Community Assessment
A strong community assessment helps you understand the needs of children and families – and uncover important trends in the communities you serve.
A community assessment can help programs operate more efficiently, with enhanced partnerships, and establish program designs that are responsive to the greatest needs of children, families, and special populations.
Contact us to find out which approach to Community Assessment is right for your organization.
COMMUNITY ACTION AGENCY & HEAD START EFFICIENCIES IN COMMUNITY NEEDS ASSESSMENT
In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Economic Opportunity Act into effect, creating the first movement in the War on Poverty. Through this legislation, new programs were created to support low-income individuals and other vulnerable populations’ self-sufficiency and well-being.
>>read more in the Talking Points Blog
CHANGES TO COMMUNITY ASSESSMENT IN THE 2024 HSPPS FINAL RULE
When the Administration for Children and Families published a new rule making changes to the Head Start Program Performance Standards, the Office of Head Start described these changes as helping to effectively meeting the evolving needs of communities. Community assessment is foundational to program planning and meeting community needs.
>>read more in the Talking Points Blog
Comprehensive Community Assessment. We work with agencies to plan, coordinate, and conduct a full community assessment. With your input, we will create a report that meets all relevant federal requirements, such as Head Start Program Performance Standards (HSPPS), Community Service Block Grant (CSBG) Organizational Standards, or Federally Qualified Health Centers. Because we specialize in data collection and research, your agency won’t have to spend hours combing through data to create a high quality, informative report.
Foundations for Families team members will guide you week-by-week through research, share data, and work with you to summarize key findings and reflections. Our timeline allows us to dig into data, explore new sources of information, and gather input from your stakeholders, if needed. You’ll walk away with a community assessment that will help your agency operate more efficiently and establish or refine program designs that are responsive to the greatest needs of individuals, children, and families in your service area.
Community Assessment Update. If you have an existing community assessment, we’ll conduct a thorough review against relevant federal requirements and provide recommendations for additional data collection to enhance existing data. We’ll also update the key data that is in your current community assessment report, as needed.
We’ll provide you with a standalone document that can be used with your existing community assessment to inform all aspects of program design. With an updated community assessment, you can continuously improve your program(s) in order to implement changes – well-grounded in data – that positively impact the populations most in need of services in your communities.
Gathering Data to Support a Competitive Application. Every competitive grant application has criteria that you must meet. High-quality data collection and analysis can support your program’s ability to respond to those criteria. Collecting key data points, in addition to updating your existing community assessment, can help you prepare a high quality, competitive grant application.
FFF was very organized and thorough. Any question we had was met with thoughtfulness and guidance to come to a clear understanding. I felt the final products were designed for our agency specifically.
The final update on the Community Assessment was very comprehensive and will change the composition of future Community Assessments in years to come. Updating the Community Assessment was important and then making that connection to the actual grant writing was also valuable.