Community Needs Assessment- NSTP LECTURE PDF

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Community Needs AssessmentLearning Objectives Define community needs assessment. Explain the importance of community needs assessment. 3 Enumerate the needed data for community needs assessment. 4 Appreciate the value of community needs assessment. Community needs assessment definedCommunity needs a...

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Community Needs Assessment Learning Objectives 1. Define community needs assessment. 2. Explain the importance of community needs assessment. 3 Enumerate the needed data for community needs assessment. 4 Appreciate the value of community needs assessment. Community needs assessment defined Community needs assessment is the process wherein problems, issues and concerns of the community are identified through the use of several tools for assessment. It encourages the participation of the community, as they are the stakeholders, to the findings in the assessment. Needs assessment, social analysis or community diagnosis as others refer to, is a concrete base for the formulation of programs. It reflects the sentiments, needs, aspirations and recommendations of the community people. When it is done properly, it will reflect also the trainees' feeling of oneness with the community. They begin to see that people's problems also reflect their own. Needs assessment becomes significant when it is conducted through integration with the people. Our analysis and assessment should be done with the people. Hence, it does not merely contain our perceptions, but also of the people's for it to be genuinely pro-people. Analysis of social situation becomes meaningful if it is used as an instrument for conscientization. Those immersing in the community must not just make the people realize their issues but also make them to act on it. Their realization of the problems should help make the community realize the relation between their local condition and situation of other communities around them. It important that the people realize that they can do something to change their situation for the better. Assessing the needs of the community is a prelude to effective program offered to clients. This discussion covers the meaning, importance, steps, exercises in preparing community needs assessment instruments that will equip students to prepare similar tool which utilize in measuring the needs or community assigned to them.

Importance of Needs Assessment 1. Gather information about citizen's attitudes and options in order of importance. 2. Determine how citizens rank issues, problems and opportunities in order of importance or urgency. 3. Give citizens a voice in determining policies, goals and priorities.

4 Evaluate current programs and policies. 5. Provide speculations about what people are thinking. 6. Provide speculations about what people really want. Importance to be included in assessing community needs 1. Historical Development - this refers to data on how the community became what it is today and provides insights into the kind of resources to collect and weed. 2. Geographical and Transportation Information- this includes information on the community's patterns and population contributions. 3. Political and Legal Functions- this includes strategies for community based selection (or this may include strategies that community uses for selecting players in the political sphere). 4. Demographic Data - this includes data on age characteristics, size, race, and transience of population. 5. Economic Data - this refers to the economic base, social, cultural, educational, recreational organizations. This includes the values and social pattern.

Sample of Community Needs Assessment Framework/ Design for Urban and Rural Setting Methods in collecting data for Community Needs Assessment 1. Focused Group Discussion (FGD) with key Informants. The key informants of the community are people who hold socially responsible positions such as educators, public officials, clergy and business representatives or those who are active in community events. These are the people who can provide good information that will guide and give you better understanding on historical issues needed by the community. 2. Community Forum/Assembly. This involves holding of group events that may include the entire community. It gives visibility to the leaders and raises the status of the community but it requires lots of planning and publicity. This meeting can be venue where people can express their needs and be immediately validated by the rest of the attendees; Participator action research effectively uses this method. 3 Public records. Public records like national census will provide data and demographic indicators of the community. Data included are, age, gender, educational level, locality, etc. that tend to contribute to library use. 4. Survey. Survey and questionnaires involve asking individuals community about their everyday needs. This can be implemented through following: a. Mailing questionnaires to randomly selected members of the community

b. Performing telephone survey; C. Handing out surveys while people are in an assembly; and d. Posting questionnaires on your public access computer catalog, *An example of this is the Minimum Basic Ne (MBN) Form of the DSWD

Steps in Conducting Needs Assessment

1. Establish a working committee to solicit citizen and community involvement and develop a plan of action. 2. List important aspects that are needed to be looked upon. This may also mean identifying the surveyors' own capability and strength. 3. Identify the population to be surveyed. This also includes making communications with community leaders and authorities of the identified population to facilitate other procedures. 4. Determine the information that is needed. It may be existing information which must be collected or it may be information gathered using a survey Information like demographic profile may be readily gathered from the barangay, municipal or city records office. 5. Select a random sample of person to survey. A good number of representative population to be surveyed will contribute to the validity of the information. 6. Develop and pretest a questionnaire. Afterwards, if the questionnaire was found to be a valid tool for measurement of data, proceed to distributing the questionnaire for community use. 7. Collate the information. 8. Analyze the data, this may be done together with the core group memo of the community. Community participation in analyzing gathered data is important so that they can feel the ownership of the issues and concern their community is may be done 9. Go back to the community for validation of information. This may be done through a community assembly or simple community group discussion. 10. Finalize the document. Make sure there are corresponding recommendations for the issues and concerns found.

Community Assistance in Assessing Needs

1. Help identify community groups and citizens to be involved in the working committee. 2. Facilitate group discussion to identify important issues and set priorities. 3. Help select the sample to be surveyed and design a system to identify respondents. 4. Provide tested questions from which the working committees choose questions that address the issues and concerns. 5. Help design a process to distribute and collect survey questionnaires, code, enter and analyze the resulting data. 6. Provide summary reports of data. 7. Suggest programs to report the results and strategies to solicit community involvement. 8. Work with the citizens to identify courses of action based on the information.

Synthesis Community needs assessment is a means to measure problems, issues and concerns of a specific locality which could be done by interested group with sponsors to establish credibility. It involves steps to follow I order to consider well specific areas which will be included in developing the instruments. It particularly involves the population demographic areas, economic and social level. It is also designed to gather information and help determine how best one can respond to the needs of the community, issues or concerns, and potential areas of intervention. When the needs are identified, the people then must come to an appreciation that there are needs that exist among them and all of them share these needs. They should then visualize their goals and the ideal life they want to achieve and reflect their dreams in life. Finally, know and make your case... Needs assessments are a critical part of community organizing practice/ development work. It is essential to ask the following questions;  

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How do you know there is a problem? How do you know there is a need for a particular intervention? Answering this question entails gathering empirical (objective) and perceptual (subjective) data. How serious is the problem/ need? How pervasive is it? How many people do it affect? Who believe there is a problem/ need? Who is defining the problem/ need? Why at this time?...