Ask an Advisor Answers

Hello,
Thank you for your patience in my response. Also, thank you for your question. 
You may consider chapters 36 - 39 in the Tool Box, as they pertain to evaluating the effectiveness of a program. Toolkit is also a related space where you will find some relevant information. See https://ctb.ku.edu/en/evaluating-initiative. 
In terms of direct strategies for question development, I lean on what I want to know. That is, what, specifically, would I like to know from participants? If, for example, you are interested in whether a participant (or generally community member) has any experience, you may show one of your ads and ask something like, "In the past month, how many times have you seen this ad?" Or, something like, "In seeing these materials, have they caused you to think about the following..." and you may have a list of ideas you are intending to foster with the materials. Without having the specific context, I can only create general ideas. But, generally, they should be pointed and direct regarding specific components of the messaging. You may also consider doing an internet search for "crafting survey questions." 
I hope this information is helpful. Good luck on your work and thanks for writing in!
Charlie

Hello, and thank you for writing in! 
Because the Tool Box chapters are interlinked and have many hyperlinked references, we do not have a pdf or other format copy we can send. Using ctrl+P is a fairly quick way to save it in a pdf, however. 
Thanks again!
Charlie

Hello,
Thank you for writing into the community tool box! 
This is a very broad question, but in my experience a logic model or theory of change are great ways to identify the progress of a intervention/program/initiative. Chapters 36-39 in the tool box have some great resources on evaluation. I'd recommend starting here: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/evaluate/evaluation. 
Good luck with your work!
Charlie 

Hello,
Thank you for contacting the toolbox! Also, thank you for your patience on my response. 
We do not connect organizations to volunteers. However, depending on where you are located, there are likely organizations that do that kind of work. In the U.S., for example, the United Way is such an organization that works to connect organizations and volunteers. There are also many coalitions that do similar work. 
I would recommend looking locally for similar organizations that may fit your needs. 
Good luck with your work!
Charlie

Hello,
Thank you for writing in and thanks for your patience on my response. 
This sounds like really wonderful work! Unfortunately, it is a little out of my expertise area. However, I know there are many programs around the U.S. that use the arts and dance for a whole host things around community building and healing. For example, there are researchers in my field (community psychology) that use photography as a method for consciousness raising and community change (see "Photovoice"). There is also an entire field of arts-based activism. 
If I were in your position (with your skills and desire), I would connect with a local organization(s) around a topic you are interested in addressing with dance. For example, a former student of mine works in a local "alternative" school to use physical fitness as a form of meditation/focus for students who may be at higher risk for dropping out. In Googling "dance as conflict resolution" I found an article in psychology today that may also be helpful: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-dolphin-divide/201608/conflict-resolution-dancing-your-way-cooperation.
Good luck in your work. 
Charlie

Hello,
I would recommend connecting with a local non-profit organization. They usually have many opportunities for people who are looking to take action. 

Hello,
Yes, cultural competence is important in any situation. If you want to read more about why this is important and what it means, please see Chapter 27, Section 7 in The Community Tool Box.
The Community Tool Box Advisor

Hello Einar O.
The Community Tool Box likes it when people use our material and reference us. There is no problem with citing the web platform when you reference material in an academic presentation. The rights reservation and copyrighting are so that people can't take the material and pretend it is their own. Sharing the learning and citing it appropriately is not only OK, but it helps us to get the work out. So, thank you for using and citing the material, and thank you for asking.
The Community Tool Box Advisor

Hello Michele,
Thank you for contacting The Community Tool Box. We are pleased to hear that we have been helpful over the years with your work in the community.
In regard to deciding whether to suspend the work there are a few considerations.
1. Will the potential violence place individuals who are collecting data in danger?
2. If there is, indeed, a "revolution" taking place and it looks like things might change somehow (political, economic, cultural), how will the outcome impact the community needs and assets? If the current conditions may result in greater or different needs or somehow affect the results you might achieve, then it is important to wait and capture the needs once the environment is stable enough to formulate and implement a plan.
3. If it looks like this "revolution" will be an ongoing string of civil disobedience over a length of time, then you might want to do the assessment and include questions about how this is impacting community members and include this in your planning.
4. You might consider doing an abbreviated version during this time of unrest to determine short term needs at this time, and then conduct the more comprehensive assessment at a later date to be used for long-term planning.
In summary, the first consideration should always be safety. After that, the primary consideration is timing to complete the assessment when you will get the most useful information that can be incorporated into short- and long-term plans without the distortion of results that some extreme but passing events may provide.
Please stay safe and write again if you have further questions.
The CTB Advisor

