I work as a registered nurse at a local refugee health service and I am in the process of developing a plan to implement a healthy eating program into a local housing facility that houses approx. 20 people with asylum seeker backgrounds. In partnership with a nutritionist we have been granted a fellowship program within UQ to conduct an audit on the success of the workshops. I have been looking at the Community tool box project planning process with the use of the participatory evaluation tool and it completely fits like a glove with what we are trying to achieve. The workshops were in response to direct feedback from the community in which we would like to see nutritional change. What do we need to do to get your written consent/permission that we can use this model throughout the program??
Thanks,
Esther
Thank you for writing to us with your question. We are very glad you have found our participatory evaluation tool useful to you.
We do have a Use Policy that describes the conditions of use for our materials. You can find this at https://ctb.ku.edu/use-policy.
Briefly, what this policy says is that the concepts described in the Tool and in the Community Tool Box in general are yours to use without any formal consent or permission from us. That is what they are there for.
You can also freely use these materials in any workshop or educational program you might conduct in a nonprofit setting. In these cases, we would appreciate your mentioning and crediting the Community Tool Box, together with our web address.
On the other hand, if you were wanting to duplicate and distribute printed copies of our materials as part of a training workbook or other publication, we would ask that you contact us at communityhealth@ku.edu to obtain written permission. Some further details are found in the Use Policy itself.
We hope this responds to your question. Thank you again for being in touch, and all best wishes for continued success in the very important work that you are doing.
Dear Michael
thank you for your interest in Community Tool Box, and many compliments for your work.
I may suggest, for your students, to draw up, in any case, a map of community organizations of the area, so to know their number, activities, priorities (if explicated), and so. Then they may see the Community Tool Box, and particularly Chapter 1 and 2 (OVERVIEW, on the webpage https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/overview/model-for-community-change-and-improvement and following)
, and then Chapters 17, 18 and 19 (ANALYZING COMMUNITY PROBLEMS AND DESIGNING AND ADAPTING COMMUNITY INTERVENTIONS, from the page https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/analyze/analyze-community-problems-and-solutions). Each chapter provides tools, checklists, and examples related to projects, which – I think – may be useful for your students and also for instructors).
Many wishes for your work!
I am Sayeed, an expatriate living in Qatar. Writing my PhD thesis on the political economy of low carbon transition in Qatar. As I am completing my study, I want to create an online engagement platform where citizens and residents can contribute to developing citizen-based scenarios and pathways for a low carbon future in Qatar.
I've been looking for some time, which platforms are best to engage people digitally. As we are quarantined and working from home, people will have time to indulge in developing different scenarios.
Let me know if you have any suggestions.
Thanks
Sayeed
smssayeed@gmail.com
Dear Sayeed
thank you for your message. Building a platform encompasses two aspects. The first one is related to actions of “social marketing”, and I can suggest you see, in Community Tool Box, Chapter 45. “Social Marketing of Successful Components of the Initiative” on the page 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 (in the last one there are a lot of examples). The second aspect refers to the kind of technical support, so the online platform which may be used successfully. In this regard, I may suggest you look online for the best offers, and then choose a platform free (for not having costs for implementation) and easy to be reached, which allows sharing data, organize meetings and so there. You may try yourself the connection, in order to have an idea about possibilities and difficulties. It isn’t easy to suggest some names because it depends to place, connections, required length for attending meetings, and others…
Hoping to have been useful,
many greetings and many wishes for your work!
Dear Philimina,
This is a great question! It is exciting to hear your interest in supporting your community in its health and beautification efforts.
In order to brainstorm answers, I took this to my colleague, Claire Rippel. She is a Community Development Specialist for the University of Missouri Extension office and she leads trainings on these topics through the St. Louis Neighborhood Leadership Academy. Here's her advice:
1. Neighborhood projects can happen with or without city support, so I would suggest being as specific as possible with what you want from the city. Is it financial resources? Permits and permissions? General civic blessing? Help with implementation? Community building courses for residents? These are all different routes and would require different departments or strategies.
2. If there is an example of a program that another city has, find out more about how they got that up and running and what role the city played. (Again, it might not have anything to do with the city, it might be purely community run.) 3. If the city is not receptive to partnering on something like this, what other institutions could play a role? For example universities often step in, Extension offices, etc.
If you do wind up making a proposal to your city or other partner, such as a university or Extension office, the Community Tool Box can help you take action. You may be asked what gaps the project would address. In order to answer that, you could assess the needs and resources in the community to make sure that your project is on track with what is important to the community. Here's a step by step guide from the tool box.
You may also decide to meet with elected officials and to advocate for your project. If so, the Tool Box provides a lot of great resources, including writing a letter to your elected official, Conducting a petition drive, and using social media to influence policymakers.
Claire and I hope you find this helpful! We are wishing you luck as you build neighborhood partnerships and create beautification projects for your community!
Sincerely,
Kiley Bednar
Dear Philimina,
I hope this finds you well! This is a great question and one that we know many community organizers around the country are dealing with. I will share a few options here, but feel free to ask your community partners if they have a platform that they are using, as that might help with cost savings.
Zoom - you can have up to 2 people on Zoom for free for unlimited time. Beyond that you will need to pay for a monthly account. This services offers you basic videoconferencing options, such as screensharing, chat, and polling. It also is useful for community facilitators because you can use a break out room function. Recording is also available on this service.
Google Hangout - This is a free service through google. You can share a link for your participants and as long as they have a google log-in, they should be able to participate. Video conferencing for up to 10 people and group chat ability for up to 150. Google also offers G Suite which is a paid service that has more capabilities.
WebEx - In order to respond to Covid demand, it looks like WebEx now offers a free account for up to 100 participants with no time limit. Features include shared white board and other collaborative features. Recording is also available on this service.
Skype - this is a free service that allows you to connect with up to 50 people and it allows screen sharing for presentations and information sharing. Recording is also available on this service.
I hope you find a good fit for your group's needs. In addition to the Community Tool Box's resource on effective meetings, I'd encourage you to check out tips for online meetings that can help you stay connected during this time. Here's one resource that might be of interest Beth Kanter's Nonprofit blog and Seth Godin's blog.
All the best to you and your community during this difficult time.
Wishing you well,
Kiley Bednar
I am serving on the committee to create a Community Psychology track at my Clinical Psychology Graduate Program. I've been trying to find a set of guidelines to determine how a clinic is designated as a Community Psychology clinic. I haven't found anything like this yet, but I am wondering if you all may be able to provide any guidance on how we can determine which of our practicum sites would be considered community psychology settings? Thank you in advance for your help!
Dear Rachel,
Thanks for your question! I inquired with Dr. Bill Berkowitz, a core team member at the Community Tool Box, and prior administrator of the Community Psychology program at University of Massachusetts Lowell.
He shared that the field of community psychology doesn't designate clinics as "Community Psychology clinics" so there are not guidelines on this particular question.cHowever, the Society for Community Research and Action (SCRA) the professional community psychology association, has a Council on Education. They can likely give guidance on selecting practicum sites. You might write to them at CEP@scra27.org.
Hope this is helpful and good luck!
Kiley Bednar
University of Missouri-St. Louis
Community Innovation and Action Center
Hi!
Thanks for your patience. Here are some thoughts that we put together from the team at UMSL's Community Innovation and Action Center:
Structure is ultimately about who is accountable to who – therefore the best structures mirror accountability to the mission of the organization (geographic scope, most impacted communities, relevant stakeholders, etc.) Structure impacts who gets heard and how decisions are made and how problems are analyzed. Thinking through a structure that ensures that those most impacted by an issue are in a position of power will help bring multiple views on a problem and its potential solutions. If a structure has only a few in decision-making power then the perspectives will be limited and the diagnosis and potentially solutions to a problem may not be accurate or effective.
Some other key points -
* when making decisions, it is best to agree to the process before you work the process. This means that everyone is on the same page on how decisions will be made and when. When we are centering voices with experience on an issue, we need to recognize that there are various forms of power at the table. In order to create a safe space for honesty, ground rules and expectations are important. Ensuring that everyone is on the same page with the decision making process (vote? Consensus?) will help build trust and consistency.
* note that the work of a collaborative is iterative. You can always revisit your structure and decision making process if your process is not working. Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. Schedule regular check ins with your members so they have a chance to reflect on the process and on what is working and what isn't. Go from there.
These are great questions and ones that take time to grapple with. We appreciate your thoughtful question and we wish you the best as you seek to align your structure with your organization's vision of the future!
Sincerely,
Kiley Bednar
Dear Adisah,
Thank you for your question! My apologies for the delay. Here are some brief definitions with links to the Community Tool Box pages that have more information.
Vision Statement: Your vision is your dream. It's what your organization believes are the ideal conditions for your community; that is, how things would look if the issue important to you were completely, perfectly addressed.
Mission Statement: An organization's mission statement describes what the group is going to do and why it's going to do that.
Strategy/Strategic Plan: A strategy is a way of describing how you are going to get things done. A strategic plan is a summary of your strategies. Strategic plans can be linked to Action Plans, which outlines who will do what by when.
Objectives: Objectives refer to specific measurable results for the initiative's broad goals.
Good luck as you work on envisioning your work and the ways you will achieve your goals through strategic planning. All my best!
Kiley
Dear Julie,
My apologies for the delay! The year for that publication is 2002. Thanks for asking.
Best,
Kiley
Dear Mackenzie,
Thank you for your question! My apologies for the delay.
I found this website to be comprehensive and informative. It outlines the various dimensions that can be measured when it comes to social capital and covers most of the ones that I've brainstormed here. They include:
* social network analysis - Social network analysis can answer questions about how people and organizations are related, how they communicate, and how they work together.
* Qualitative data could also provide you with deeper insights into the quality of the connections made and the strength of the new ties.
* More broadly, you could look at population level data that signifies social cohesion such as volunteer rates and voter registration and the number of disconnected youth (not in school/not working).
I hope this helps you!
All the best,
Kiley
Dear Chane,
My apologies for the delay in responding!
In our Use Policy, there is information on how to credit the Tool Box use: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/use-policy.
Thank you for your question and I am wishing you the best on your assignment!
Sincerely,
Kiley
Dear Kathy,
Thank you for your question!
A resource that I have found very handy is the Grantsmanship Center. The provide training and technical assistance on grant writing, but many of their resources are also free. Here is a blog page that outlines some key elements of a high-quality proposal. I pulled out the key sections below:
1. Summary: Provide a brief overview of the entire proposal. Be sure to include the funds you’re requesting through the grant, and the resources that others will contribute.
2. Introduction to the Applicant: Describe your organization and provide proof that it’s a strong and credible applicant. Think of this as a resume for the job. Funders need confidence that the organization can deliver what you promise.
3. Description of the Problem: Provide a factual, well documented description of the situation your organization will address. Tell the funder what concerns you, why it matters, and why it’s happening. This information lays the foundation for the outcomes you’ll propose and the activities you’ll implement. Be sure it’s clear and strong.
4. Outcomes: Lay out specific, measurable outcomes (i.e., results, positive changes) you expect your work to produce. If you expect children to improve their reading skills, describe the children and specify how many will improve, by what degree, over what period of time.
