404 lecture

Hi, everyone. Welcome to the lecture for today. My name is ELISA and I'm the lecture in charge for O. T. H Y 403 on the Sydney campus. And today we are going to begin a series of lectures where we're looking at project Proposal development. So project proposals are really key part of our practises occupational therapists when we're working with communities so including the kind of development of project proposals and then the implementation of those projects. And in today's lecture, we're going to be particularly focusing on building a community profile using participatory approaches. So building a community profile is a really important step that comes before we start to develop a project proposal. And it's a really key part of the groundwork that needs to be done before a project is developed and implemented. So in the lecture today, we're going to develop an understanding of what a community profile is and why we would do a community profile. We're also going to look to understand the elements of a community profile and how you would go about undertaking a community profile in a way that is participatory so that you are involving the members of the community in the community profiling process. Um, and as I said, if we're kind of thinking about why do we need to learn about this? And Well, that's because that developing a community profile is a really important step that comes before project proposal development. So obviously, as part of this unit, you're not going to have the opportunity to go out and work with the community to develop a project proposal. But normally, if you were out there practising, working in community centred practise, this is one of the first steps that you would undertake with the community. And so it's important for you to really understand what a community profile is and what that process involves, because it's such an essential, um, part of the groundwork to developing a project proposal. So let's start off by looking at a definition of a community profile so we can see a definition there from Horton and Percy Smith, and they define a community profile as a comprehensive description of the needs of a population that is defined or defines itself as a community and the resources that exist within the community. Carried out with the active involvement of the community itself for the purpose of developing an action plan or other means of improving the quality of life of the community. There's actually quite a lot in that definition that is important for us to understand in terms of a community profile. So let's pull that definition apart a little bit so that we've got a better understanding of what its meaning. So we can see there that the first thing about a community profile is that it is comprehensive. So what we're trying to do when the community profile is really to take note of all the different aspects of the life of the community, so we want to learn about the community is a place, so this can be the physical environment. We want to learn about the community as a social environment. So this is the level of the involvement of people within the community. Um, we're kind of particularly interested in things such as their relationships that exist within the community. So what's the extent of support that's available in the community? What kind of formal or informal networks exist within the community? We're also interested in learning about the economic life of the community. So what are the kind of income, levels or viability for different projects or services? We want to learn about the political aspect of the community. Uh, so what kind of systems and structures of representation are in place? Uh, to what extent can people in the community influence the decisions that impact on them? Also, we can learn about the community as a personal space. So this is things such as the degree of attachment that people might have to a particular community. Um, what memories to people have what life experiences have been important to them as part of that community. And then, lastly, we're interested in the community in terms of how it's situated as part of its city. Um, so of course, there are things that are happening within the community. But every community has links to outside of their community as well. So looking at things such as infrastructure links or economic or social linkages that might occur between the community and say, the city or the district of which that community is a part of. So it's comprehensive, and it is a description of the needs of the community as well. So when we're talking about the needs of the community, we're talking about all the important concerns for the community and what that community thinks is needed now. Later in the lecture, we're going to look at in a bit more detail about what we kind of mean by needs and, you know, acknowledging that there can be some quite complex debates about what constitutes and needs, Um, but we won't get into that too much right now. We'll come back to that later in the lecture. But the important thing to be thinking about at this point in understanding what a community profile is is that it's what are the important concerns for the community. So we've got a comprehensive description of the needs, but we've also got a comprehensive description of the resources that exist within that community. So what are we talking about when we're talking about resources? For we're talking about assets that are held in the community and can be put to use for the benefit of a community, And one of the things that often happens within the community is that there can also be underutilised resources, and so it's really important. As part of the community profile activities to find out what these underutilised resources are and how they could be utilised more effectively. So we're looking for kind of any untapped resources. This potentially also resources which don't currently serve any purpose. Um, but they could potentially be really useful if they were put to use by the community. Um, and if they were appropriately kind of developed and then there's also things such as intangible resources as well. So this is things such as the skills of community members, um, networks of support, whether those are informal