Hello,
The Community Tool Box offers guidance for Community Change and Promoting Community Health and Development in Chapters 1, 2,3, and especially Chapter 4 (Getting Issues on the Public Agenda). When you read these chapters, and any others, keep in mind that The Community Tool Box is U.S. based and the guidance provided generally reflects how things are done in the U.S. In our work, we have found that these same methods may not apply in other countries where there are differences in the government, laws, and culture. Using these methods without considering the context where you are can actually have negative outcomes.
Since you are interested in getting problems on the public agenda in Pakistan, I would suggest that you:
1. Browse the Chapters in The Community Tool Box to find what might be relevant and learn some more general possible techniques. For example, Chapter 3 gives guidance on assessing community needs and resources which may be helpful for you to clearly define the problems. And then, before you take any action  --
2. Find individuals who have been successful in Pakistan at getting problems on the public agenda and working to create change. Strategies that are effective in the U.S. may not be at all effective, or even possible in other countries. Again, sometimes strategies used in the U.S. may even have negative outcomes when they are used in other countries. So it is very important that you work with someone who is skilled in Pakistan and knows the laws and how the systems there work. The most important thing to consider if you want to be successful is how the systems work in Pakistan and which methods work best for bringing awareness in those systems.
I hope this is helpful.
The Community Tool Box Advisor

Hello,
We are happy to see that you are interested in our newsletter!  To sign up just follow the instructions below.  Please write back if they do not work for some reason.
Put your mouse on "Connect: Link with Others in the middle at the top of the page.  A drop-down menu will appear with one of the selections being "Subscribe to eNewsletter."  Click on that and it should take you to a page so that you can sign up.  I just signed up and it worked.
The Community Tool Box Advisor
 

Hello,
Thank you for contacting The Community Tool Box and for your complimentary remarks.
The Advisor cannot provide you permission to use Tool Box materials, nor can we form a partnership with you.  We can, however, give you information about who to contact for these things.  Here is the contact information for The Community Tool Box.
We would love to hear from you! Please contact us if you have comments or suggestions or if we may be of assistance:
Work Group for Community Health and Development
4082 Dole Human Development Center
1000 Sunnyside Avenue
University of Kansas
Lawrence, KS 66045-7555 (U.S.A.)
Telephone: (785) 864-0533
Fax: (785) 864-5281
Email: toolbox@ku.edu
Website: http://communityhealth.ku.edu
We hope this is helpful,
The Community Tool Box Advisor

              Thank you for writing to us at the Community Tool Box.   There’s no doubt that both poverty and illiteracy are great problems in many parts of the world.  But what can one person do to make a difference and improve the situation?  You are asking a very big question!
                In our opinion, a good way to start is first to think about your own community setting, and the resources – people, money, and time – you have available (or can make available) there. Then, you might ask yourself what specific actions can you take in your community right now that are realistic and that will have a good chance of success?  
               Those actions may be small in size and scope.  But if you can achieve even a small success, that is a very good thing. That’s because success will lead to positive outcomes for you and your community, and also because success will most likely increase your own confidence and the community’s confidence as well.         
              In different words, success builds momentum. And that means it will increase the chances of your taking future actions in the same area.  
              To find the best actions, though, will usually take thinking and planning before you actually get going.   This planning time will pay off for you later on. You might want to plan your work together with other people in your setting who feel as you do, both because better ideas may emerge from discussion, and because several people can  then share the work you decide upon.
              Also, as you think further, you might consult the sections in Chapter 18 in the Community Tool Box, which discusses Deciding Where to Start.  The sections in Chapter 19, on designing interventions, may also be helpful to you.
              Thanks again for being in touch, and all best wishes for great success in your work.

Dear Cassie,
many thanks for your question and for your confidence in our help. Surely, Community Tool Box has a lot of suggestions that may be useful in a project. However, if you ask us about more specific issues, we may give you - we hope - more suitable indications. Looking forward to better knowing your doubts and your difficulties, many greetings!