5. Program Plan: Provide thorough details about the activities your organization will complete to achieve the expected outcomes. Who will do what? When and how will they do it? Why do you think these activities will produce the change you expect?
6. Evaluation Plan: Describe how you’ll assess your work. How will you track whether activities are rolling out as planned? How will you examine whether the activities are producing the expected outcomes?
7. Sustained Impact: Tell the funder how your organization’s work will continue to produce impact beyond the period of grant funding. While this may mean a plan to keep the entire program in place, that’s not always the case. All program elements may not be essential for continuing impact; or perhaps other community groups will take over part of the work.
8. Budget: A thorough and realistic budget that shows the dollars requested through the grant, resources that will be provided by the applicant organization, and resources that other partners will contribute.
Best wishes as you pursue opportunities for your work!
All my best,
Kiley
I apologize for the scope of the question. Please respond with any related resources.
Dear Jack,
Thank you for your question! Yes, many organizations are needing to adapt and respond right now. It sounds like you are looking to support your interns and the organizations that they are placed in as your interns adapt to a virtual internship.
There are a few resources that you may want to check out.
First of all, Candid is going to be a helpful source. It compiles data about the 990s for non-profits in the US so it will be a valuable source of financial information. Candid is a combination of GuideStar and Foundation Center, which have been longstanding sources of information about non-profits in the U.S. Charity Navigator may also be helpful to you. Both of these websites can provide you with some comparison points to national data as you requested.
Finally, the United Way in the regions that you are serving may also have information, specifically through their 2-1-1 resources. For some communities, 2-1-1 can be a helpful source of local data.
Wishing you the best in your research and in your goal to support your interns as they adapt to a virtual experience!
Sincerely,
Kiley
Dear Cathy,
You have the permission to use these materials, with the crediting you mention.
The Tool Box has a Use Policy that addresses these situations, at https://ctb.ku.edu/en/use-policy. Your request is covered by provision #2 in that policy and it gives information on how to credit Tool Box use. Thanks so much for your thoughtfulness in reaching out with this question. We hope your training goes well and we hope the staff benefit from the resources that you share!
All the best,
Kiley
Dear Alfreda,
This is great! It sounds like you have a group of young people who are changemakers in their community. The Leadership resource that you are using is a great one to use to develop their skills even further.
I believe your question is looking to link up with other youth organizers in California, is that correct? I would encourage you to check out the California Endowment, which has programming for youth activists in your state. Depending on the age range, I am also familiar with Afterschool All Stars and LAs Best as great out of school time opportunities that focus on leadership development. I'd also point you to the Funders Collaborative for Youth Organizing as a very helpful resource in this work. Finally, if you are looking for more resources for team building and other activities to support youth, selpractices.org is also a great resource.
Being an ally to youth leaders is important work! Thank you for your efforts and for your engagement. Wishing you the best!
Sincerely,
Kiley Bednar
Dear Susan,
Thank you for the question. While the 'recent' may have worn off by now, I believe you can find out more about this study in this Atlantic article, as well as this paper, both by Dr. Claude Steele. Thank you for digging into this very important issue. I hope this helps you take the next step.
Best wishes in your work,
Kiley Bednar
I'm with the Orange County Department of health . We would like to use your material and share the material with our community partners. We would have a link to your took kit on our website.
I can be reached anytime at 480 358 7417. I would like to reach out to an advisor and set up a call for us to understand how best to utilize your tool kit. I am responsible for CHIP at orange county , florida and any help/ideas in rallying all our community partners will be a big help as we move forward.
Thank you so much for your time.
Best Regards,
Chait Rendu
Dear Chait,
Thank you for your interest in the Community Tool Box! It can be a useful source of information and action for partners in public health. Yes, please feel free to link and share these resources in your community in Florida. Regarding your question on rallying partners, I would encourage you Community Mobilizers section of the Tool Box. It provides suggestions for ways to encourage your partners to engage in the work of the partnership through activating community mobilizers who can rally members of the community around the work.
However, if your partnership is taking action on any of the Best Change Processes - practices that are linked to improved health and community outcomes - you will find that there are many ways to rally partners to the work, including engaging them in strategy and action planning, leadership development and sustainability efforts.
Thank you for the work that you are doing to create safe and healthy communities and for your work to engage your partners. Best wishes to you as your mobilize!
Sincerely,
Kiley Bednar
Are their any course or free resources on human development and or ethic.
Dear Zena,
Thanks for your question! I would check out Coursera. They generally offer college level courses and as long as you are not looking for credit, the course should be free. Udemy also offers many free courses too.
It's great that you are looking into these opportunities and I hope you finds these links useful! Wishing you the best in your learning.
Kiley
Thank you for the question. Can you clarify which article? Or perhaps you mean the website overall in general?
Thanks,
Kiley
My name is Michael Vargas and I want to learn more about improving community health utilizing anchor institutions. I have been reading about community needs assessment to start my understanding of how to improve overall community health.
My question is this: How can I, as someone who isnt connected to an organization as of now, get more hands on experince to develop a deeper understanding of the topic and eventaully make a career out of this?
I have a Masters degree in Clinical Psychology and worked at residential facilitates for mental health and substance abuse (which was several years ago). But I havent been able to work on any community healthy issues. As of now I am not associated with any orgs. I am just an individual that is learning about the power of improving community health. I am open for all suggestions of where I can get real experince starting from basically scratch.
Thank you so much for your time and effort!
Dear Michael,
I am excited to hear about your interest in community health and development, especially your focus on anchor institutions.
University of Missouri-St. Louis' Anchor Initiative Director had this advice for you:
Here are some readings about the healthcare anchor network, the anchor learning network, reports by the democracy collaborative on anchor institutions, and then readings on the social determinants of health (e.g. why do this non-health related work along side health related strategies).
https://democracycollaborative.org/learn/collections/leveraging-anchor-institutions
https://healthcareanchor.network
https://www.cumuonline.org/cumu-initiatives/anchor-mission-initiative/
https://www.rwjf.org/en/our-focus-areas/topics/social-determinants-of-health.html
Based on your interests, you may also want to see if there is a nonprofit hospital or university where you could volunteer to support a community health initiative, sharing with them your particular focus on anchor work.
Hope that helps. Wishing you the best as you support your community in improving its health and wellbeing goals.
Sincerely,
Kiley
Dear Maxine,
I apologize for the delay! Thank you for your question.
That's great that you wrote about "Plan". "Act" really is just putting the "Plan" into action. You may find some insights in the Strategic and Action Planning sections of the toolbox here. Basically, Act happens when partners follow through on their commitments to take action - usually these steps are outlined in your action plan. An action plan tells you who will do what by when.
I'll also point you to the Developing Interventions toolkit because interventions are one way that partners take action. So this section can provide some examples of how actions are selected and carried out. This section includes barriers to action which is important to consider when you are planning for or while you are in the "Act" phase.
Finally, I would recommend the Advocating for Change toolkit, as advocacy is another way that groups take action and there is a section outlining an advocacy action campaign.
Wishing you the best on your research project and thanks again for reaching out with your question!
Sincerely,
Kiley Bednar
I am the coordinator for the Douglas County Healthy Youth Coalition in Colorado. I could use some coaching/examples around creating coalition bylaws for our unique situation. We are currently not a 501©3 but, have recently discussed perusing this status. We have two fiscal agents Tri-County Health Department and the Douglas County School District who manage our Substance Abuse Mental Health Administration grant. We want to begin to develop a bylaws document that creates more space for community ownership/decision making and allows us to tackle issues in our community that stretch beyond just what funders want us to address (Mental Health) Hope this helps, we look forward to hearing from you and your team
V/r
Curtis Hanock
720-682-5283
Dear Curtis,
Yes, I believe I understand the situation that you are describing, thanks for outlining your goals and your efforts.
I think that there comes a time in the trajectory of many coalitions and partnerships where questions like these come up. This can be a really helpful time to figure out if the current structure is supporting the outcomes and mission of the work or if there are changes and adjustments that would better serve you. Here in St. Louis, we have sat down with a couple of different coalition leadership groups to explore these questions. These resource can be found here (Fiscal Agent Assessment) and here (Backbone Assessment). After you've explored these questions in depth with your leaderships team, you can write bylaws that reflect both your core mission - as expected by your grant efforts - as well the expanded goals that I hear you speaking to. You may want to outline language that provide for the accountability needed for the funder along with additional language that provides room for decisionmaking and accountability to your community or other partners.
I will also refer you to the Community Toolbox's overview of By-laws which is full of great information. You may also get additional ideas here. Relatedly, this resource explores a variety of structures for a partnership. It may also apply to some of your discussions.
Wishing you the best as you explore these questions with your leadership team!
Sincerely,
Kiley Bednar
Dear Pastor Leonard,
Thank you for your question! In kind donations can be very helpful to community development work.
The Community Toolbox has a section outlining ways to reach out and ask for in-kind support. That can be found here. It also has a few tools that may help you process and track the items that you receive. They are here.
Finally, if you like checklists, you can make sure that you have covered the necessary steps to prepare and then ask for in kind support. That checklist can be found here.
Additionally, I came across one more resource that may assist you. It provides some information on legal requirements needed to accept in-kind donations. That resource is through MissionBox (different than the Toolbox! :-) and that can be found here.
We are wishing you the best as you reach out to partners to support your community health and development work.
Sincerely,
Kiley
I am interested in the "Learning to be an Ally for People from Diverse Groups and Backgrounds" module. Would you please send me additional information about your program, including the costs.
Thank you
Dear Esmeralda,
Thank you for your question about allyship!
You can find the full curriculum through the Community Toolbox here. There is no charge for these training materials - they are available to everyone who is interested in being a changemaker in their community.
Please feel free to share the resources with any colleagues or friends who would also like to learn more about taking action as an ally.
Wishing you the best. Thank you again for reaching out.
Sincerely,
Kiley Bednar
Due to increased early teenage pregnancy in our country, I thought it's wise for us to reach out to our girls since I'm sure they are struggling silently.was kindly asking if I can join you to talk to the girls and help them in securing their future. I'm greatly disturbed by this and since I cannot do it on my own I decided to contact you. I know together we can do this and save maaimahiu future for the women .thanks in advance be blessed
Hi Jane,
Thank you so very much for visiting the Community Tool Box and for asking such a great question and sharing your concerns which are concerns you share with many others; we're here to help! First, before I answer your question/address your concern let me apologize for the delay in my reply, I didn't see your submission until today, July 4th and I do hope the delay won't prove a hindrance in the important work you do. That said, let me see if I can summarize what you'd like us to help you with: you are concerned with an increase in teenage pregnancy in your country, more so that these girls are dealing with their pregnancy by themselves, suffering in silence as you so eloquently put it..Further, you want to partner with someone/an organization to assist you in your work with the girls to help them not only with their pregnancy, but to help them build a sustainable future, correct? To be clear, the Community Tool Box, per se, doesn't engage in this kind of endeavor, rather we provide you with the resources you need to meet the needs in your community.