or formal networks of support that exist within the community as well. So a community profiles can see there is carried out with the active involvement of a community. And so we've talked so much within this unit about the importance of being participatory. So again, when it comes to doing a community profile activity, we want to do it in a way that is participatory. So, of course, it is possible to develop a community profile without the active involvement of community members. Um, and certainly this has historically been something that that might have happened. But the problem with that is that you run the risk of really important information and insights being lost if a community profile is undertaken without any active involvement of community members. So if you can actively involve the community, what you are going to get as a result is a much fuller, more comprehensive and accurate description of the community, and this is going to be a much, much better base for you on which to build a project proposal. The other thing that's important to think about with active involvement is that it also offers a really crucial, important opportunity by which the community can become empowered. So as community members participate in that process of developing a community profile, um, they have the opportunity to develop different skills, different confidence. Um, and they also often will become aware of the issues that are impacting their community in a far more comprehensive way than perhaps they might have been before. And so the gaining of that knowledge in terms of the understanding of what's happening for the community is a really important step in terms of empowerment for community members. So such a such a great opportunity, and we can see there that community profile has a particular purpose, and that purpose is of developing an action plan or other means of improving the quality of life of the community members. So community profile is not just about collecting information about the needs and the resources of the community, but they're not doing anything with that. We don't know, do a community profile just to stick a report on a shelf and not to do anything with it. There's a purpose. And so we need to move from the identification of those needs and resources and assets through to the production of some sort of action plan, and that is going to lead to improvement in the quality of life of a community. Now, most often, I think, particularly in our work as occupational therapist, the outcome or the action plan comes in the form of a project proposal, Um, and then looking at working with that community to implement that project proposal. It's not just a project. Proposals, though, are the only kind of form of action that might come out of a community profile. Some of the other things that might lead to things like a policy development. It could lead to something like a funding application as well, or perhaps a strategy document for for a community. Um, but as I said most often, I think it leads to a project proposal and that's what we're going to be focusing on in this unit over the next few weeks. So a community profile helps us to answer a number of really important questions. It helps us know in our work with communities what we're doing and why we're doing it. It helps to really hone in on what the primary purposes are. What are the critical issues that are impacting on the community, the real needs of that community to be addressed? It also really helps with identifying the real assets and the capacities of the community and to think about whether or not we are building on those assets and capacities while also servicing the needs of the community and the community. Profile can also be helpful for us in knowing that our programmes or the services are effective, that we're achieving things such as sustainability that were making the best kind of possible use of resources effectively, Um, so in thinking about that, a community profile may not be something that you only do once you might actually do it multiple times. So perhaps you do a community profile and then working in collaboration with the community to implement some different projects. And then you might come back to the community profile again at a later date and see well, what shifted? Have we seen any change in the kinds of needs that have been identified in the community? Um, do we have any additional assets or resources as a result of capacity building? Um, are those resources being used as effectively as what they possibly could be? So So it can be a kind of interim process that that we come back to as well. So this is the project cycle, and in the lectures that are going to follow this lecture, we will look at this project cycle in more detail. But I think for the purpose of this like shell just important to note that we can see that a community profile, or sometimes it is referred to as an asset and needs assessment, is that crucial first step that comes before we get into that project planning or that project proposal development. So there are a couple of different approaches to completing community profiles. And we've We've talked about this in some of the earlier lectures for the unit, but I think it's really worthwhile just reminding ourselves again of these different approaches and the importance of taking a strengths based approach. Um, so as I'm sure you're all familiar with the analogy around a glass half empty or a glass half full, so when it comes to completing a community profile, we're not wanting to focus on what is not there or having a deficit approach to the community profile. We are wanting to really focus on having that strength based approach where we're interested in what is there already? Uh, so I think, most often in the past, community profiles have taken more of a needs based approach. And again, we can see this represented here in the diagram, which was developed by Mike Green. And so it's not to say that these efforts haven't been, um, well intentioned. But as governments and donor agencies or university or the media have really focused on what the needs and the problems of communities are looking to develop services to to meet those needs, Um, but unfortunately, in the process of doing that, they