Dear Onaida
thank you for your questions and for compliments addressed to our work! Our mission is just to offer answers or at least useful instruments for community psychologists.
You can find useful suggestions for both your questions, related to assessing and enhancing cultural competence in our Toolkit 9, “Enhancing Cultural Competence”, which provides also examples.
See also the whole Chapter 27, “Cultural Competence in a Multicultural World”: its eleven sections, with multifaceted topics aimed at enhancing cultural competence and build culturally competent and inclusive communities, may be really interesting for achieving your goals. See, in particular, Section 2. “Building Relationships with People from Different Cultures”. Each section indicates Online Resources and Print Resource (with appropriate references). Generally, this kind of information is related to cultural differences, anyway, we know that often the socioeconomic status is strictly linked to the dominant culture or to the minority culture or ethnic group. Anyway in the toolkit, the social class is taken into account (see f.i. the exercise on the page https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/culture/cultural-competence/building-relationships/main).  I may suggest – in addition – some papers published in the American Journal of Community Psychology by Fabricio Balcazar and Yolanda Suarez Balcazar about their studies regarding cultural competence in health professionals, as Balcazar, F. E., Suarez-Balcazar, Y., & Taylor-Ritzler, T. (2009). Cultural competence: Development of a conceptual framework. Disability and rehabilitation, 31(14), 1153-1160, or Garrido, R., Garcia-Ramirez, M., & Balcazar, F. E. (2019). Moving towards Community Cultural Competence. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 73, 89-101. The authors, F. Balcazar and Y. Suarez-Balcazar, are quoted also in Community Tool Box, Section 1 of Chapter 37, “Choosing Questions and Planning the Evaluation”.
Many wishes for your work, and let us know – if you want – the implementation of your projects!

Dear Joe,
your interest in managing cultural diversities are really valuable. Such an issue is at the base of our work as community psychologists.
In the Community Tool Box, I suggest the whole Chapter 27. “Cultural Competence in a Multicultural World”, and, in particular,  Section 2. “Building Relationships with People from Different Cultures”, the Main Section https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/culture/cultural-competence/building-relationships/main and the related Tools https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/culture/cultural-competence/building-relationships/tools
I find of interest also Section 4. “Strategies and Activities for Reducing Racial Prejudice and Racism”, where, as a tool, there is a PowerPoint presentation, very useful, which may be uploaded, on the page https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/culture/cultural-competence/reduce-prejudice-racism/powerpoint
I suggest you as well Section 7. “Building Culturally Competent Organizations”, and its Tools https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/culture/cultural-competence/culturally-competent-organizations/main
In each Main Section, Print Resources are indicated, so you can – if you want – analyze thoroughly the matter with further readings.
Many compliments for your awareness and sensitiveness and many wishes for your work!

            
              Thank you for your comment about the Community Tool Box that you recently posted. We appreciate both your taking the time to write us, as well as your comment itself.  It is important.
              You refer to an Advisory Board, but the Tool Box presently does not have one.  Those who are involved are described in the “Who We Are” section of the Tool Box, at https://ctb.ku.edu/en/who-we-are. 
               It might be that you were referring to the Advisors in our Ask an Advisor feature; these are the people who answer our questions, and whom you wrote to. If that’s the case, we try to see that our Advisors are diverse and representative of the people we serve.  For example, one of our four advisors scheduled for 2020 is an African-American research scholar, from North Carolina.  
            The Community Tool Box itself also contains 11 separate sections of text on Cultural Competence in a Multicultural World, the majority of which have been written by an Asian-American.  And since the majority of our readership now actually comes from outside of North America, it’s essential that we be culturally sensitive in our work.
            So in developing content, we collaborate with global partners across the world. One recent example was the development of an African Action Toolkit, designed to offer guidance for addressing health and development goals on the African continent. You can view it at https://who-afro.ctb.ku.edu/
           Having said this much, we’re sure we can improve. And we want to improve.  Specifically, when we recruit for people to be Advisors in 2021 (over the summer), we will aim to make a more vigorous effort to recruit people of color.  I will also forward your comment to our Tool Box team.  
              Beyond that, we welcome suggestions from you and others on specific steps you believe we ought to take to improve, keeping in mind that we have very limited resources to do all the things we would like to do.  If you have such suggestions, please write us outside of the Ask an Advisor system, at toolbox@ku.edu, and we will aim to respond as best we can.
              Many thanks again for writing, and all best wishes for continued success in your own work.

Dear Jennifer
thank you for your question.
In CTB, Chapter 2. “Other Models for Promoting Community Health and Development”, there is a whole Section devoted to MAP-IT, Section 14. "MAP-IT: A Model for Implementing Healthy People 2020", on the web page https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/overview/models-for-community-health-and-development/map-it/main
Perhaps there is not a specific paragraph about falls and their impact; nevertheless, there are a lot of examples and suggested tools, so we think that you will find some ideas for your community with elderly people.
Many wishes for your work!

Dear  Nicholas,
you don’t specify the kind of organization and the event or activity you would want to be sponsored. Anyway, Community Tool Box may have some useful indications for you, f.i. in Chapter 46 Planning for sustainability, and particularly in Section 3. Promoting Adoption of the Initiative's Mission and Objectives, on the web page https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/sustain/long-term-sustainability/promote-adoption-of-mission/main
There are operational ideas also in Chapter 33 Conducting a Direct Action Campaign https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/advocacy/direct-action/letters-to-elected-officials/main which may be interesting if you need to contact possible sponsors for funding a particular event.
Best greetings, and wishes for your organization!

