Enhanced Needs & Assets Assessment Resources

Advancing Better Outcomes for All Children: Reporting Data Using A Racial Equity Lens

Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2008 This guide provides users with guidelines and tips for presenting data on race and racial equity in responsible ways that produce a strong case for addressing equity for all children.

Assessing Community Needs and Resources (Chapter 3)

Community Toolbox, Work Group for Community Health and Development, University of Kansas, 2012 This chapter in the Community Toolbox, a resource for free information on essential skills for building healthy communities, provides tools, checklists, real world examples, and PowerPoint summaries to help support the preparation of a community assessment.

Basic Field Guide to the Positive Deviance Approach

Positive Deviance Initiative, 2010This brief guide provides a basic understanding of how to apply the strength-based, positive deviance problem-solving approach for behavior and social change in your community. This approach enables the community to discover existing solutions to complex problems within the community.

Brainstorm: Community Assets

Healthy People 2020,U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2012 This one-page tool from the Healthy People 2020 website page on assessing community resources, provides a helpful checklist of community assets in six categories for working with your planning group to take stock of the strengths in your community. The website page provides additional information and resources for assessing and prioritizing your community’s needs and assets with a social determinants lens.

Community Health Assessment and Group Evaluation (CHANGE) Action Guide: Building a Foundation of Knowledge to Prioritize Community Needs

Center for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2010— This comprehensive data-collection tool and planning resource assists community members to gather and organize data on community assets and facilitates identification of actions to transform communities to support healthy living. Easy-to-use Excel spreadsheets are included for collection of local-level data from schools, work sites, community organizations, and health care facilities.

Community Needs Assessment Tool Kit

Missouri Association for Community Action, 2009—Developed for use by community action agencies in Missouri, this tool kit guides users through an integrated needs assessment to build an understanding of social determinants in the community. Included are information and tools for data gathering involving community members around conditions of poverty and related issues of employment, income, education, housing, nutrition, transportation, and health; analysis; prioritizing of issues; and steps for strategic planning.

The Community Toolbox

Workgroup for Community Health and Development, University of Kansas—This website provides step-by-step guidance, practical tools and evidence-based approaches for engaging communities to promote community health and development. Chapter 3 provides extensive information and resources on community needs and assets assessment.

Racial Equity Impact Analysis: Assessing Policies, Programs, and Practices

Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2006 This one-page tool, part of the “Race Matters Toolkit,”  provides a set of five guiding questions to use with broad community participation to assess specifically what kinds of racial outcomes are likely to result from existing and proposed policies, programs, or practices that involve your organization

See it Our Way: Participatory photography as a tool for advocacy

Photovoice, 2011This resource from the Photovoice website explains how helping people use photography to record, reflect on, and promote dialogue around their community’s problems and strengths can add value and impact to an advocacy campaign and gives clear practical pointers to how to go about planning and setting up such a project.

Working with Diverse Communities: Strategies Guided by Best Practiceyellow star icon indicating that the item is a JSI publication.

JSI Research & Training Institute (JSI), 2012— To help Part A grantees to effectively address disparities and inequities in adolescent health, this document provides a list of recommended strategies specific to working with diverse communities around teen pregnancy prevention.