have inadvertently kind of presented a one sided, very negative view, and this is often compromised rather than contributed to community capacity building. So as we can see their people in community stop acting like citizens instead, they begin to to act like clients or consumers of services. Uh, and again, we've looked at some of the consequences of having a deficit based approach. So you'll remember this as well, from from earlier lectures and also from the Ted Talk that we saw from Cormac Russell, where he discussed those, um and so we can see that some of those consequences are their having a needs based approach or a deficit based approach. When it comes to community, profiling really ignores the community's capacities and strengths. Um, and so what we find is that community leaders find that the best way to attract resources is really to play up the needs or the problems of the community. Um, and often what we'll see is that people within the community will judge the effectiveness of their leaders on the basis of whether or not they can attract resources to the community. The problem with that is that people within the community start to internalise, um, that negative view of themselves as being deficient or incapable of initiating positive change in their lives or in the community. And so this can lead to feelings of hopelessness. Another consequence is that people in the community begin to turn to external parties for help rather than to people or groups within their own community. So this really kind of reinforces that perception that only outside experts can provide any real help. And so this further kind of weakens those relationships that exist between people and groups within the community. Funding tends to be made available on the basis of categories of re need, rather than some of the more integrated approaches which are needed to to address what is happening in the community. And so this can really result in quite fragmented efforts to provide solutions. And funding tends to be directed then to not to people in the community but to service providers who are addressing those needs. And so, unfortunately, perversely, those service providers develop a vested interest in maintaining this dependency. So some quite devastating consequences, really for communities. When we take that needs based approach. And so it is imperative, um, that when we're looking at community profiling and project proposal development, we're really wanting to make sure that we're taking an asset based approach. So focusing on what is there, how can people within that community come together and connect and make a contribution to their community using their assets? And this really enables people to be citizens and and to be the answer rather than programmes or services being the answer. A couple of other factors, which are in favour of taking an asset based approach to community profiling and project proposal development first, is that research evidence tells us that community development or change only occurs when people in the community are really committed to investing themselves and their resources in the effort. And secondly, for many communities, you know, there's little likelihood of any significant outside help arriving that is going to be the cure for all of the community's needs and problems, Um, for example, in the form of a large kind of government grant, um, so the hard truth is that that development or change must start from within a community, and for a lot of communities a little kind of choice about this, other than to try to initiate and to make that change themselves. So asset based community profiling, as we talked about, is an exercise in empowerment, because when people discover what they have, they find power. And when people joined together in new connections and relationships, they build power. And when people become more productive together, they exercise their power to address problems and realise their dreams. So let's look at some of the principles then of asset based community profiling. One of the first important principles is to recognise that everybody has gifts so everybody within the community can contribute and typically want to contribute in some way. And so a really important part of asset based community profiling is discovering what gifts and talents people have. Relationships also build a community, so identifying relationships, creating opportunities for relationship building to occur, um, is an important part of asset based community profiling, So anything we can do to build or to nourish relationships is really core to asset based community profiling. Citizens are at the centre, so it is essential to engage the community as citizens, Um, and not just as recipients of services. People care about something. Um, so when you can discover what it is that people are really passionate about, um then that's when people are going to be motivated to act about something. Um, so we're really striving as part of that asset based community profiling process to find out? What is it that the people within the community care about? Um, if they feel strongly about it, Um, you know about the concerns that have been raised or about the dreams that they want to see realised for their community? Um, then they're really going to be motivated to act. And how are we going to find out this? Well, we're going to have listening conversations with people and whether that's one on one or in small group conversations. Um, but these are the ways of discovering what it is that people care about and what they're motivated to act about. Asking lots of of questions. Ask, ask, ask, you know, and take taking time to to ask. This is not a process that we want to rush. It's so easy to kind of miss things if we just to kind of surface level, uh, look in terms of of community profiling. Asking questions rather than giving answers is a way of ensuring that people are going to be committed and want to participate. Um, as well, they're going to have more kind of buy in, Um, if there's lots of opportunity to ask questions and for you to listen and citizen centred, um inside our organisation is the key. So this is one where local people control what is happening and set the agenda. So I think, always