Dear Ashley
thank you very much for your question, and for your concern and your sensitivity towards women suffering for such problems, and who would participate in the group.
I think that in Community Tool Box you can find useful indications in this section:
» Learn a Skill » Toolkits » 10. Advocating for Change » Examples » Example 8: Together for Girls: Working to end sexual violence https://ctb.ku.edu/en/advocating-change/examples/example8
Moreover, in community psychology journals, we can find many projects, research, and interventions about the serious problem regarding gender violence. Just to give you some examples, I may cite:
Estefan, L. F., Armstead, T. L., Rivera, M. S., Kearns, M. C., Carter, D., Crowell, J., ... & Daniels, B. (2019). Enhancing the national dialogue on the prevention of intimate partner violence. American journal of community psychology, 63(1-2), 153-167.
Sharkey, J. D., Reed, L. A., & Felix, E. D. (2017). Dating and sexual violence research in the schools: Balancing protection of confidentiality with supporting the welfare of survivors. American journal of community psychology, 60(3-4), 361-367.
And, about European experiences (in Europe there are important laws for contrasting such issue): Stoyanova, V. (2019). On the Bride’s side? Victims of domestic violence and their residence rights under EU and Council of Europe Law. Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, 37(4), 311-335.
Many wishes for your important project!

Dear George
thank you for your interest in our suggestions!
About your question (which is not right on community psychology, but rather on community help…!), I think that perhaps there are a lot of people who want to give old books to a community library… you can publish some announcements in public places (cafés, schools, or similar) or on social networks (if you think that people are linked with). Besides, you may ask publishers: sometimes they have unsold copies of books which may be useful for you.
How to organize such an action? in Community Tool Box suggestions for social marketing are provided, in Chapter 45. Social Marketing of Successful Components of the Initiative, on the webpage https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/sustain/social-marketing
and Toolkit 13 Implementing Social Marketing, https://ctb.ku.edu/en/implement-social-marketing-effort
It is even possible that this would be the first step for good community engagement for future programs!
Best wishes

Dear Paul
thanks for your compliments.
Surely a community psychology point of view may be useful for your work. If you want to see other projects on mental health, in CTB there are lots of suggestions: for instance Chapter 5. “Choosing Strategies to Promote Community Health and Development”, on the page https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents-community-assessment/choosing-strategies-to-promote-community-health-and-development You can look to all its Sections, both those on strategies, community development, social planning… and those about coalitions building, an issue that is related to the aims of your internship.
If you want, instead, to be in touch with other PhD students in community psychology, so to sharing ideas with them… it is quite difficult because CTB hasn’t (at least so far) similar possibilities... You may ask professors of your university (in Montréal or in France) if there are links or networks among students involved in such topics.
Good luck with your work!
 

Dear Linda
many thanks for your compliments regarding CBT resources.
About your doubts: I don’t know the rationale for the question pointed out, and perhaps it is not written to trip you up…
I can imagine, to my knowledge, that “Mobilize interest groups to explore and recommend alternatives” is better because this kind of action is directly addressed to people who will use such facilities (first of all young people). You may look for some indication in Chapter 6. “Communications to Promote Interest” (on the webpage https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/participation/promoting-interest) and Chapter 7. “Encouraging Involvement in Community Work” (https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/participation/encouraging-involvement). For each chapter, see also the related sections.
We don’t know how old are young people mentioned in the question. Perhaps they are adolescents or young adults, so able to know their needs.
From a community psychology point of view, a program may help them to become aware of their needs. Parents are surely important and crucial for minors, but perhaps, if older, it may be preferable to address our attempts directly to them, so to empower them as citizens. Subsequently, parents may be involved as significant stakeholders, taking into account their opinions, which may be in line with the juvenile ones, or not (and then social workers will have to mediate). The question talks about “interest groups”, which means young people, but also parents and teachers and other people without limitations.
Hoping to have been useful,
best wishes for your studies!

Dear Linda
sorry for the misunderstanding, but we didn’t know the context and what kind of people was involved in changing the facilities (young people are now in detention?) You say that they were parents. Ok.
So, I think that the rationale of the right answer (a) may be both the first part of the answer (interest groups) and also the second part – as you say – to explore and recommend alternatives. We may start with groups already interested and committed to, as not only parents (sometimes no committed), but also professionals, prison reform advocates or citizens. Personally, I think that also young people under criminal proceedings may be an interest group to be involved in exploring alternatives, but this is my opinion and perhaps another matter.
Hoping to have been more clear, and more useful
best wishes!