So, let's look in the Tool Box and see what resources will help you most. It seems that, due to the limited scope of the Community Tool Box's work, you need to find and develop relationships with organizations within your own community, and possibly country (and beyond) that work with pregnant teenagers, organizations that have a track record of success with this kind of work. However, before you can approach another organization to assist you, I think it imperative that you're really clear on how much of a problem teenage pregnancy is, why there is an increase in same, and why these teens are so isolated; you need to be able to state your facts clearly so that whoever you want to work with you can have a sense of the problem and what their role might be in addressing the problems of both teen pregnancy and pregnant teen isolation. So, the first set of resources I'm going to suggest is looking at Chapter 17: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/analyze/analyze-community-proble... which takes you through a process of analyzing problems and setting goals. The associated toolkit is found at this link: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/analyzing-problems-and-goals. A great example of what I'm talking about can be found at this link: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/analyzing-problems-and-goals/examples/example1. Okay, so to reiterate, the first thing you might do is analyze the problem before you approach another organization; they have to know the problem is a real problem before they will join you in your work.
The next set of tools (two chapters and two toolkits) to help you find and engage other organizations I am going to suggest are related to communicating to promote interest and participation in the issue of teen pregnancy and pregnant teen isolation. The first chapter I suggest you read is Chapter 6 - Communications to Promote Interest - which is found at this link: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/participation/promoting-interest. The second chapter I suggest you read is Chapter 7 - Encouraging Involvement in Community Work - which is found at this link: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/participation/encouraging-involv.... The first related tookit, Tookit 1 - Creating and Maintaining Coalitions and Partnerships - can be found at this link: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/creating-and-maintaining-coalitions-and-partnerships. The second toolkit, Toolkit 8 - Increasing Participation and Membership - offers you ideas to consider once you've engaged with other organizations, found at this link: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/creating-and-maintaining-coalitions-and-partnerships.
So, I think you have the resources you need at present to help you engage with a partner organization as you expressed us that you want to do. As I mentioned above, there are many things to consider, first analyzing the problems of teen pregnancy, why there is an increase in teen pregnancy, and why pregnant teens feel isolated, second, communicating the issue to the community, and third, getting other organizations involved. Again, it is beyond the scope of the Community Tool Box to engage in this work with you, but I think you have all the tools you need to get you moving in the right direction. If there is any more we can assist you with do let us know, that's what we're here for. Best of luck to you Jane in this very important work.
Ask an Advisor
It is mission critical for us to move beyond speculation and assumptions about how people generally conceptualize mental health and mental illness. As project director of NASNIcares, I believe that the only way to validate these assumptions is to conduct in person surveys. It is important that people self-define these terms in response to a small number of very carefully designed questions. Methods other than in person questionnaires may compromise the goal of the survey in that it is likely that individuals may web search definitions of the subject terminologies. A recitation of one of these definitions may mask the conceptual ideas that the survey would seek to reveal.
Unfortunately, during this pandemic, in person surveys may not be viable. Can your advisors offer any insights on how to grapple with this dilemma?
Hi Jennifer,
Welcome to the Community Tool Box and Ask an Advisor, we're glad you're here. Thank you for a most interesting and timely question, one I'm sure other researchers are grappling with; I would imagine you're not alone in dealing with this conundrum. However, I think I have a viable solution that will allow you to collect data in an equally rigorous way as you would in a face-to-face interview. I've developed and implemented many surveys in my own work and like you have encountered situations in which it's just not feasible to do so in-person. So, what to do? Well, the answer in short is phone interviews. Obviously focus groups are out, and I wouldn't suggest on-line surveys using one any of the known platforms (e.g. Qualtrics or SurveyMonkey) because your participants would have more time on their hands to look up the terms as they can control their own response pace. My arguments for using phone interviews in this situation are: 1) although you can't totally control participant behavior, you can have a reasonable amount of control over the research context by controlling the pace at which the interview is conducted so there's no time for the participant to look up terms, theoretically I suppose they could, but it's not likely; 2) you can actually increase your sample size by extending your reach via phone, the larger the sample the more power you have to detect an effect if one is present or to give your findings more validity; 3) it is more cost-effective to conduct phone interview than in-person interviews anyway, and a lot less germy, you don't have travel costs which add up fast and eat up a lot of the research budget; 4) you can offer prompts when participants don't understand what you're asking, just like you would in a face-to-face interview, as well as probe for more in-depth answers depending of course on your research questions and the design of the survey (e.g., structured/closed); 5) bias is less likely because the researcher is not part of the research context in which there is greater potential for unduly influencing participant responses through body language or other cues; 6) there is no more susceptibility to response rate or premature disengagement problems than in face-to-face interviews; 7) conducting phone interviews is a well-regarded and viable data collection method in the qualitative research field; and 8) you can obtain a high degree of inter-rater reliability if you're using more than one phone interviewer. Make sense? If you go he phone interview route I would steer away from using text or IM functions because it leaves pace in the hands of the participants. One thing you can do. in the participant instructions, is to be clear that they are not to use external reference sources to look up the terms, and reinforce that throughout the interview. All that said, the Community Tool Box has a really nice resource regarding phone interviews, it may be a tad over simplistic for someone well-versed in qualitative methods, but if you scroll about half-way down the page the authors provide a good overview, and a refresher in other qualitative methods certainly wouldn't hurt. Here's the link: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/assessment/assessing-community-n....
So, Jennifer, I hope that helps clarify your thinking about alternative methods to face-to-face interviewing. I think, given your situation, phone interviews are about the best option you have at your disposal. As in all research there are trade-offs and challenges, but this is the way I'd go if I was in your shoes. With that I thank you for question and for visiting us here at the Community Tool Box. Best of success to you, and if you have further questions do not hesitate to ask, that's what we're here for!
Ask an Advisor
Hi Briana,
Thank you ever so much for visiting the Community Tool Box and Ask an Advisor, we are here to help. You pose an interesting and complex question because it brings up a lot of issues community members face in dealing with local governments, especially when there appears to be a hint of impropriety. Not to editorialize, but in our current time this is a much larger issue that seems to be endemic in all levels of government. That said, the real questions it seems to me are how do you hold the board to account in its deliberative process, how do you ensure the deliberative process is transparent to everyone in the community, and how do you raise to the surface a board member's potential conflict of interest? My short answer is, through some serious public pressure brought to bear on the board by all the impacted stakeholders; basically, demand transparency and accountability. That's the short answer, but there is a better, more thoughtful and deliberate way to go about this work so that it is sustainable (i.e., having an accountable board in perpetuity). To get the public on your side so that it has something to work with, to my way of thinking and in my experience the steps include: documenting the problem with strong and clear evidence; making sure your community, writ large, is make aware of this issue - based on the evidence - including all media outlets (social media too); and bringing together those who will be directly impacted by the new airfield (the stakeholders) and coalesce them into an advocacy group that will put consistent pressure on the board for the sake of transparency and mitigating the potential conflict of interest. As an aside, it's pretty clear to me it is a conflict of interest that can only be resolved through public pressure.. I know this is an emotional issue, but you need to stay with the facts of the matter with evidence of what the board is doing and the conflict of interest; let data drive your efforts! To get the public behind your efforts so they will take up an advocacy role you need to determine with documentation and evidence, what the impact of this new airfield will be, especially the negative impacts. For example, increased noise levels could exacerbate stress, the potential that a plane could crash into a nearby home, extra pollution from plane exhaust, etc. Do you see where I'm going with this? What you do henceforth needs to be deliberate, done in incremental steps, and backed up by evidence of the problem and the potential impacts of the problem. I can assume this will be a time sensitive effort on your part so you will need to work quickly. So, what resources are available to you in the Community Tool Box that will get you moving in the right direction? I think it best that I now provide you with links to helpful chapters and toolkits for you to review and then set a course of action accordingly. The Community Tool Box can provide you with answers and ideas, but it is up to you to determine what information is relevant to your situation and then take the bold steps necessary to resolve this issue! Chapters and Toolkits (and what to pay attention to) are listed in the order of the steps I mentioned above, in essence,: determining the extent of the problem, getting the word out, and building a coalition. I'm throwing a lot at you, I know, but I really think that the answers you seek are located therein. Again, it's not just about solving a short term problem (i.e., the airfield), it's about long-term board transparency and accountability using this issue as your catalyst.
Chapter 17 - Analyzing Community Problems and Solutions: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/analyze/analyze-community-proble... (specifically, sections 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7)
Toolkit 2 - Assessing Community Needs: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/assessing-community-needs-and-resources (all, plus examples)
Toolkit 3 - Analyzing Problems and Goals: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/analyzing-problems-and-goals (all, plus examples)
Chapter 6 - Communications to Promote Interest: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/participation/promoting-interest (specifically, sections 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 15, and 17)
Chapter 7 - Encouraging Involvement in Community Work: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/participation/encouraging-involv... (all, but pay particular attention to sections 7 and 8)
Toolkit 1 - Creating and Maintaining Partnerships: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/creating-and-maintaining-coalitions-and-partnerships (all, plus examples)
Chapter 4 - Getting Issues on the Public Agenda: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/assessment/getting-issues-on-the... (section 5)
Toolkit 5 - Developing Strategic and Action Plans: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/developing-strategic-and-action-plans (all, plus examples)
I do hope all this helps. I know it is a lot to digest in a relatively short amount of time, but I really think the three steps are key to resolving this issue and being able to sustain your efforts. With that Briana, thank you for visiting us here at the Community Tool Box, I wish you the very best of success, and if you have further questions do not hesitate to let us know, that's what we're here for. Best to you.
Ask an Advisor
Hi Maciej,
A warm welcome to the Community Tool Box and Ask an Advisor, we're very glad you brought your question to our attention. Let me say, first and foremost, as someone who has worked in the mental health field (mostly in research and evaluation) I really appreciate your wanting to reduce stigma, it is such a pernicious problem with deleteriousness consequences for those with mental challenges; kudos to you. Second, don't worry about feeling like you missed something, the CTB has a lot, and I mean a lot of great information and resources so it can feel a little overwhelming, it's very easy to not find what you're looking for at the first go; trust me Maciej even I get a bit overwhelmed from time to time!
Well, let's get down to business, To be honest, after rooting around a bit I didn't come up with an intervention to reduce mental health stigma (although I'm not sure what your target population for the intervention) specifically for the good people of Brooklyn, but, we do have a Database of Best Practices found here at this link: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/databases-best-practices which is divided into two main sections: Comprehensive Resources (a database of databases) and Categorical Web-Based Resources for Best Practices by Issue. Okay, that's two places to look. I then put "reducing stigma" into our CTB search function and came up with two resources that are related to stigma more generally, but might give you some ideas even if they're not quite on point. I tried a number of other combinations "mental health", "reducing mental health stigma," and the like and didn't come up with much more than I found by putting in "reducing stigma." Maybe I'm not using the right terms so if you want to give it another go with more appropriate terms you might come up with something I'm not coming up with in my own searches.
Example 6. Talaku - Fighting TB in the Maasai Community (there is mention of stigma, and is an interesting read, but no intervention: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/node/5597.