remembering as we've talked about in this unit before, you're really wanting to take on that role of getting alongside community members and supporting them to act so less about you're going in. There is the expert leading the process, um, but rather supporting citizens and community members to lead the process and to set the agenda. So what are some of the key features of asset based community profile? As I just said, then it's owned, and it's controlled by the local people. It's when local people are acting as productive citizens rather than service recipients. We are wanting to look for resources both inside and outside of the communities. It can be both cooperative and challenging So we're looking to build connections among people and groups. Um, but at the same time, you know, we're wanting to kind of challenge the community about making change as well. And this can be easier for some people than others to kind of talk about and think about change. So when we're working with communities and we're thinking about during community profiles and developing project proposals, as we said, it kind of results in the action plan, which is looking at improving the quality of life of people within the community. Um, and so it's possible that sometimes people within the community may not want any change. They might want things just to continue as they are. So it can be a process that is challenging but challenging in a positive way. Because it is always looking to improve quality of life. It involves broad participation. Uh, so as we talked about, every member of the community has got a gift to offer. So it's not just about designated leaders, um, and so it's inclusive because there is no one who has gifts that are not needed as part of the process. So there are kind of four key elements to our community profiles, and you'll see those kind of reflected in that definition that we started with. So we're interested in assets were interested in needs, but we're also interested in gaps and priorities as well. So this is just an example. Often mapping is used as part of a community profiling process, Um, and so this is an example of two maps here so you can see the map that is on the left hand side. There is a need zmapp, and it's not to say that those needs don't exist within a community. But what's important to realise is that only tells us what half the story of that community is. Because not only does every community have needs but every case, community also has assets and capacities, and communities are not built on their deficiencies or their problems. Building communities relies on mobilising the capacities and assets of a community and its people. So why should you spend so much time as part of the community profile to identify community assets? What's because they can be used as the foundation for community improvement as we talked about external resources or grants may not be available therefore, the resources for change must come from within the community. Identifying and mobilising community assets also enables community members to gain control over their lives, so in doing so, it facilitates community empowerment and self determination. We also know that improvement efforts are more effective and longer lasting When community members dedicate their time and their talents to the changes that they desire. You can't fully understand the community without identifying its assets. So knowing the community strengths, um, you know, really helps you to understand the community. It helps you to know what kind of programmes or initiatives might be possible to address what the community needs and when efforts are planned on the strength of a community, people are likely to feel more positive about them and to believe that they can succeed. So it's a lot easier to gain community support for an effort that emphasises the positive. So, you know, we've got the resources within our community to deal with this. We can do it. Um, that's much easier than one that stresses how large a problem it is and how difficult it is going to be to solve. So community assets are resources that become valuable when they're brought together, and they're made productive. So craftsman and McKnight, Um, so these are the two gentlemen that have done a lot of work, particularly initially across the U. S. But now also on an international basis of of looking at communities and trying to discover what are the six kind of assets upon which communities can build their future. And they've identified these six different types of assets, which are really crucial to look for when we're mapping capacities and assets as part of community profiling. So this really becomes the focus of an asset assessment. So we'll run through these six different areas. The first one is identifying people's assets. And I think a good thing to realise is that people usually have more assets than what they think they do. So it can be really surprising when you're working with the community how narrow an idea people can have about who in the community might be helpful. So if you were to go out to your community and, uh, to survey people and to say, Look, you know who in your community do you think could be really helpful kind of common answers that you might get a people like police or, um, emergency other emergency services like the Fire Brigade or perhaps healthcare professionals. But everybody has got gifts. Everyone's got talents. Everyone's got skills to contribute. And when we're purposefully looking for these gifts and assets that it's quite amazing the types of things that you will discover. So the key is asking, asking, asking and not rushing the process, really taking time. So when you're talking with community members about their assets, um, I think quite a helpful way to help people to think a little bit more broadly about the types of assets and gifts that might be present in the community is talking about gifts at the head. So what are the things that we know something about or will enjoy talking with others about? What are people's gifts of the heart? What are the things that they care deeply about and what are the gifts of the hands? So these are the things or the skills that they know how to do, and that they would like to share with others. How