Model Overview
The model operationalizes a community-based process designed to build capacity to plan, implement and ultimately make decisions about investments in child and family serving interventions. The process focuses on the management of community efforts to address significant issues and includes a series of tools and procedures that community members can use to facilitate their collaborative efforts to address a variety of concerns related to community well-being. These tools and procedures are based on the most current community development theories and experiences of practitioners across the country.
The figure below provides a graphic representation of the process. Data and information “inform” several key activities. These activities include planning and implementing responses to address issues of concern in the community. Planning focuses on identifying “strategic actions” that have a high probability of being implemented and producing meaningful outcomes. Planning and implementation are supported by several additional activities. Needs assessment focuses continual analyses of community conditions and identification of significant community “needs” Mobilization involves a variety of activities designed to increase awareness and community support and evaluation focuses on measuring progress toward community goals.
The process provides the opportunity for one or more members of the community to develop skills in the areas of making decisions about the array of programming to provide; managing interactions between programs; and measuring progress toward desired community change. These skills include managing community collaborations; needs and resource assessment; facilitating community decisions about optimal investments to achieve desired outcomes; evaluating progress at the community and individual program levels; and reporting progress to the community.