Example 7. Embrace Mental Health Organization in Beirut, Lebanon: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/developing-strategic-and-action-plans/examples/exa...
Okay,so the databases and these two examples are what we have related to what you're looking for. That said, I decided to look outside the CTB to give you some other resources and came up with a number of interesting links that can serve as another point of departure in your search for stigma reduction interventions: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK384914/, Ending discrimination against people with mental and substance use disorders: The evidence for stigma change; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5344948/, Interventions to reduce discrimination and stigma: The state of the art. The RAND Corporation also has some great resources that can be found at this link:https://www.rand.org/pubs/periodicals/health-quarterly/issues/v2/n4/03.html. I also found this blog from NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness (https://www.nami.org/home) which is another great, kind of go-to resource for those working in the mental health field: https://www.mcmasteroptimalaging.org/full-article/es/programs-targeting-...
So, with that Maciej I think I've reached the limit of my advice. I do think, however, that the links I provided (especially NAMI) will help you find the exact intervention (evidence-based, hopefully) you're looking for for the target population you're working with. You know, if you don't find what you're looking for you can always design your own intervention, and of course the CTB has plenty of resources for just that purpose, beginning with Toolkit 7 - Developing an Intervention: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/developing-intervention. I know this is probably not the ideal as I think you're really looking for a program that has been proven to be effective, but it's an idea. With that Maciej, thank you for your question and for visiting us here at the Community Tool Box. I sincerely hope you find what you're looking for and that we've sent you in the right direction. Best of success to you in all your endeavors!
Ask an Advisor
You serve as the Project Manager in your department and have been assigned responsibility to design and implement a new initiative. You have hired a Project team that is eager to
begin work with you in developing and implementing the new initiative. You have scheduled a planning meeting with your team. Please select the most appropriate action point for your first meeting *
(1 Point)
Present & discuss an overview of the design process
Direct team in designing and implementing the new project.
Closely monitor progress in implementing the initiative
Gauge performance of team member
Hi Neeraj,
Welcome to the Community Tool Box (CTB) and Ask an Advisor, we're so pleased you came to us for advice about how to design and implement a new initiative, how to lead the design and implementation team, how to monitor and evaluate the initiative's progress, and how to evaluate team members. In community work these are very important issues to consider and can present challenges to even the most seasoned community development veteran. Before we get started working though each issue I want to make sure you understand the role of a CTB advisor: it is job of the advisor to suggest the best resources the CTB has to offer, to point you in the right direction so to speak, and then leave it up to you to determine which resource (s) will serve you best in what you want to do. I hope that's very clear. Okay, let's get started. I think it best that we take each issue one at a time and figure out which CTB resources serve that issue best. Oh, a couple of quick side-notes, first the terms initiative and intervention mean the same thing so are used interchangeably throughout the CTB, and second, the two major types of resources are chapters for reading (with multiple sections) and toolkits (with examples) which, if you don't have time are the best bet for learning how to tackle any issue more efficiently. You still need to read and study, but the toolkits are more hands-on oriented.
Designing and implementing a new initiative
Chapter 18 - Deciding Where to Start: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/developing-intervention (sections 1 and 2 in particular)
Chapter 19 - Choosing and Adapting Community Interventions: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/analyze/choose-and-adapt-communi... (sections 1 - 6). Note: read this chapter if you're not developing your own intervention or initiative, but want to choose from a range of interventions or initiatives that already exist and have proven to be effective.
Toolkit 3 - Analyzing Problems and Goals: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/analyzing-problems-and-goals (all plus examples)
Toolkit 7 - Developing an Intervention: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/developing-intervention (all plus examples)
Toolkit 5 - Developing Strategic and Action Plans: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/developing-strategic-and-action-plans (this will inform how to implement the initiative so read all of it plus the examples)
Leading the design and implementation team
Chapter 13 - Orienting Ideas in Leadership: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/leadership/leadership-ideas (sections 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, and 11)
Chapter 14 - Core Functions in Leadership: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/leadership/leadership-functions (sections 1 - 10)
Chapter 15 - Becoming an Effective Manager: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/leadership/effective-manager (sections 1, 2, 3, 4)
Toolkit 6 - Building Leadership: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/building-leadership (all, plus the examples)
Suggested, Chapter 16 - Group Facilitation and Problem-Solving: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/leadership/group-facilitation (sections 1 and 2)
Monitoring and evaluating the initiative's progress
Chapter 36 - Introduction to Evaluation: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/evaluate/evaluation (all sections)
Toolkit 12 - Evaluating the Initiative: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/evaluating-initiative (all plus examples)
Chapter 37 - Operations in Evaluating Community Interventions: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/evaluate/evaluate-community-inte... (sections 1 - 5)
Chapter 38 - Some Methods for Evaluating Comprehensive Community Initiatives: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/evaluate/evaluate-community-init... (sections 1 and 2 in particular, the remaining sections for your edification)
Evaluating team members
Chapter 13 - Orienting Ideas in Leadership, Section 4: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/leadership/leadership-ideas/team... (checklist and PowerPoint)
Chapter 15 - Becoming an Effective Manager, Section 2: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/leadership/effective-manager/sta... (main section, checklist, tools -an evaluation form, and PowerPoint)
Well, Neeraj, I've thrown a lot of resources at you, but I think that by looking through each one offered you will find exactly what you're looking for, if not, please stop by the CTB and Ask an Advisor and we'll keep working at it until we get it right! Again, the role of the advisor is to tease out resources from the CTB that point you in the right direction, hopefully I've provided you with all the resources you need for each of the issues you presented. With that I thank you for bringing these four issues to our attention and we wish you the very best of success in all that you do on behalf of your community.
Ask an Advisor
6' apart is better than 6' under. A mask is better than shroud..
Would you be interested interested in the comments of an old lady who has seen the din die down on seat belts and they are now mandatory without violating the constituation?
Hi Grace,
Thank you for visiting the Community Tool Box and Ask an Advisor, we very much appreciate your having taken an interest in trying to compel people who are otherwise not inclined to wear masks or keep a safe social distance to do so in these challenging times; it is a concern that many of us share. We, at the Community Tool Box (CTB) also appreciate your two very clever slogans that could actually become part of a social marketing campaign if you were so inspired. I know you didn't ask for specific advice about moving these two slogans into the mainstream, but let me offer you two resources from the CTB about social marketing that you could use to develop a public service campaign of your own so that those slogans are widely shared and seen, and perhaps have an impact on people's behavior! In general, resources in the CTB fall into two broad categories, chapters and toolkits; chapters are more in-depth while toolkits give you the nuts and bolts of how to take action along with great real-life examples; in my estimation, examples are the most effective and efficient way to learn from the experts to inform your own work. So, if you're interested in social marketing, Chapter 45 and Toolkit 13 are your go-to resources. I've provided the links to the chapter and the toolkit so you don't have to root around in the CTB looking for them. The job of the advisor is to tease out the most useful CTB resources for the work to be done and then it is up to you to read, review, and integrate the information from those resources into your work; the advisor simply leads you in the right direction then it's up to you to going forward.
Chapter 45 - Social Marketing of Successful Components of the Initiative: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/sustain/social-marketing (in particular, sections 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8).
Toolkit 13 - Implementing Social Marketing: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/implement-social-marketing-effort (all, plus the examples)...this toolkit will take you through the process from A to Z on how to conduct a social marketing campaign to influence people to wear masks and maintain social distance.
As I said Grace, you might not want to take on a a whole social marketing effort, and all of this is a lot more than you bargained for, but I do hope you'll take a look at Chapter 45 and Toolkit 13, and perhaps become inspired to try and get your two clever and timely slogans into the collective consciousness of the members of your community. With that Grace, thank you so very much for your comments and slogans, I can see wearing masks and social distancing are issues you really care about. If you have any questions or concerns, don't hesitate to come back to the CTB and we'll take up where we left off. Best of success to you in all that you do on behalf of your community.
Ask an Advisor
Hi Matthew,
You are most welcome, I can only hope that you'll find something useful in the myriad CTB resources offered yesterday; admittedly, kind of a shot in the dark. If you don't find anything suitable to your needs let me know and I'll go outside the CTB to help you find those pesky diagrams. To your question about collaborating with the CTB, I suggest contacting the Work Group for Community Health and Development as they will know far more about such collaborations than I do:
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
Best to you,
Ask an Advisor
Our mission is to improve the lives for the youth who are dropped out, hungry and who are stuck doing illegal activities by mentoring them with personal & professional development, telling them about how staying in school is better, feeding them with food and having less criminal activities within the community.
Vision
We imagine that the youth have more inherent access to information about why they are dropping out of school and why they should stay in school. A community without hunger, a place to sleep, and a community without crimes.
I really want to start helping the community more often through a nonprofit corporation, I really need help setting up a coalition plan and here are the problems we have in a remote community of the Canadian north. They include but not limited to: The youth have nowhere to go so they are starting to do drugs and drink alcohol more often. When they become bored, they tend to be more mischief. Their parents have problems with keeping up with their bills because they do drugs so the kids do not eat often. Some of the youth, mostly boys have to go either house to house in this small town to have a place to sleep as well.
The youth tends to do the following:
Gamble
Do drugs
Drink alcohol
Go hungry
Have nowhere to have fun
Drop out of high-school
Hi Simon,
First, all apologies for the delay in my reply, unfortunately, work and all that. That said, a big welcome to the Community Tool Box (CTB) and Ask an Advisor. Thank you for allowing us the privilege of helping you with your program planning, what I believe is your desire to build a coalition within your community, and then conducting action/strategic planning for the work of the coalition; I hope I have that right. Let me add, on behalf of the CTB, we very much appreciate what your are trying to do for the youth in the Nunavut community! I think the best strategy for us to take is to first get our arms around creating a program plan, then we'll consider in a separate reply coalition building and action/strategic planning. Hopefully that works for you. Before we get down to business let me explain how Ask an Advisor works. The advisor, in this case me, finds resources within the CTB in the form of chapters rich with information, toolkits with nuts and bolts how to get stuff done information with examples, and community stories from people just like you who have done what you want to do, while drawing upon her/his own community building work to help you come up with the answers you're looking for. In short, the advisor provides links to information in the CTB or from elsewhere if necessary, it is then up to you to sort through and determine the information likely to be the most relevant and helpful. If Ihe advisor thinks her/his own experience might be helpful too then that's added into the mix. Make sense?
On to program planning. Although I hate to assume anything, based on your vision and mission it seems like you already have a pretty good handle about what's going on with youth in your community and the severity of the problems you outlined. correct?
Sometimes I find it useful to first provide background material that helps explain other CTB resources:
The first resource that I think will be useful background information is Chapter 1 - Our Model for Community Change and Improvement: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/overview/model-for-community-cha.... I suggest paying attention to sections 6, 7, and 9 which offer overarching principles and values in community work, how to work with others collaboratively, and a framework for addressing community problems; these are definitely worth your time.