do you identify individual gifts? Um, doing a capacity. Torrey Inventory is a really good way. And so this is divided into four parts where we look at the skills that people have, Um, and they can be on an individual level, the community skills that are present, um, enterprising interests and experience and also some personal information. And you'll remember earlier on in the unit we played the weekend game. Doing something like that is quite a fun and creative and participatory way of doing a capacity Torrey inventory for, uh, for a community, the second category of assets that craftsman and McKnight suggests we need to look for others networks of support. Uh, and this is where we're wanting to find out about the relationships that exist between people in the community. Uh, and particularly things such a social capital. What's the degree of trust that exists within the community? To what extent? Um, is there a situation where you know I can do something for you and you can do something for me? So that, um, that idea of of supporting each other and of using our our skills and our assets in a way that is for the good of others and the good of the community. The third category of assets is around existing community programmes and services and I think this is really important for us to know about, particularly as we're preparing for project development because we're never wanting to develop a project or a programme that is duplicating something that is already existing within the community. Um so we don't want a situation where everyone just has really siloed efforts and where, um it's not a good use of resources to have multiple programmes during the same thing within the community. So we're always wanting to know what existing community programmes and services are there and that any kind of programme or project that we're thinking about is going to be complementary to those existing programmes and services. We want to know about what physical resources exist within the community. Um and so things such as space buildings, equipment, supplies, furniture, but also the natural environment as well and lots of kind of community projects and other things do involve the natural environments are thinking about, you know, things such as parks or beaches or how much of an impact like the weather going going to have on any project that we're thinking about and then of course thinking about outside assets as well. And how can we tap into those outside assets in a way that might be supportive for the community? So are the external funding opportunities that we can tap into public information. Um, policy is really important as well. If a project that we're thinking about is linked to a current policy initiative and whether that be at a local level or a state or a national level, that can often really be helpful in terms of mobilising resources, um, and also thinking about things such as as facilities as well. So that's the kind of assets section of the elements of a community profile. So we'll move on now to the second element of a community profile, which is looking at needs now on first appearance. The process of mapping needs might appear to be a fairly kind of straight forward process. However, the concept of need can be quite complicated. So when we're mapping community needs, it's really important for us to know which type of need we are mapping. Um, and which type of need is the best fit when we're taking a community centred approach so you can see from the definition there. Bradshaw, who has done some seminal work around different types of needs. He identifies four different types of needs so normative needs felt needs, expressed needs and comparative needs. So let's have a look at what those four different types of needs are so normative needs. These are typically defined by external experts on the basis of their knowledge. Normative by its definition implies that a standard has been conceived so or consensus set by an authority. And this stand is the standard against which their community is measured. So to give you an example of that, a really kind of common, uh, standard or indicator that is of well being is the poverty line. Um, and this is based on the calculation of the level of income that's required by an individual or a family to maintain an adequate standard of living. So you often hear they're sending, such as news reports or maybe reports from the World Health Organisation or the United Nations. They often report on how many people within a particular community might be living above or below the poverty line. So that's an example of when we're looking at need on the basis of normative needs comparative needs. So they're linked to normative needs. But this is where needs are identified by comparing the services which are received by one group of individuals, um, with those that are received by another comparable group. Uh, so to give you an example of that, you might have to communities that are quite similar. Um, and those two communities might have the same, uh, proportion of the population who are experiencing diabetes. Um, but one community has access to, uh, three hospitals. Um, you know, four outpatient clinics, um, 20 GP clinics. Um, whereas the other community has no hospitals to outpatient clinics. Um, you know, maybe five GP clinics. So So we can see that the second community has a greater need because they have less access, um, to services than the first community in terms of addressing the need around diabetes felt needs. On the other hand, these are needs that are articulated by community members themselves. So if you go directly to the people within the community and survey them or interview them, I asked them about what their needs are. Then this is what people will describe as being their needs. So when we're thinking about working from a community centre practise perspective, felt needs are really important. So we think about those principles of community centre practise where we're wanting to hear from the voice of everybody, um, them felt needs are important because it gives us an opportunity to hear the views of people within the community and particularly to hear the views of those people who may be experiencing disadvantage. Breast needs are best understood as