COMMUNITY ASSESSMENT, COMMUNITY HEALTH PROJECT PLANNING, IMPLEMENTATION,

MONITORING AND EVALUATION

Overview of Session The students will be taught

on how to do a community assessment,

prioritization of a specific health problem,

designing a community health program as well as

its implementation, monitoring and

evaluation.

At the end of the session, the studentshould be able to conduct their owncommunity assessment based on ahypotheticalcommunity case and they must be able toconceptualize and plan a health project onThe hypothetical community assignedto them.

COMMUNITY ASSESSMENT A community assessment

is an exercise by which a collaborative partnership gathers information on the current strengths, concerns, and conditions of children, families, and the community.

• The information comes from many sources- especially parents and family members- and is elicited by many techniques, including interviews, focus groups, and scanning demographic data collected by local agencies.

• Because many types of partners participate in a community assessment- strategic planners , program staff, administrators, teachers, parents, and other community members- the resulting information is broad, accurate, and useful.

Community assessments

focus on:• local assets, • resources, and • activities as well

as gaps, barriers, or emerging needs.

The process of identifying and appraising this information will help

your collaborative partnership.• Clearly understand the context in

which families live and the issues families want to address; locate hidden strengths or underutilized resources that could be developed.

• Determine which resources could contribute to comprehensive strategies, and in what way;• Design effective, collaborative strategies

that engage children and families because they respond to real and important conditions; and• Empower families and community

members by giving them a role in designing and implementing the strategies.

Process of conducting a community assessment involves

(1)Scanning the community to locate existing information,

(2)Developing a family focus(3)Identifying community assets and the

degree to which they are accessible to the people who can benefit from them

(4)Analyzing the information obtained through the first three steps.

HEALTH PROJECT PLANNING• Planning requires a critical

analysis of the problem to be addressed. • Problem analysis is important for

developing a goal and objectives for the project that are realistic and achievable.

• Once the goal and objectives are set, strategies for achieving them can be determined.• Resources needed in the project,

and ways to obtain them, are then identified. • The planning process also includes

deciding how the project will be managed, sustained and evaluated.

Major steps in planning, sustaining and evaluating

a health promotion project.

Step 1: Identify the issues or health problems in the community

Needs assessment• Clarifying need is an essential part of

deciding what issue or problem the project will address. • The term ‘needs assessment’ is used to

describe a process of collecting information that will give a good indication of the priority needs of a community.

• It provides an opportunity for the community to become involved in the planning from the beginning. • It helps with allocating resources

and making decisions about where to start with health promotion work.

Classifying NeedsWhen undertaking a needs assessment, it

is important to consider that needs will be thought of differently, depending on whom you consult.

Needs are sometimes classified as:• Normative needs• Felt needs• Expressed needs• Comparative needs

Normative Needs• A discrepancy between an

individual/s or group/s present state and a given norm or standard

Felt Need• A felt need is an individual desire or want

that an individual has to improve either his or her performance. • Asking people what they want is frequently

used in identifying felt needs that attributes may influence what people say they want. • When searching for felt needs, designers

must be aware of needs that are motivated by a desire other than performance improvement.

Expressed Need or Demand• A felt need becomes an expressed need

when people put what they want into actions. For example, if more students sign up for an online course than the seat limit, then there may be an expressed need for more sections of the course. Expressed needs are often identified in suggestion boxes and in-house publications with a question-and-answer or suggestion column.

Comparative Need • A discrepancy between what one

group has and what another group, with similar characteristics, has. A comparative need is present when two groups with similar characteristics do not receive a similar service.

• Sharing the results of the needs assessment with the community is a key part of the planning process.

This process will:• Raise community awareness about the

issues and possible underlying causes• Stimulate discussion about ways to address

the issues• Allows the community to be involved in

planning and decision-making about the project

Consider baseline data• Some of the information gathered during

the needs assessment may be able to be uses as ‘baseline data’. • Baseline data describe the situation or

condition at the time the project or intervention starts. • Data collected later during the

evaluation is then compared against the baseline data to see the effect of the project.

Step 2: Prioritize the Issues or Health Problems

• At the end of Step 1, the project team will have a list of major issues and potential target groups for the project. • There are always competing needs or

issues in any community.• Limitations such as time and resources

mean that not everything can get addressed.