The second resource, following the first is Chapter 2 - Other Models for Promoting Community Health and Development: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/overview/models-for-community-he.... I suggest paying particular attention to sections 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 16, and 17 as they offer great examples of framing the work you want to do with the youth in your community; let others be your guide I always say. These sections do cover a bit of everything you asked about so I think it's worth your time to pour through them.
The second set of resources is directly related to program planning, and related topics:
The first program planning resource is Chapter 18 - Deciding Where to Start: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/analyze/where-to-start. I suggest paying attention to section 1 which is about designing interventions and section 2 which is about a participatory approach to planning interventions, which I absolutely recommend; if you have time the other two sections will prove useful to you down the road.
The second resource is Chapter 19 - Choosing and Adapting Community Interventions: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/analyze/choose-and-adapt-communi.... In this chapter I suggest reading all six sections because sometimes it is more efficient, feasible, and economical to adapt a proven intervention (or proven interventions) for what you want to do rather than coming up with them on your own; those that show up in the CTB have been proven to be effective so I always recommend starting here.
If nothing in Chapter 19 appeals to you, then I offer Toolkit 7 - Developing an Intervention: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/developing-intervention. This toolkit provides you with all the resources necessary to develop your interventions. Do read the main section along with the related resources, and even more important, the examples.
Okay Simon, you've got five resources as a point of departure for program planning, in my next advisor response I'll address coalition building and strategic/action planning. All of this will get you started and definitely moving in the right direction. Hang on, more is on it's way...
Ask an Advisor
I am trying to develop a coalition plan & an action plan for the youth here in a small community called Igloolik, NU which is part of Canada. I have been looking for those two answers for quite a while now and would like to know where they are. Here is our vision and mission statement.
Vision
We imagine that the youth have more inherent access to information about why they are dropping out of school and why they should stay in school. A community without hunger, a place to sleep, and a community without crimes.
Mission
Our mission is to improve the lives of the youth who are dropped out, hungry, and who are stuck doing illegal activities by mentoring them with personal & professional development, telling them about how staying in school is better, feeding them with food and having fewer criminal activities within the community.
How can I implement those statements?
Hello Again Simon,
As promised, response part two! My plan is to provide you with the resources for getting people involved in your work, actually building a coalition of people and organizations to work with you on improving the lives of the youth in your Nunavut community, as well as resources for developing strategic and action plans. Some of the resources I offered you in my first advisor response covered these same activities, in part, so if you've read them through then you should already be a bit familiar with the concepts, principles, and practices therein. Because you have a lot of CTB resources already I won't overwhelm you with a lot of background material. Let's get to it, the work is at hand...
The first three CTB resources are all about getting other people involved in the work you're doing and how to build them into a powerful, engaged, committed coalition that will really get things done on behalf of the youth in your community; as I always say (and you can quote me on this), it takes a community to raise a community. So, to get people involved, built into a coalition, and then increasing the size of that coalition Chapter 7, and Toolkits 1 and 8 are definitely where it's at:
Chapter 7 - Encouraging Involvement in Community Work: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/participation/encouraging-involv.... I suggest reading all sections in this chapter, this chapter is money!
Toolkit 1 - Creating and Maintaining Coalitions and Partnerships: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/creating-and-maintaining-coalitions-and-partnerships. I suggest reading the entirety of the toolkit, the related resources, and the examples.
Toolkit 8 - Increasing Partnership and Membership: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/increasing-participation-and-membership. Same as in Toolkt 1, read the entirety of the toolkit, the related resources, and the examples.
The next two resources are directly related to strategic and action planning, one chapter and one toolkit.
Chapter 8 - Developing a Strategic Plan: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/structure/strategic-planning. I suggest reading all seven sections. You will notice that section 2 is all about developing a vision and mission statements. Now, I know you already have stated your vision and mission, but it wouldn't hurt to double-check your vision and mission against those offered therein to make sure you've developed them correctly and to make doubly-sure you can actually fulfill your vision for a better future for the youth of your community, can't hurt.
Toolkit 5 - Developing Strategic and Action Plans: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/developing-strategic-and-action-plans.Okay, this is the total nuts and bolts, hands-on, get it done resource for strategic and action planning, this is money, this is gold! As with all the toolkits I've suggested, do read the entirety of the main section, the related resources, and the examples. For my money (even though the CTB is a free resource), toolkits are the way to go no matter where you want to go.
Okay, last but not least, just in case you missed it - Chapter 2, Section 12, Example 4 - here is a nice little piece on a health intervention in the Inuit communities of Ontario:
Example 4: Inuit Tutarvingat (Inuit Centre at NAHO) in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
We would like to thank the following individuals who assisted in the preparation of this case study: Katherine Minich, Suzanne Jackson
The Inuit Tutarvingat Initiative began in 2000 in response to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP). Participating organizations and institutions included the Metis Centre, First Nations Centre, and the Communications Unit. The Initiative is intended to benefit the Inuit population, which has the poorest health status in the country of Canada. Policy makers, government workers, and the general public are the target audiences for the Initiative.
The main focus of the Initiative is to promote practices that will restore a healthy Inuit lifestyle and improve the health status of the Inuit population through research and dissemination of research results, education and awareness raising, human resource development and sharing information on Inuit-specific health policies and practices. The Initiative seeks these changes at the level of individuals, organizations, community and society.
The Initiative has 5 objectives:
- Improve and promote Inuit health through knowledge-based activities.
- Promote understanding of health issues affecting the Inuit population.
- Facilitate and promote research and develop research partnerships.
- Foster participation of the Inuit population in the delivery of healthcare.
- Affirm and protect Inuit traditional healing practices.
Change in the Inuit community has been difficult to capture as the population is greatly dispersed. Also, because no formal monitoring or evaluation system is in place yet, it is difficult to measure change and results. Very little ethnic data is collected so it is hard to tell how Inuits in general are benefiting. Some products and resources target specialized audiences but the uptake and impact of those resources are not known. Organizational level changes have, however, made going for smaller grants easier for staff.
Some challenges faced by the Initiative include difficulty in the retention of Inuit workers, long upstream population health challenges, and changing governments leading to questions regarding the continuity of funding.
Although evidence of effectiveness has yet to be determined due to a lack of formal monitoring and evaluation the Initiative seems to be headed in the right direction. According to the Initiative, communications have been reaching the target audience, the Centre has gained visibility, and resources/partnerships have been established. However, the Initiative needs to focus on fewer issues with longer and more comprehensive projects and to strengthen partnerships with health and education sectors and to develop target materials. Performance monitoring and evaluation must also be developed and improved.
Alright Simon, I think that's it for CTB resources that address community involvement, coalition building, and both strategic and action planning to go along with program/implementation planning that we discussed in my first response. If for any reason you don't find what you're looking for do stop by again and we'll press on until we get you the resources you want. Admittedly, I have offered up a lot of information for you to consume, but trust me, it will be worth your time to give it due consideration, after all it's for the youth in your community. With that I thank you Simon for visiting the CTB and presenting us with a challenging proposition. On behalf of the CTB, I wish you the very best of success in all your endeavors, and as I said, do come back if there is something more I/we can help you with.
Ask an Advisor
Hi Amina,
Welcome, welcome to the Community Tool Box (CTB) and Ask an Advisor. Thank you for asking about program development and securing funding for your cause, I think we have just what you're looking for here in the CTB, and for the hard work you are doing on behalf of women and youth in your community! Shall we begin? Okay, let's take them one at a time beginning with how to develop programs or as they are sometimes called, interventions or initiatives; here in the CTB programs, initiatives, and interventions are pretty much synonymous. Before we get down to business, let me explain how Ask an Advisor works. The advisor, in this case me, finds resources within the CTB in the form of chapters rich with information, toolkits with nuts and bolts how to get stuff done information with examples, and community stories from people just like you who have done what you want to do, while drawing upon her/his own community building work to help you come up with the answers you're looking for. In short, the advisor provides links to information in the CTB or from elsewhere if necessary, it is then up to you to sort through and determine the information likely to be the most relevant and helpful. If Ihe advisor thinks her/his own experience might be helpful too then that's added into the mix. Make sense? So, I have three resources directly related to program/intervention development, two chapters and one toolkit.
The first program planning resource is Chapter 18 - Deciding Where to Start: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/analyze/where-to-start. I suggest paying attention to section 1 which is about designing interventions and section 2 which is about a participatory approach to planning interventions, which I absolutely recommend; if you have time the other two sections will prove useful to you down the road.
The second resource is Chapter 19 - Choosing and Adapting Community Interventions: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/analyze/choose-and-adapt-communi.... In this chapter I suggest reading all six sections because sometimes it is more efficient, feasible, and economical to adapt a proven intervention (or proven interventions) for what you want to do rather than coming up with them on your own; those that show up in the CTB have been proven to be effective so I always recommend starting here.
If nothing in Chapter 19 appeals to you, then I offer Toolkit 7 - Developing an Intervention: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/developing-intervention. This toolkit provides you with all the resources necessary to develop your own interventions. Do read the main section along with the related resources, and even more important, the examples, let others be your guide!
Now, for fund raising I have three CTB resources for you, two chapters and one toolkit (and another one, just in case). Just to be clear, the CTB doesn't offer a list of potential funders, but we do give you the tools you need to successfully obtain funds to build and sustain your cause. You can go on-line for all manner of databases that list donors/sources of funding by cause (e.g., pregnancy prevention). You might consider search terms such as "grant funding for..." or "donors who fund...." I do wish we had such a database for you, alas, we do not so we must leave it to your initiative. As a place to start, ask other organizations you know who receive extramural funding as that might give you some ideas.
The first resource is Chapter 42 - Getting Grants and Resources: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/finances/grants-and-financial-re.... I suggest really paying attention to the first section, definitely read all five sections, but before you do anything related to fund raising you need a plan, which is the purpose of section one. If you have an excellent program/intervention that has been proven to be effective and you want it to continue then you want to create a sustainability plan.
Related to Chapter 42 is Toolkit 14 - Applying for Grants: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/applying-for-grants. Do read the entirety of the main section, read the related resources, and for sure, the examples - people just like you who have successfully secured grant funding to sustain their programs/interventions.
Last, do read Chapter 46 - Planning for Sustainability: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/sustain/long-term-sustainability which pretty much pulls Chapter 42 and Toolkit 14 together for you, but do read through both before moving on to this chapter. There is a related toolkit, Toolkit 16 - Sustaining the Work or Initiative: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/sustaining-work-or-initiative. If you are really ambitious then do consider this toolkit, but I think with two chapters and a toolkit you pretty much have what you need. Toolkit 16 can be held in reserve if you need it.
With that Amina, I think we've pretty much covered program/intervention/initiative development and funding, at least with the resources we have here in the CTB. If for any reason you don't find what you're looking for do visit us again and we'll press on and press in until you have exactly what you need, okay? Okay! On behalf of the CTB and Ask an Advisor, thank you for the hard work you are doing in your community, your efforts DO make a difference, and I wish you the very best of success in all of your endeavors.