felt needs that are translated into action. So an example of an express need for a service might be something like a waiting list or a petition. Um, so if we go back to our previous example about a community where lots of people might be experiencing diabetes and so when you interview people, um, they might, uh, tell you about that need. But it becomes it moves from being a felt need to an express need, Um, when people do things like put their name on a waiting list for diabetes service or if they get together and sign a community petition where they're requesting more services for for diabetes, it is important, though, to know, uh, that sometimes express needs can can be a little bit misleading, and they they might understate the level of a need. So to give you an example about that, we might have a community where one of the significant needs of the community is, um is people experiencing depression and anxiety so there might be a really high level of need in terms of mental health services. Um, but because of stick associated with mental health, people may choose not to access mental health services or not to sign a petition requesting services or not to put their name on a waiting list for service. So if we were just to go off the waiting list, we would think are actually, there's not a high level of need here, But that's not true. There is a high level of need. It's just that stigma is preventing people from from accessing those services. Um, so we need to be careful about how we interpret, um, expressed needs. And then, lastly, we also have anticipatory needs. And this is, um this is what needs to be done in order for a community to move forward towards reaching a specified future. Uh, so this is where you might have a conversation with the community about in this is where your community is now. In 10 or 15 years time, Where would you like to see your community get to? And then if we have to think about what is needed in order for a community to get from point A where it is currently two to point B in the future and that would be an example of the anticipatory needs. So when we are undertaking a community profiles things to think about in terms of needs have we identified all the different types of needs? Um And so when you're looking at the data that you have, um, is it just representative of one particular type of need and have you miss looking at the other types of needs? And there are strengths and weaknesses associated with collecting data on all those different types of needs. Um and so it's important to kind of weigh up the pros and the cons and thinking also about in terms of project proposals. What type of need is going to be the most important one to focus on, because this is really going to impact Then, on the priorities that you're seeking to address as part of the project proposal. There are competing needs and expectations that can exist within a community. And, um uh, you know, a big part of doing community profiles and and going on to develop things such as as Project projects is negotiating those competing needs and those expectations. And that's why those next two steps, in terms of the elements of a community profiles so identify what gaps exist between needs and existing assets and working out which need to focus on or to prioritise, um becomes really important. So let's have a look now at the third element of a community profile, which is gaps. So remembering that at this point in time we've identified all the assets of the community. We've identified all the different needs of the community. Um, and now we're going to move on to looking at gaps. Now, a gap analysis, um, is fairly straightforward, but this is the process of comparing, um, the actual condition that we've got with ideal conditions. So the way in which we start a gap analysis is that we look at all of the list of assets that are available in that community, and we compare that to what is required to address all of the different needs that we have identified in the community. So we're comparing the assets of the community against the identified needs within that community. So you'll need to least anything that is required to address the needs identified in the needs assessment of the community profile, and then look at the assets that are available in the community and compare that to what is required to address the needs that are identified in needs assessment phase. Are there any attributes that are common between the two? Um and if so, then that's great. Then, um, you know, we've already got what we need. Um, so there are always, um, generally, though going to be some gaps. Um, and so you know, when we're doing that matching process between the assets that we have and what's required to address the need, um, we don't usually have every asset or everything that we need. Um, that that is required. So then we wanted to look at gaps. And once our gap analysis is complete and and we know, um, you know where the holes in terms of the assets or the resources that we require, Um, then that's going to help us to know what our focus is. The next step, then, is for the community organisation. Might undertake is to develop a strategic plan or, um, to develop a policy statement. But as we said earlier, usually it is a project proposal that is going to focus on how those gaps can be filled. So if identified, all the assets, we've identified all the needs. We've gone through that matching process to see if there are any existing needs within the community that we can already address with our existing assets. But then we've identified what needs are left over and what gaps we have. But now, out of those gaps, how are we going to work out which one we're going to focus on? It's unlikely, um, that we're going to be able to address all the gaps at the same time, and so therefore the community is going to have to make a choice about what's most important for them to respond to at this particular point in time. How does the community you go about making that decision? You know, how do they decide what important means, who gets to choose what that priority is going to be. So that's where we have to look at developing a criteria and a process for prioritising. Which needs are going to be the first thing that a community