The Community Tool Box

Our Mission

Promoting community health and development by connecting people, ideas and resources

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Framework for Action

The CTB supports a framework for collaborative action for community health and development. Most community work shares five interrelated phases:

1) Assessment and collaborative planning—community members working together to use information to target issues of importance, such as neighborhood safety or child survival, to be the focus of planning and action;

2) Targeted action and intervention—seeking changes in communities and broader systems consistent with action plans;

3) Community and system change—transforming conditions (i.e., programs, policies, and practices) related to community-determined goals;

4) Widespread behavior change and improvement in population-level outcomes—for example, reduced drug use and associated indicators of crime;

5) Sustaining the effort—assuring that valued programs and policies, and the overall development effort, continues long enough to achieve the intended goals.

CTB Supports for Doing the Work. Table 1 (below, left column) outlines 16 core competencies that are associated with the five phases of collaborative action. The required capabilities for each phase—for instance, developing a strategic plan or evaluation plan—define the work of promoting community health and development. To explore related resources of the CTB, try clicking on different core competencies of interest in the left column of Table 1. The right column of Table 1 illustrates some of the approximately 300 related how-to sections available in the Community Tool Box. To explore these resources, click on different CTB sections that may be helpful to your work. 

 

Table 1. A Framework for Promoting Community Health and Development
PHASE (16 Core Competencies)	Some Illustrative Sections in the CTB
Assessment and Collaborative Planning 1. Creating and Maintaining Coalitions 2. Assessing Community Needs and Resources 3. Analyzing Problems and Goals 4. Developing a Framework or Model of Change 5. Developing Strategic and Action Plans 6. Building Leadership	Developing a plan for identifying local needs and resources Collecting information about the problem Defining and analyzing the problem Analyzing root causes of problems: The “But why?” technique Developing a logic model VMOSA (Vision, Mission, Objectives, Strategies, Action plans) Proclaiming your dream: Developing vision and mission statements Creating objectives Developing an action plan Developing multi-sector collaborations Developing facilitation skills Building and sustaining relationships
Targeted Action and Intervention 7. Developing an Intervention 8. Increasing Participation and Membership 9. Enhancing Cultural Competence	Designing community interventions Adapting community interventions for different cultures and communities Using principles of persuasion Involving people most affected by the problem Building culturally competent organizations
Community and System Change 10. Advocating for Change 11. Influencing Policy Development	Developing a plan for advocacy Writing letters to elected officials Reframing the debate Registering voters Seeking enforcement of existing laws or policies
Widespread Behavior Change and Population Level Outcome 12. Implementing a Social Marketing Effort 13. Evaluating the Initiative	Conducting a social marketing campaign Promoting behavior changes to make it easier and more rewarding Developing an evaluation plan Documenting and monitoring community and systems change Gathering and using community-level indicators Providing feedback to improve the initiative A framework for program evaluation
Sustaining the Effort 14. Writing a Grant Application 15. Organizational Development 16. Sustaining the Initiative	Applying for a grant: The general approach Designing a training session Achieving and maintaining quality performance Developing a plan for financial sustainability Becoming a line item in an existing budget Strategies for sustaining the initiative

 

These resources can be reached easily using the CTB’s navigation system. For instance, to view toolkits supporting use of these 16 competencies, click on Do the Work; using either the tab at the top of each page, or from the homepage. To view CTB sections, click on the Table of Contents, using either the tab at the top of each page, or from the homepage. You may also look for particular sections (e.g., assessing community assets) by typing keywords in the Search the CTB box at the top of each page.

For an overview of community health and development work and to see other frameworks available in the Tool Box, see Chapters 1 and 2.

We welcome you to this resource for building healthier and more equitable communities. We sincerely hope that the Community Tool Box helps you advance your work. Please use the Guestbook (at the bottom of each page) to let us know how you are using the CTB.

 

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The CTB is a service of the

Work Group for Community Health and Development

at the University of Kansas.
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