Community Readiness

1. Community Readiness

2. What is community readiness? Community readiness is the degree to which a community is ready to take action on an issue.

3. Community readiness is: • Issue-specific. • Measurable. • Measurable across multiple dimensions. • Variable across dimensions. • Variable across different segments of the community. • Able to be increased successfully. • Is essential knowledge for addressing the issue.

4. What is the community readiness model? The community readiness model has six dimensions and nine levels.

5. Dimensions of community readiness: • Community efforts. • Community knowledge of the efforts. • Leadership. • Community climate. • Community knowledge about the issue. • Resources related to the issue.

6. Levels of community readiness: • No awareness • Denial / Resistance • Vague awareness • Preplanning • Preparation • Initiation • Stabilization • Confirmation / Expansion • High level of community ownership

7. Why use the community readiness model? • It conserves valuable resources (time, money, people) by guiding the selection of strategies that are most likely to be successful. • It is an efficient, inexpensive, easy-to-use tool • It promotes community recognition and ownership of the issue. • Because of strong community ownership, it helps assure that strategies are culturally congruent and sustainable.

8. Why use the community readiness model? • It encourages the use of local experts and resources instead or reliance on outside experts and resources. • The process of community change can be complex and challenging, but the model breaks down the process into a series of manageable steps. • It creates a community vision for healthy change.

9. When should you use the community readiness model? • In the course of an ongoing effort. • Each time you tackle a new issue. • When several different communities, or different segments of the community, are involved. • When you’re planning an effort that involves a participatory process. • When you’ve engaged in a community or neighborhood planning effort.

10. Who should be involved in using the community readiness model?

11. Who should consider using the model and/or administering the assessment? • Policy makers and planners. • Community activists. • Health and human service organizations. • Coalitions. • Anyone else interested in community or social change.

12. Who should be surveyed when the model is being applied? • Schools/Universities. • Municipal/County/Tribal Government. • Law enforcement. • Health and medical professions. • Social services. • Mental health and treatment services. • Community at large. • Youth. • People on fixed incomes.

13. How do you use the community readiness model?

14. Administering and scoring the community readiness assessment • Choose and train interviewers. • Choose and train scorers. • Revise the assessment tool, if necessary, to reflect the issue you’re concerned with. • Select four to ten people to interview. • Contact the people you have identified and see if they would be willing to discuss the issue. • Conduct your interviews. • Score the interviews.

15. Using Community Readiness Information: • Initiate a participatory planning process, if possible. • To move ahead, readiness on all dimensions must be at about the same level. • Begin with strategies appropriate to the communities stage of readiness. • Stick to it—the job’s never really done.