focuses on before we kind of get into that. Let's look at some definitions. So first of all, we've got criteria. So as you can see, there are criteria is the standard for for making a judgement. So criteria provide guidelines for for making a decision? Um, they aren't set in stone. Um, and so the criteria that a community uses, um, for making one type of decision, you know, might be quite different, um, to to making a different decision or might be different from from community to community. And then there's a priority. And that's the order of importance in which one thing falls in relation to another. Okay, so when a community profile has uncovered a number of needs, and perhaps those needs are in a whole range of different areas, so there might be health needs within the community, there might be economic needs. Um, in some of the scenarios, we've looked at in the unit so far, there might be, um, needs to do with inequity or racial attitudes. So when the communities, um profile has uncovered a number of different needs, it's then important to develop a set of criteria for deciding how important each need is, um, to address. And so without considering the criteria beforehand, we run the risk. Um, you know that a particular need might be chosen as the most important one because, um, it's a particular issue for for somebody on the committee. Um, and so you know that can really, um, you know, really lead to conflict. Um, and a lot of challenges within the community. So there's kind of two sets of criteria that we need. The first of the criteria is we need to develop some guidelines for choosing one or more needs to work on. And then once we've chosen those couple of needs to work on, we then need some guidelines for what strategies or approaches are likely to be most effective in addressing the need. Um, that has been selected. The other necessary ingredient for developing a successful project proposal is a decision making process that's going to allow a community to choose criteria and approaches rationally and wisely. And as with everything else, the ideal process is participatory and inclusive of all stakeholders. So those who are affected by or concerned with the need, um at hand and the community at large. So it's best if it can include people with both technical expertise in relevant fields. Um, such as health or employment, um, as well as people who are part of the community and who are impacted by the need. Because when we have that mix than the criteria likely to reflect best practise and good theory as well as real community needs, um, and wishes. So why shouldn't we just choose the need? Um, why is it important to actually go through a process of developing a criteria and prioritising particular needs? Well, it creates a structure that makes setting priorities more systematic, so it's more likely to reflect the reality of the community. It does help to ensure that the most important needs of the community are addressed, Um, so it helps to ensure that the priorities are more likely to be right. Um, it provides an opportunity for participation. So overall community members to be involved. People are far more likely to want to be actively involved into fuel ownership over something if they've had the opportunity to participate. It's inclusive process. Um, so it helps to make sure that you're not missing out on any information that might only be known by community members because community members, particularly those who are affected by the actual need, are going to have a clear understanding of what's important to the community. And it also helps to ensure that it's an open, transparent process. And, um, it offers that opportunity again for empowerment because people within the community stakeholders in the community who may not have been involved in this type of activity before have the opportunity to experience a process for making informed and systematic decisions. So who should be involved in developing and using, um, criteria? Basically, everybody. So you're looking at all your different stakeholders within, um, the communities. So, um, community members, um, funding bodies, volunteers? Um, yeah, everybody, you want to be as inclusive as possible? When should you start to develop a news criterion processes to set priorities As soon as you decide to conduct a community profile? Um, and so the process is going to go more smoothly if you have discussed and agreed upon criteria beforehand, so as early as possible, um, in the process, how much you go about this well, Typically, you would assemble a participatory group, which is representative of all the stakeholders within the community. So you're wanting to kind of invite people along, checking in to make sure that there's good representation of everybody within the community, making sure that there are other people that should be at the table. And you're particularly wanting to make sure that those who are most affected by the community issue are represented. Um, they tend to be the people whose voices are most often ignored, so you'll often get leaders who will step up and come along. Um, but if you've only got representation from leaders within the community and not all members of the community, um, then you're going to get people feeling less ownership and less representation, So it's really important to to involve the people who are impacted. So how do you go about that? There's lots of different criteria that a community can use to help them work out which issues should be prioritised. These are just a few of the examples of the different criteria that might be things that a community thinks about. Um So, for example, the frequency of the issue, Um, so you might have to needs within a community. Um, but one need is something that's impacting a community very frequently, whereas the other issue only impacts the community on occasion. So you might prioritise the issue. The need that is more frequent. Um, you might let's get another example there. Um, the long term benefit of the effort, uh, so a particular issue if you were to choose to prioritise, that might have lots of kind of long term benefits from the community versus the short term gain that you might get from addressing another issue. So again, you might, as a