for studying community health efforts, community initiatives are often evaluated using research methods borrowed from clinical trials and other researcher-controlled techniques. Understanding and improving the work of community health and development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Lindsay Kathleen Campbell reaction paper 2/8 Posted: Feb 8, 2005 9:31 AM. Community evaluation should involve people from throughout the community. It is important to distinguish among three strategies for promoting what is often called community empowerment. The information gathered in evaluation can be used to obtain resources such as grant money, show how to improve, and offer an opportunity to celebrate accomplishments. Health Education & Behavior, 24 (6), 812-828. Other community-based efforts attempt to lower risks for HIV/AIDS, cardiovascular diseases, or injuries. Organizing and maximizing these resources significantly impacts the success of community action efforts. American Journal of Preventative Medicine, 34 (3S), S72-S81. Providing ongoing feedback can improve community work by encouraging continuous adjustments of programs, policies, and other interventions. People see things differently. In response to the pressures and changes in our communities, activists, grassroots social change organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and coalitions of concerned community groups have emerged to shape and guide the development process. Instead, they should design and implement . 241-269). Evaluation of health promotion and education programs, 126-170. Practitioners should record what people say has happened related to risk and protective factors (for example, "I don't smoke") and statistical evidence that will back up or contradict what people are saying (for example, the number of cases of lung cancer). The third stage isgoal settingand strategy development. Are You Ready to Evaluate your Coalition? Love has to be put into action and that action is service. Policymakers should encourage community groups to look at things over the long haul. This process represents multiple and diverse interests in the locality, and consequently provides a more comprehensive approach to community development (Wilkinson, 1991). New York, NY: Greenwood Press, 1991. Community Agency and Local Development. 2 Comments The key to making change happen in all aspects of life is by taking the initiative to do so. Once you complete the CHANGE tool, you enter the fourth phase of the community change process - implementation. Policymakers should encourage, and practitioners support, community members and outside experts to evaluate the importance of the initiative's achievements. Online engagement on the Resolution asks the community to stay informed on climate action and issues initiated by the City and invites suggestions on what further can be done. Initiative is a self-management skill, and purposeful self-management can help you set goals independently and direct the trajectory of your career. Providing more resources to fight poverty in Rock & Walworth Counties than any other not-for-profit organization, investing over $10 million annually. Community evaluation can help communities recognize their own abilities to bring about change, and then to act on that knowledge. Communities are part of everyday life and have positive affects on its members. Practitioners should develop and share information regarding factors that put people at risk for (or protect them against) local concerns. Policymakers should provide grant funding that improves the ability of a diverse team of leaders to successfully carry out the initiative. In the process of community development, local action focuses on the improvement of social well-being and involves people working . Windsor, R., Baranowski, T., Clark, N., &Cutter G. (1984). It is the impetus for creating change. Voluntary Sector Review 4(2): 223-240. Health Education & Behavior, 29(2), 183-193. The figure below describes the logic model for the KU Center for Community Health and Development's Community Evaluation System. Community resilience - helping the community to support itself. Prevention - a focus on early access to services or support, engagement in design, cross-sector collaboration and partnerships. Five stages of accomplishment, including initiation, organization of sponsorship, goal setting, recruitment, and implementation, can be identified within this process (Wilkinson, 1970; Wilkinson, 1991): The first stage,initiation, focuses on promoting awareness of the issue related to the action. 5(1): 5-19. Guadalajara, Mexico: Universidad de Guadalajara. If a community is able to successfully bring about changes, their capacity to create even more community changes related to the group's mission should improve. Accordingly, organizational and government leaders need to broaden the way they see their responsibilities to include roles as facilitator . Of course, the ultimate goal of most community initiatives is to move the bottom line--to have fewer people contract HIV/AIDS or be victims of violence, to give two examples. This researcher-controlled earlier way of doing business didn't address the multiple goals of community initiatives -- improving understanding, capacity, and self-determination. Full Document [PDF - 2.6 MB] This Chapter [PDF - 998 KB] The social science and public health fields provide us not only with useful definitions of community and ideas about community engagement but also with a wealth of concepts that are relevant to the practice of engagement. The five parts are: Supporting collaborative planning; Documenting community implementation, action, and change; Assessing community adaptation, institutionalization, and capacity They also might go deeper and try to change the conditions, such as the availability of drugs, or opportunity for drugs or daycare, under which these behaviors occur. They are all part of the same puzzle. Washington, DC: The Aspen Institute. Community empowerment covers the social, cultural, political and economic aspects of society. Evaluators, especially those in the field of participatory evaluation, must guard against potential confusion resulting from conflicting ways of looking at things when interviewing different people about the same event. The Center for Health Equity & Community Wellness, a division of the DOHMH, aims to eliminate racial inequities resulting in premature mortality, with a focus on chronic disease, by addressing the . We believe that this approach to evaluation can help local people make a positive difference in their communities. Donate now. When in doubt, help your neighbor out. Finally, through changing interventions to fit local needs, community members improve their ability to take care of their own problems. (Pp. Community-based development involves neighborhood-based Mittlemark, M., Hunt, M., Heath, G., &Schmid, T.(1993). But, there is a difference between community services and volunteering, as community services are not performed on a temporary basis. In M. Minkiler and n. Wallerstein (Eds. It discovers truthfulness. A new initiative to reduce the risks for youth violence, for example, may be refining its action plan while pursuing relatively easy changes in the community, such as posting billboards that warn people of the results of gang-related violence. Action emerges out of interaction between diverse social groups, who often have clashing or at least distinctly different points of view. This is perhaps the most important step in creating an initiative. Bracht, N., (Eds.). Adapting interventions to fit community needs has several advantages. Community evaluation is based on the premise that community initiatives are very complex. Health Promotion, 1-4, iii-v. Beyond demonstration: Diffusion of health promotion innovations. Successful community partnerships develop, adopt, or adapt interventions and promising practices that will work in their community. We put the unity in Community. Finally, we'll end with a discussion examining some of the broad issues and opportunities in community evaluation. Information collected on individuals can't always be generalized to come to a conclusion about the community as a whole.
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