Community Analysis for Social Work and Health Workers

Our mistake is that we have been focused on how to help people without attention to the complexities of human behavior and the economics of choice. Part of the blame is due to our limited scope ecologically. We have traditionally only looked at the individual and the institution. We ignored the tools we had to explore the environment. In a chess analogy, we only looked at the player and the pieces. We neglected to pay attention to the board.

Even if we are providing great, exceptional, excellent service, we still need to be concerned about the outcomes. Not just the immediate experience of our clients but how they continue to function, their level of independence and self-sufficiency, their function and influence within the system of social life and give-back to social support mechanisms.

Environmental practice is comprised of 5 constructs: Culture, Health, Economics, Politics, and Technology. The ecology of institutions as made up of individuals and operating in the context of the social environment is the ecology into which environmental practice fits. Each of the terms creates a context or chess board of influences or rules for human behavior choice and interaction.

When proposing to build a community analysis report, you want to have a clear conception of the Community Access Factors. I think of them also as social determinants of health, even though the literature on social determinants does not list these factors in the way I am using them. They tend to focus on the question of access along with listing areas where access is limited. My usage of the term sets the limitation (blame) squarely at the feet of access.

At this point in the process, many consultants and professionals want to conduct a community needs assessment. They are looking for an answer to some of the community deficit, service gaps, and opportunity questions. Many are hindered by the questions they ask: Even though we know the deficiencies, how are we going to help people? It is more sustainable to ask: How do we influence their choices?

We look at the funding mechanisms and categories examining current projects in the community are funded. This provides you with both a view of potential funders, but maybe more importantly, a view of the passion and purpose behind the initiatives in a community. It is one thing to know that a program is up and running. It is quite another to know that it is proudly funded by local donors, or it is endowed by a prominent local foundation, or it is struggling to make payroll each month from grants that are uncertain.

Goals are in order of the process just before the action phase. Consider them more like a plan of action than you may have perceived them up to this point. What you may have been thinking of prior is goals that are a vision of what you hope to accomplish. This process produces goals that operationalize vision based on evidence that can be measured for process, outcome, and impact.

Back in the 1990s, we discussed a Continuum of Care or Collaboratives Model. At that time, grant proposal writers and foundations talked about grant funding being reserved from active community partnerships. Collective impact takes that requirement to another level adding a requirement for shared evaluation, expectations, and partnerships across communities. It also synonymous with tracing the turnover of every dollar of investment. It is converting outcomes into financial terms—a foundation for measuring the impact of donated dollars.

Our goal is to move from meetings to equipping and retooling. Partners are not just social contacts. They are parts of a community body that, when functioning at a high level, operates for the lifting and progress of the whole ecosystem.

The final piece is our Process Impact Summative Evaluation. We are not just looking at the outcome. We are interested in the process, the outcomes, and the impact of our intervention. We desire to measure these three over time. The resultant report provides us with a story arc that informs replication of successful programs, community pride, and a historical record.