community, choose to prioritise a particular need. Um, that's going to have long term benefits for for the community. Um, the feasibility of affecting the issue. Um, so a community might prioritise the particular need. If there's a strong likelihood, um, that they can actually make some significant change towards addressing a need versus another need. That might be a lot harder to address where, um, the likelihood of success may not be, um, as high. And as I said, these are just some examples. There would be other factors there the community might might consider as well, and it's going to be unique to each community. Then you've got to establish a process, um, for engaging stakeholders and the broader community in setting priorities for the issues, um, to address. So once you've got some ideas of criteria, you've got to review those ensure that everybody understands them and agrees on them. Discuss the needs in question again, making sure that everybody understands them and their implications that each need discuss whether it's strategic or not. So, as we said, is it feasible to address it? What are the larger implications? Does that time with other efforts or things that are important to the community at the time and then typically what you get is everybody, either individually or in small groups, to rate each need in terms of its importance and the feasibility of affecting it, and then discuss those ratings as a group. Um, perhaps some of the needs can be consolidated. They might be able to be considered as a single need. Or perhaps there's more than one need that could be addressed by a single project and then use that criteria for the group to rank the needs and to select the highest couple of needs. Now, there are a number of ways in which, um, uh, groups of people can in the community can prioritise the needs. Um, and you know, it's important to kind of think through the different advantages and different disadvantages of the different methods that have been identified. So you're really wanting to kind of think about the context in which you're working? Um, So, for example, in some of the works that I have done when working in international development, you might be working with the community where there are really low literacy levels. And so some of the methods for prioritising needs that you use might be things such as voting or visual analogue scale. So you're always wanting to kind of think about the context. So these are just, um, the next few slides until we get through to the end of the lecture, just some examples of some participatory activities that you could potentially use with a community to prioritise a different need, so you can just do a group vote. So that's something easy. Like a show of hands, um, asking people to write down their vote and tabulating those, um, you could give people within the community kind of paper dots and a colour coded for their 1st, 2nd and 3rd choice and get them to stick them, um, on the issue relative worth, um, And so, uh, we use this example early on in the unit is one of our tutorial activities as well. Um, And so this is where each person receives a fixed number of points such as 100 points, and they can distribute those points in any way. They like to prioritise what's most important for them, so they can give all of their points to a single important items. They can distribute them evenly among all items, some points to some items and no points to other items. And then in the tabulation items that given priority ranking according to the total number of points that is assigned to them by the community forced ranking. This is when needs are ranked separately on a scale. So, for example, you might have 10 items and the most important item would be assigned one the second most important item two and so on. Down until the least important item which would receive a 10. And so again in the tabulation, the item that receives the lowest number of points is the highest priority. And the item that receives the second largest number of points the second priority, and so on the Delfay method. This is a little bit more of a complicated method. But you often see this. Um, this is quite a rigorous kind of research, um, process. And this is where you would assemble a group of participants who have knowledge and experience of a particular need. Um, and then those needs are identified and presented to participants for feedback. And it's kind of that iterative, um, process of going through those different items of needs that are identified and ranking them and collating them analysing and going through another round. And that really enables categorisation at the end about what are the most important issues the Hanlon method method. This focuses on identifying explicit criteria to help in setting a priority. Um, and so it looks at the size of the problem, the seriousness of the problem, the estimated effectiveness of the intervention under consideration. And when looking at that intervention, uh, it assesses whether it's suitable doesn't make economic sense. Is it acceptable to the community? Do we have the resources available? And do the current laws allow for the intervention to be implemented? And the last example is the two step method? So this is where participants are asked to privately record their major concerns on a piece of paper, and then facilitators will go around to elicit the priority concerns. Um and then in the second stage, facilitators take participants through a discussion to clarify their priority concerns and consolidate common issues. And then that leads to a list of priority concerns which are generated, and participants can then go through a ranking process. So there's just a few examples of participatory activities that you could potentially use for that last stage of a community profile where you're prioritising needs. OK, so that brings us to the end of this lecture, which is looking at community profiling and in the next couple of lectures. After this will be looking at that project development cycle process and going through the different steps. Um, but as as I said at the start, community profiling is that first kind of crucial step that sets the ground work before we move on to project proposal development. Okay, thanks, everyone.