Ask an Advisor
Hi Sue,
Welcome to the Community Tool Box (CTB) and Ask an Advisor. You raise an interesting, complex issue, one that is affecting so many communities around our country and I applaud you for taking on this challenge in the times in which we find ourselves. There are many ways to go about creating change, and people have been asking how to do so for time immemorial, but I think the first thing we need to look at is getting people in your community to really care about People of Color, then we can layer on specific strategies. Before we get down to business, let me explain how Ask an Advisor works. The advisor, in this case me, finds resources within the CTB in the form of chapters rich with information, toolkits with nuts and bolts how to get stuff done information with examples, and community stories from people just like you who have done what you want to do, while drawing upon her/his own community building work to help you come up with the answers you're looking for. In short, the advisor provides links to information in the CTB or from elsewhere if necessary, it is then up to you to sort through and determine the information likely to be the most relevant and helpful. If the advisor thinks her/his own experience might be helpful too then that's added into the mix. Make sense? I am going to provide you with a lot of resources so bear with me, I'll do my best to distill the resources down to the basics. Then, after you review them and extract what you think is most relevant you can come back the the CTB and I can add more resources according to your more specific needs.
Okay, let's get going. The first resource I think will be helpful to you is Chapter 6 - Communications to Promote Interest: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/participation/promoting-interest. Although all of the sections will ultimately be useful to you, I think for right now Section 2 - Using Principles of Persuasion: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/participation/promoting-interest... will get you thinking about the tactics you need to use to get the community interested in this issue. To my way of thinking, this is the first step to creating change, persuading people who are either unaware of the issues or who are change resistant to actually want to engage in a change process. Reading through this section will help you understand the psycho-emotional factors involved in persuasion and give you some valuable, hands-on strategies. So, the first step is persuasion. The next step is developing a communication plan.
So, the second resource I'd like you to consider, also found in Chapter 6 is Section 1 - Developing a Plan for Communication: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/participation/promoting-interest.... It seems a bit out of sequence to read Chapter 6, Section 2 first, but I think it makes sense to understand what you want to communicate before you actually do said communicating; you need to know the underlying principles. In the same vein, the third resource I suggest reading through is Chapter 7 - Encouraging Involvement in Community Work: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/participation/encouraging-involv.... After reading through Section 2 of Chapter 6 you should have a pretty good grasp on the powers of persuasion. What good is knowing about persuasion if you can't actually persuade your community to care about People of Color? Chapter 7 will help you kick your powers of persuasion up a notch so that you can encourage the community to become involved in community work toward sustainable change. There is some overlap between Chapters 6 and 7, even so, I suggest reading through all eight sections, paying closest attention to sections 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, and 8. This is not to say the other sections aren't important, but I want to focus your attention on what I think are the most relevant aspects of Chapter 7, the sections that will be of most use.
The next wo resources I suggest you consider are toolkits related to Chapters 6 and 7. As you might recall, toolkits provide the nuts and bolts, hands on, how to get things done information you need for applying what you've been reading in the chapters. The first toolkit I offer is Toolkit 1 - Creating and Maintaining Coalitions and Partnerships: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/creating-and-maintaining-coalitions-and-partnerships. Make sure you look carefully at both the main section and the examples. You understand persuasion, you understand what it takes to encourage community involvement, but to foment sustainable change you need a coalition of community members to actually get the work done. This toolkit will show you how to bring people together and put them to work for the greater good. However, just bringing people together isn't enough, you need to both keep them engaged and increase the number of community members so the work is sustained on into perpetuity or until the problem is solved. Toolkit 8 - Increasing Participation and Membership: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/increasing-participation-and-membership. Again, read both the main section and examples - examples are total money!
The last resource is what I think of as a "capstone" resource, Chapter 27 - Working Together for Racial Justice and Inclusion: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/culture/racial-injustice-and-inc.... Now Sue, you might think, and you wouldn't be wrong in thinking that Chapter 27 could have/should have been the first resource provided, but I thought it best to give you background material related to persuasion, communications, engaging the community, building coalitions, and engaging coalitions, etc. before providing a resource specific to racial justice and inclusion. Sure, Chapter 27 offers great strategies, but I think they will be more effective when you understand everything else that goes into a sustainable change effort; I sure do hope that makes sense.
With that Sue, I think you've got plenty of resources to start you down the road to sustainable community change. If, for any reason you don't find what you're looking for in these myriad resources do drop by the CTB again and I'll work with you until you have exactly what you need. To reiterate, I think Chapters 6, 7, and 27 along with Toolkits 1 and 8 will take you where you want to go. On behalf of the CTB thank you so much for coming to us for advice and more important, for the work you want to do on behalf of People of Color in your larger community; the very best of success to you in all of your endeavors.
Ask an Advisor
Hi Esther,
Welcome to the Community Tool Box (CTB) and Ask an Advisor, and on behalf of the CTB, thank you for taking on this challenge in the times in which we find ourselves; your efforts are appreciated. I want to acknowledge the compelling story you included about your life struggles, but more important, how you overcame those struggles to become a true asset to your community, very impressive and I’m sure inspirational to others.
Before we get down to business, let me explain how Ask an Advisor works. The advisor, in this case me, finds resources within the CTB in the form of chapters rich with information, toolkits with nuts and bolts how to get stuff done information with examples, and community stories from people just like you who have done what you want to do, while drawing upon her/his own community building work to help you come up with the answers you're looking for. To be clear, the advisor does not provide long-term mentoring or ongoing advice, usually one or two sessions suffice. In short, the advisor provides links to information in the CTB or from elsewhere if necessary, it is then up to you to sort through and determine the information likely to be the most relevant and helpful. If the advisor thinks her/his own experience might be helpful too then that's added into the mix. The questions the advisor can answer are limited to community work. More specifically, the advisor cannot provide advice about personal life situations, and is not able to answer questions involving counseling, mental health issues, individual school or degree programs, computer technology, legal issues, or other questions not related to doing community work, broadly defined. Make sense?
Okay, you submitted a lot of information so to be honest with you I’m not exactly sure what kind of advice you’re looking for, whether you want help in teaching people how to get involved locally at a grass-roots level without actually running for office or how to develop a research tool or measurement. We’ll take each one in turn.
Regarding the former, the first resource I think will be helpful to you is Chapter 6 - Communications to Promote Interest: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/participation/promoting-interest. Although all of the sections will ultimately be useful to you, I think for right now Section 1 - Developing a Plan for Communication: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/participation/promoting-interest.... In the same vein, the second resource I suggest reading through is Chapter 7 - Encouraging Involvement in Community Work: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/participation/encouraging-involv.... Chapter 7 will help you encourage the community to become involved in community work toward sustainable change. There is some overlap between Chapters 6 and 7; however, I suggest reading through all eight sections, paying closest attention to sections 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, and 8. This is not to say the other sections aren't important, but I want to focus your attention on what I think are the most relevant aspects of Chapter 7, the sections that will be of most use. The next two resources I suggest you consider are toolkits related to Chapters 6 and 7. As you might recall, toolkits provide the nuts and bolts, hands on, how to get things done information you need for applying what you've been reading in the chapters, I have three that I think will interest you. The first toolkit I offer is Toolkit 1 - Creating and Maintaining Coalitions and Partnerships: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/creating-and-maintaining-coalitions-and-partnerships. Make sure you look carefully at both the main section and the examples. You understand what it takes to encourage community involvement, but to foment sustainable change you need a coalition of community members to actually get the work done. This toolkit will show you how to bring people together and put them to work for the greater good. However, just bringing people together isn't enough, you need to both keep them engaged and increase the number of community members so the work is sustained on into perpetuity or until the problem is solved. So, the second toolkit I suggest you look at is Toolkit 8 - Increasing Participation and Membership: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/increasing-participation-and-membership. Again, read both the main section and examples - examples are total money! The third toolkit I suggest reading through, what I call the “capstone toolkit is our Justice Action Toolkit: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/justice-action-toolkit which provides resources to support community members working towards racial justice and gender equity, and injustice in its many forms. Just click any link of interest and it will tell you all you need to know about that particular action in terms of how to actually go about taking that kind of action. If you want to train community members to take action then this is the toolkit to use.
Regarding the latter, because I don’t know what the research tool is for, specifically what your research interests are, what questions you want to answer, and what you want to measure, all I can offer is advice more generally about research tool development whether a scale or some sort of survey. Truth be told, most doctoral programs provide coursework in research methods which would likely include either the ways in which one would choose a valid and reliable instrument for measuring the constructs of interest or developing your own scale/survey (or other tools if your research will use qualitative methods). If you’re back in your doctoral program then I would suggest working with the chairman of your committee or research advisor as they can offer the best guidance. Here in the CTB we have a number of chapters on evaluation, which is the closest we get to actual research. The first chapter that might be of interest is Chapter 37 – Operations in Evaluating Community Interventions: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/evaluate/evaluate-community-inte.... I think if you read through sections 1 – 5 you’ll gain some insights into the evaluation process, but I’m not sure that will help you in instrument development. Chapter 37, Section 3 covers the creation of an observational system (https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/evaluate/evaluate-community-inte...), which is fairly close to what you’re looking for, more so than anything else we have in the CTB. The second chapter you might want to read through is Chapter 38 – Some Methods for Evaluating Comprehensive Community Initiatives: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/evaluate/evaluate-community-init.... This chapter won’t necessarily show you how to develop a research tool, but it will provide information on how to monitor progress, conduct surveys, gather community-level indicators, and other methods for evaluating comprehensive community initiatives, all of which are important in the evaluation of community work.
With that Esther, I think you've got plenty of resources to start you on your way. If, for any reason you don't find what you're looking for in these myriad resources do drop by the CTB again and I'll work with you until you have exactly what you need to the best of my abilities and with the resources the CTB offers. To reiterate, I think Chapters 6, 7, 27, 37, and 38, along with Toolkits 1, 8, and the Justice Action Toolkit will take you where you want to go, if not all the way then at least a good deal of the way. On behalf of the CTB thank you so much for coming to us for advice and more important, for the work you want to do in your community; the very best of success to you in all of your endeavors.
Ask an Advisor
Hi Denise,
Welcome to the Community Tool Box (CTB) and Ask an Advisor, and on behalf of the CTB, thank you for taking on this challenge in the times in which we find ourselves; your efforts are very much appreciated. You pose an interesting question about starting a support group for women and children who are the victims of abuse or who continue to be traumatized by an abusive relationship. Kudos for wanting to help this most vulnerable of populations. To be clear, the CTB doesn’t offer up any specific resources related to support groups for the victims of abuse that are Bible or scripture-based, but I can and will provide you with CTB resources that can be adapted to your needs. I hope that will work for you.
The first resource I want to offer you is from Chapter 21, Section 2 – Creating and Facilitating Peer Support Groups: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/implement/enhancing-support/peer.... This section is important because you’ll learn how to bring together and facilitate support and encouragement among a group of people who share common problems and experiences. Although not based on the Bible or scripture, I think the principles certainly apply in terms of group process. Make sure you read the entirety of the section, the tools, and the examples that show you how others have done what you want to do.