• Issues will need to be prioritized. • Needs and priorities vary from

individual to individual, family to family, group to group. • It is important to work out

criteria to sort out which issue the project will address

Step 3. Identify risk factors and set the goal for the project

• Risk factors- are any aspect of behavior, society or the environment that are directly linked to the health problem. • Risk factors lead to or directly cause the

problem.• Note that some risk factors can be

changed, while others are not able to be modified, for example, family history of a condition.

Example of risk factors:• Eating high fat food (behavioural) and

having a family history of heart disease (biological) are both risk factors for heart disease, People can change their food choices (modifiable) but not their genetics (non-modifiable)• Direct exposure to bacteria to bacteria

and germs (environmental) may be a risk factor for diarrhea.

• Addressing a problem successfully will require the project to focus on the underlying causes or issues that led to the problem in the first place. • In other words, the goal and objectives of

a project need to relate to the underlying causes or issues.• Developing a clear and organized goal and

objectives that relate to each other requires some critical analysis of the problem.

Step 4: Determine contributing factors and state objectives for the project

• Contributing factors- are any aspects of behavior, society or the environment that leads to the risk factors developing. Contributing factors enable or reinforce the risk factors. They can relate to individual, financial, political, educational, environmental, or other issues.

Examples of contributing factors:• Lack of knowledge about low fat diets

(educational) and high cost of low-fat foods in the store (financial) are both contributing factors to the risk factor ‘eating a high fat diet’• Poor housing condition (environmental)

and lack of home hygiene (behavioral) are both contributing factors to the risk factor’ exposure to bacteria and germs’

Developing the project goal and objectivesThe Goal and Objectives:

• Make plan clear and focus that energies of the project team• Let people know what they can expect to

happen as a result of the project• Are the basis for planning the evaluation

of the project

Goal • The goal is about making changes to

the risk factors addressed by project• The goal indicates what the planned,

longer term outcome of the project is• It is also intended to inspire, motivate

and focus people and encourage team cooperation.

Objectives • Objectives state what changes the project

will make to the contributing factors.

• The objectives indicate what the impact will be on the contributing factors during the time frame of the project.• The objectives are about what has to

change in the short term to get closer to achieving the project goal.

• A well written ‘goal and objectives’ state who will achieve how much of what by when. Developing a clear, achievable goal and objectives requires good baseline data

Step 5: Determine what strategies will be

• After the objectives are developed, the strategies are determined. • Strategies describe what it is that the

project team will do to try and make the changes required to achieve the objectives.• Relationship between the goal,

objectives and strategies

• The process for planning a project begins with the big picture (issue of problem). It is an analysis of the big picture issue that gives the framework for developing the plan- from the longer term goal, to more specific objectives, down to the actual strategies, and finally the detail of individual actions.

Step 6: Develop the Action Plan• Once the strategies of the project are

determined, the project team can write the action plan. The action plan includes all the specific activities, large and small, that will need to be done to implement each of these activities, when they will be completed and how they will be evaluated.

• The more detail that is worked out for strategies, the easier it will be to accurately identify all the activities to be done. • If the project is large, with many stages, it

may not be possible to detail all the specific activities at the beginning of the project.• Detailed documentation is also important

for maintaining accountability within the team and between the team and the community or funding agency.

• The action plan will also list the resources required to do the project successfully. Resources will be required throughout the whole project, from needs assessment through putting strategies into action to final report writing.

• Resources can include human resources, financial resources, materials, equipment and venues, dates.

Step 7: Sustain the Project• Planning for sustainability means thinking of

ways to keep the project (or important parts of it) going after its official end. It then becomes an ongoing part of community activity.

• Many factors can threaten sustainability of the project. Project teams need to be on the lookout for these factors and have a plan for dealing with them. Sustainability needs to be considered from the initial planning stages of a project.

Step 8: Evaluate the projectEvaluating a project is about looking critically

at what is happening in the project and making a judgment about its value, worth or benefit (see the word value in evaluate). Evaluation is important because it can tell us:

• How the project is going• What effect it is having• What changes we need to make to improve

it

Major steps in planning, sustaining and evaluating a health

promotion project.1. Identify the issues or health problems

in the community.2. Prioritize the issues or health problems

to identify the one that the project will address.

3. Identify risk factors and set the goal for the project

4. Determine contributing factors and state objectives for the project

5. Determine what strategies will be6. Develop the action plan for the

project. DO IT!7. Sustain the project or keep the

project (or some parts of it) going8. Evaluate the project

END.