Iowa Community Action Association Janet Carl, Facilitator

 1. Authorizing legislation  2. Richer information  3. First step in ROMA planning cycle  4. Gain new partnerships/resources  5. Clearly link needs to strategies

“The plan has always been to use these [statewide surveys] as starting points in the needs assessment process…. With that said, these surveys are designed to identify, for each agency, the ‘general’ areas of needs in the state and in each of the agencies’ service area. Agencies should then create their own agency-specific, need-specific surveys based on the information from these surveys. ”

 “A Community Action Guide to Comprehensive Community Needs Assessment”   Barbara Mooney, EdD  Margaret Power, PhD

 --New attitude, skill or knowledge or changed reality, increased capacity  --Individual, agency, community levels of outcomes

 1. Agree on a new/expanded approach  2. Define community, needs, assets  3. Create assessment plan  4. Create data collection plan  5. Implement plan  6. Analyze data; report and interpret findings

 1.geographical boundaries  2. overlapping political authorities  3. populations with common characteristics, interests  Needs: categorize them  Assets: tangible and intangible

 Assessment Coordinator  Agency/board team

What are the 2-6 questions you’d really like the answers to? --economic and social trends --effect of family trends (e.g., divorce, educational level) on employment, security and well being --future employment opportunities --particular populations

What DataWho or what has it?How is it collected? Data profile of county residents: age, income, employment status, health status, family structure, education level Income support program participation Census, American Community Survey State census data survey (IA counties book) State Public Health State Education State Human Services CAA database Extracts of databases in electronic format; may have to be requested Analysis of agency client database statistics Interviews with former CAA participants

 Implement data collection plan  Analyze data and report

 What target population are you particularly interested in?  What specifically do you want to know about this population in terms of both needs and assets?  What specifically do you want to know about community and agency capacity to address this group’s needs?

 Where did you find data already existing?  What other data did you gather?  Lessons learned from your needs assessment process

Databases Public—census, state departments, counties, towns, chambers of commerce Private—CAA—agency and state numbers including NPI reports, Head Start data, CSBG

 1. Staff suggest questions  2. Inquire about assets  3. Don’t re-invent the wheel  4. Not a customer satisfaction measurement  5. Skip the jargon

Re-write: What do you think is the main cause of poverty in our community?

 Focus groups  Community Forums  Interviews

1. Avoid pages of raw data 2. Compare data from different times, places and groups—relate to your framework 3. Organize into sections by framework 4. Test conclusions 5. Different reports, different stakeholders

 Director of Community Development & Planning, Missouri Valley Community Action Agency  How has your recent needs assessment allowed your agency to seek new partners and new funding?