The second resource is from a section in the CTB we call Community Stories. This community story is called Domestic Violence Shelter and Outreach in Victorville: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/a-better-way. I know this is not exactly what you’re looking for, but I find it illustrative and by reading the Overview, the Summary of Taking Action, and the Impact/Results you might find a key take-away or two that you can apply to your own situation.
Resource three is from Toolkit 5, Developing Strategic and Action Plans, Example 4: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/developing-strategic-and-action-plans/examples/exa.... Not specific to beginning a support group, this example should give you ideas about making sure your support group as an intervention is based on best-practices in domestic abuse and trauma support groups. Again, illustrative and key reading.
The only other CTB resource I can think of that you could use to develop your support group is Toolkit 7 – Developing an Intervention: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/developing-intervention. If you think of your support group is an intervention then this toolkit will really help you develop its core components and adapt them to fit your specific context.
I did find one last “bonus” resource that might be of interest to you if you’re interested in community building around domestic violence, abuse, and trauma more as prevention than as a support group intervention, Chapter 28 – Spirituality and Community Building: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/culture/spirituality-and-community-building. Developing a support group is certainly admirable, but if you really want to attack the problem head on then looking at this issue with a wider lens may be the way to go; if you can prevent domestic violence and abuse on a larger scale then support groups are far less necessary. Just something to think about.
So, in the final analysis, I think a combination of the first resource and the last, excluding the bonus resource should give you enough information to get started. The examples are good for helping you see what is possible and to see what others have tried, analogous to what you want to do.
With that Denise, I think you've got plenty of resources to start you on your way. If, for any reason you don't find what you're looking for in these myriad resources do drop by the CTB again and I'll work with you until you have exactly what you need to the best of my abilities and within the resources the CTB offers. To reiterate, I think Chapters 21, Section 2 and Toolkit 7 will get you where you want to go, if not all the way then at least a good deal of the way. On behalf of the CTB thank you so much for coming to us for advice and more important, for the work you want to do in your community; the very best of success to you in all of your endeavors.
Ask an Advisor
Hi Allison,
Thank you for visiting the Community Tool Box (CTB) and Ask an Advisor. To be honest with you Allison, I don’t think the CTB is the right place for answers about issues affecting your corporation, but in the spriit of helpfulness I certainly will provide you with some resources (see below) that might inform your thinking about creating vision and mission statements more generally, the principles apply in multiple situations and under a myriad of conditions so they could prove useful. Before I do that, I think a brief primer is in order to explain a bit about the CTB and Ask an Advisor: the CTB is a free, online resource for those working to build healthier communities and bring about social change, offering thousands of pages of tips and tools for taking action in communities. The vision behind the Community Tool Box is that people — locally and globally — are better prepared to work together to change conditions that affect their lives. Our mission is to promote community health and development by connecting people, ideas, and resources. With the belief that people can change their communities for the better, and informed by disciplines including applied behavior analysis, public health, and community psychology, partners at the University of Kansas and collaborating organizations developed the Community Tool Box as a public service. The CTB is sustained solely through donations at the private, university, and corporate level so as a shameless shill for the CTB your company might consider making a significant and sizable donation to continue our work! The advisor, in this case me, provides links to information in the CTB or from elsewhere if necessary, it is then up to you to sort through and determine the information likely to be the most relevant and helpful. If the advisor thinks her/his own experience might be helpful too then that's added into the mix. The questions the advisor can answer are limited to community work. More specifically, the advisor doesn’t provide advice about personal life situations, and is not able to answer questions involving counseling, mental health issues, individual school or degree programs, computer technology, legal issues, or other questions not related to doing community work, broadly defined. Make sense?
Okay, I promised you links so here are the links to the resources I mentioned above related to developing vision and mission statements. The first link is from Chapter 8 – Developing a Strategic Plan (https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/structure/strategic-planning), Section 1 - An Overview of Strategic Planning or "VMOSA" (Vision, Mission, Objectives, Strategies, and Action Plans): https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/structure/strategic-planning/vmosa/main, and the second resource, also from Chapter 8 is Section 2 - Proclaiming Your Dream: Developing Vision and Mission Statements: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/structure/strategic-planning/vision-mission-statements/main. I suggest reading the main section and the examples for each, the examples especially are illustrative. The third resource is money, is more hands-on, and will show you exactly how to create a mission and vision for your organization, Toolkit 5 - Developing Strategic and Action Plans: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/developing-strategic-and-action-plans; do read the examples, they’re gold. The last resource is from our Best Change Processes section (https://ctb.ku.edu/en/best-change-processes), 2. Establishing a Vision and Mission: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/best-change-processes/establishing-a-vision-and-mission/overview. There is overlap between most of these resources, but I think you’ll find what you need to write new corporate vision and mission statements. Again, the CTB is oriented toward community work, but the same principles apply.
So, with that Allison, thank you for visiting the CTB and Ask an Advisor, I hope I was able to help you on your way, and please do consider us again if you are ever involved in community work, we hope you will give it all due consideration. On behalf of the CTB, I wish you the very best of success in all your endeavors.
Ask an Advisor
Hi James,
Welcome to the Community Tool Box (CTB) and Ask an Advisor, we’re very glad you chose to visit us and for your excellent questions. Thank you for the work you are doing on behalf of your community and for the very clever and interesting strategies you’ve come up with to tackle some real community issues. The idea of using the talent show as a fund-raiser for three day community-based projects is fascinating. Okay, let me address each question one at a time.
So, you’re planning to hold a talent show and you want to know if the CTB can provide one or two people to relate with during the course of the event, correct? Unfortunately James, that’s beyond the scope of the CTB. Basically, the CTB is an online resource for those working to build healthier communities and bring about social change, offering thousands of pages of tips and tools for taking action in communities. The vision behind the CTB is that people — locally and globally — are better prepared to work together to change conditions that affect their lives. Our mission is to promote community health and development by connecting people, ideas, and resources. One of the ways we connect people is through what we call Community Stories (https://ctb.ku.edu/en/community-stories). I found a story that might interest you because it’s kind of related to what you want to do with the talent show, Holistic Health and Wellness Expo, https://ctb.ku.edu/en/community-stories/holistic_health. You might connect with them and see if anyone wants to partner with you in some way; it’s worth a try anyway.
To your second question about whether you can finance the project with registration and advertisement fees? The short answer is yes, yes you can. After you pay whatever expenses you might have to actually put on the talent show the remainder can be used for the project, in fact, that is the way most organizations use their funds after expenses. Related to funding, I think it would be helpful for you to look at a few CTB resources I found for you. Specifically, there are three chapters in the Generating, Managing, and Sustaining Financial Resources section of the CTB which provides information about writing grants, preparing an annual budget, and planning for the future (i.e., sustainability). It’s all well and good to use the talent show as a one off, but if you really want to solve intransigent community problems then you need to think outside of one event and consider how you might do this long-term. The three resources are Chapter 42. Getting Grants and Financial Resources, Chapter 43. Managing Finances, and Chapter 44. Investing in Community Resources. I suggest reading the entirety of Chapter 42, Sections 2 and 3 of Chapter 43, and Section 2 (the only section truth be told), of Chapter 44. Sections 2 and 3 of Chapter 42 is all about managing your finances and provides a primer on how to account for the money your talent show will generate. Section 2 of Chapter 44 will give you with information about providing community groups with small grants, which is what you’re already planning on doing with the proceeds of the talent show, this section will help you to formalize the process.
With that James, I think you have plenty of resources to look through and consider. If for any reason these CTB resources are insufficient, or I didn’t interpret your questions correctly do visit the CTB again soon and I’ll work with you to find exactly what you need. On behalf of the CTB I wish you the greatest of success in all your endeavors and again thank you for the work you are doing on behalf of your community.
Ask an Advisor
I live in a black community (normally referred to as townships), these areas are habited by poor people, where the unemployment and poverty levels are extremely high. Youth idleness and drugs and crime are very high.
I bought a piece of land that I would like to convert into a community center in order to provide the youth with opportunities, for healthy lifestyles, income generation projects and academic skills development, to build a safe space for youth to engage in, collaborate, explore opportunities and build positive habits.
The main objective is to take these youth out of the streets, provide them with opportunities to learn different skills in an environment that is conducive, where most of the amenities that were previously lacking will be made available to them, like internet cafes, learning and study center etc.
Hi Michael,
Welcome to the Community Tool Box (CTB) and Ask an Advisor, we’re very glad you chose to visit us and for your excellent idea. Thank you for the work you are doing on behalf of your Township and for wanting to improve the lives of the youth who live there, hopefully I can find you some resources that will move you along in the building of the community center. On a personal note, I lived in South Africa briefly and spent time with community members in a Township near to where I was staying, and I must say I was completely in awe of their resilience and determination to make a better life for themselves, truly inspirational.
Before we get down to business, let me explain how Ask an Advisor works. The advisor, in this case me, finds resources within the CTB in the form of chapters rich with information, toolkits with nuts and bolts, how to get stuff done information with examples, and community stories from people just like you who have done what you want to do, while drawing upon my own community building work to help you come up with the answers you're looking for. In short, the advisor provides links to information in the CTB or from elsewhere if necessary, it is then up to you to sort through and determine the information likely to be the most relevant and helpful. If the advisor thinks her/his own experience might be helpful too then that's added into the mix. Make sense?
So, what do you need to build a community center? Well, I think the very first thing you need is a model that will get you thinking about how you want to go about planning, implementing, evaluating, and sustaining the community center. The CTB model provided through the link below is to get you to really focus your thoughts about what you both want to do and how to go about doing it in terms of: assessing what needs to be done and what’s already available in your Township in terms of resources; planning how to get from where you are now (a piece of land) to where you want to go (a fully functional community center); acting by mobilizing other people (you really can’t go this alone, all the best community projects have a diversity of partners working together to solve community problems); evaluating whether the community center is working as intended; and in sustaining the community center in perpetuity. So, all that said, I suggest taking a look at A Model for Getting Started: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/get-started. I know, there’s a lot to unpack in this model, what with all the toolkits and other resources, but for my money this is absolutely the best place to start, taking it one step at a time. The good news is that you already took a giant step in the right direction by purchasing the land upon which the community center will be located, you’re off to a great start. In Chapter 2 – Other Models for Promoting Community Health and Development: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/overview/models-for-community-health-and-development you’ll find 18 models, or examples if you prefer, but I think the most relevant to what you want to do are found in Section 8 – Communities that Care: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/overview/models-for-community-health-and-development/communities-that-care/main and Section 16 - Building Compassionate Communities: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/overview/models-for-community-health-and-development/building-compassionate-communities/main. Between the CTB model and the two other models you’ll have a good idea of what can be done. While the latter two sections won’t tell you how to get the community center built, they will give you some principles to consider as you put the community center together.
To give you a bit of a breather from all that modeling, I found the following link in Chapter 26 - Changing the Physical and Social Environment, Section 8 – Creating Good Places for Interactions: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/implement/physical-social-environment/places-for-interaction/main which will teach you how to create a community environment that promotes diverse community engagement, which in essence is what you are looking to do. After reading through this section have a look at the examples in Section 8 to give you an idea of what others have done: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/implement/physical-social-environment/places-for-interaction/examples. I always find the examples to be very insightful and inspirational, and I hope you find them to be likewise.
Last, I’ve given you a lot to consider. The one thing we haven’t really talked about is how you’re going to fund your community center. You purchased the land yourself, but I think you should consider putting in place a financial plan to actually get the community center built. So, I have two chapters for just that purpose: Chapter 42 - Getting Grants and Financial Resources: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/finances/grants-and-financial-resources, and Chapter 43 - Managing Finances: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/finances/managing-finances.
Phew, that’s a lot to get through Michael, but the resources provided will give you a good start. Just remember, you don’t have to do everything all at once, one step at a time. I suggest reading through the CTB model first, then Chapter 26, Section 8 and the example, last the two chapters on funding. If the resources provided don’t give you everything you need then do visit the CTB again and I will try and find you more of what you need; as I said, you have enough at the moment to get you moving in the right direction. With that, on behalf of the CTB thank you so very much for presenting me with an interesting and challenging question, and for what you are attempting to do in your Township, it is admirable and inspiring! We wish you the best of success in all your endeavors.
Ask an Advisor
I'll be teaching a course on research methods in community psychology in the spring, and I'm wondering if you have a set of resources that might work as a "textbook" for such a course (or if you know of someone who's done this). Many thanks.
Cheers,
Bill Flack
Psychology Dept
Bucknell University
Lewisburg PA
Hi Bill,
Welcome to the Community Tool Box (CTB) and Ask an Advisor, we’re very glad you chose to visit us and for your most excellent question. Truth be told Bill, this is not a question advisors get very often, if at all, so I’m glad to point you to some of our great CTB resources as well as resources from outside the CTB. As a social science research methodologist, evaluator, and adjunct professor who works through a lens of community psychology your question really resonates and allows me to flex my research chops a bit, so thank you for that.
Okay, as you likely already know community psychology values participation, social justice, diversity collaboration, empowerment, and an action orientation in all research and evaluation pursuits so that’s the best place to start when teaching research methods, these are the values you want to inculcate in your students. Anyone can teach basic social science research methods, but in community psychology we do so with a bit more finesse and sensitivity to the often fragile human condition. As you also know, community psychology grounds all advocacy and social justice action in empiricism which is what separates community psychology from a social movement or grassroots organization. Methods from the social sciences have been adapted for use in the field, acknowledging value-driven, subjective research involving community members. The methods used in community psychology are both quantitative as well as qualitative along with other innovative methods pulled from anthropology, ethnography, forensics, and the like. I would suggest, because community psychology places a strong emphasis on evaluation, beyond methods, that you include evaluation in your curriculum. Enough of my proselytizing, (sorry about that) on with the resources!
Although I’m not sure to whom you’re teaching research methods and by extension, evaluation – undergrad or graduate - the first three suggestions I have are compendiums that actually come from outside of the CTB and are pretty much standards in the field; you can draw from them or use them in the whole. By the way, you can never go wrong with any book authored or co-authored by Lenny Jason at DePaul University who is a luminary in the community psychology field:
Tolan, P., Keys, C., Chertok, F., & Jason, L. (Eds.). (1990). Researching community psychology: Issues of theories and methods. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. http://www.apa.org/pubs/books/4318031.aspx http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1990-98742-000/
Jason, L.A., Keys, C.B., Suarez-Balcazar, Y., Taylor, R.R., Davis, M., Durlak, J., Isenberg, D. (2004). (Eds.). Participatory community research: Theories and methods in action. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association. http://www.apa.org/pubs/books/4318003.aspx
Jason, L.A., & Glenwick, D.S. (Eds.) (2012). Methodological Approaches to Community-Based Research. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. http://www.apa.org/pubs/books/4316136.aspx.
Okay, Bill, let’s look at what the CTB has to offer. There are four chapters from which to draw the teaching resources you’re looking for, located in the CTB section on evaluating community programs and initiatives. In Chapter 36 – Introduction to Evaluation: (https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/evaluate/evaluation) pay particular attention to Section 2 – Community-Based Participatory Research (https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/evaluate/evaluation/intervention-research/main) which includes a lot of potentially useful resources at the end of the section, and Section 6 – Participatory Evaluation (https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/evaluate/evaluation/participatory-evaluation/main), which, likewise has a treasure-trove of resources upon which to draw. I think that from a pure research methods perspective, Chapter 36’s two sections plus the print resources from outside the CTB I provided should actually be more than enough to get you started. However....
As I hope you will and strongly suggest, you are going to teach evaluation, which is part of all community psychology curricula, alongside research methods then do look at Chapter 37 – Operations in Evaluating Community Interventions: (https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/evaluate/evaluate-community-interventions), all 7 sections offer a great primer on the evaluation enterprise. Taking it one step further, Chapter 38 – Some Methods for Evaluating Comprehensive Community Initiatives: (https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/evaluate/evaluate-community-initiatives) will provide you with evaluation-specific methods to go along with the other resources on participatory methods above. Knowing how to conduct research and evaluations, however, is not sufficient unless you apply the knowledge so accrued for the sake of programmatic improvement. Chapter 39 – Using Evaluation to Understand and Improve the Initiative (https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/evaluate/evaluation-to-understand-and-improve) will show you how to do just that. Research and evaluation in a vacuum is simply called basic research, important for theory-building, but not very useful in on-the ground community psychology.
So, Bill, I think you have everything you need to teach a bang-up community psychology research methods and evaluation course. If what I provided you is insufficient do visit the CTB again and we’ll put our heads together to find you exactly what you need. On behalf of the CTB, best of success in all your endeavors.
Ask an Advisor
Hi Julia,
Welcome to the Community Tool Box (CTB) and Ask an Advisor, we’re very glad you chose to visit us and for your most excellent question. You’re right it’s a little unclear so let’s parse it out a bit. You’re creating a fact sheet for a Federal agency’s employees and those who are likely to visit your website so, clearly, your intended use is not commercial; it’s classified as personal use within a non-profit organization. Per the CTB, Non-Commercial Use: Permission is granted to use and copy CTB documents for any non-commercial use, subject to the following restrictions:
- The above copyright notice appears on all copies and documentation.
- Neither this software and its name nor the name "The University of Kansas" shall be used in any advertisements or publicity programs without specific permission.
I would add, that if you are going to put the fact sheet on your website, not knowing whether visitors might use the fact sheet in ways that require permission from the CTB then you should offer either a disclaimer that the material is not to be reproduced or that anyone who wants to use those materials should seek permission from the CTB. Make sense?
As you noted, you need to cite, using APA format, any CTB material that appears on the fact sheets or other documents you create. APA style citations usually include the author, the publication date, the title of the page or article, and the URL. If there is no author, start the citation with the title of the article. If the page is likely to change over time, add a retrieval date. The 7th edition of the APA manual recommends linking directly to the specific article. It also omits the words “Retrieved from.” For example: Center for Community Health and Development. (n.d.). Chapter 3, Section 10: Conducting Concerns Surveys. University of Kansas. Retrieved January 2, 2020, from the Community Tool Box: http://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/assessment/assessing-community-needs-and-resources/conduct-concerns-surveys/main.
I hope this clarifies the issue for you, it’s a bit tricky so always better to err on the side of precaution. If my explanation isn’t sufficient do visit the CTB again and we’ll keep working at it until we get it right, but I’m pretty sure that for your purposes you don’t need permission from the CTB. If you have any questions please contact the Center for Community Health and Development at the University of Kansas: E-mail: communityhealth@ku.edu or Phone: (785) 864-0533 for further clarification and permission for other uses. On behalf of the CTB, I wish you the very best of success in all your endeavors.
Ask an Advisor
Hi P.L,
Welcome to the Community Tool Box (CTB) and Ask an Advisor, we’re very glad you chose to visit us and for your excellent idea. We also want to thank you for the work you are doing on behalf of your community and for wanting to improve the lives of everyone who lives there, hopefully I can find you some resources that will help you create an advocacy program that will engage your students, in turn creating in them a spark for on-going community work!
Before we get down to business, let me explain how Ask an Advisor works. The advisor, in this case me, finds resources within the CTB in the form of chapters rich with information, toolkits with nuts and bolts, how to get stuff done information with examples, and community stories from people just like you who have done what you want to do, while drawing upon my own community building work to help you come up with the answers you're looking for. In short, the advisor provides links to information in the CTB or from elsewhere if necessary, it is then up to you to sort through and determine the information likely to be the most relevant and helpful. If the advisor thinks her/his own experience might be helpful too then that's added into the mix. Make sense?
So, what do you need to develop an advocacy campaign? Well, I think the very first thing you need is a model that will get you thinking about how you want to go about planning, implementing, evaluating, and sustaining the campaign. The CTB model provided through the link below is to get you to really focus your thoughts about what you both want to do and how to go about doing it in terms of: assessing what needs to be done and what’s already available in your community in terms of resources; planning how to get from where you are now (an idea and some excellent volunteers) to where you want to go (a community that values equality); acting by mobilizing other people (you really can’t go this alone, all the best community projects have a diversity of partners working together, even if you have enthusiastic teenagers at your disposal, to solve community problems); evaluating whether the advocacy campaign is working as intended; and in sustaining the campaign in perpetuity. So, all that said, I suggest taking a look at A Model for Getting Started: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/get-started. I know, there’s a lot to unpack in this model, what with all the toolkits and other resources, but for my money this is absolutely the best place to start, taking it one step at a time. The good news is that you already took a giant step in the right direction by having students to work with; you’re off to a great start.
After working your way through that section we’re going to look at CTB resources found in the section entitled: Organizing for Effective Advocacy which contains five chapters and one toolkit. The chapters and toolkit in this section I suggest you to look at specifically (just click on the link) are: Chapter 30 (Chapter 30. Principles of Advocacy) which will provide you with information on advocacy principles, Chapter 33 (Chapter 33. Conducting a Direct Action Campaign) which will teach you how to use direct action tactics including providing personal testimony, educating decision makers, and registering voters among other things. These are actions you and your students can take to actually make a difference! I also suggest, highly in fact, that you go through Toolkit 10 (10. Advocating for Change) – the main section AND the examples because if you want to see how to develop an advocacy campaign, you know the nuts and bolts, and see how other people have advocated for change then this is the toolkit for you. The two chapters I provided you will give you the background information you need to develop and effective advocacy campaign, but if you’re short on time then Toolkit 10 is the way to go.
Now, I want to offer you the Justice Action Toolkit (https://ctb.ku.edu/en/justice-action-toolkit) which provides resources which will support you and your students as you work toward justice and equity in their many forms. There is a bit of overlap between Toolkit 10, the following direct actions, and the direct actions in Chapter 33, but if you want to just get into the actions well here they are, click on the link for the direct action you and your students want to take. This might not be an exhaustive list, but it will at least get you thinking about what kinds of actions could make up your advocacy campaign. Advocacy and other actions you can take include:
- Developing a Plan for Advocacy
- Registering Voters
- Encouraging Census Participation
- Writing Letters to Elected Officials
- Writing Letters to the Editor
- Seeking Enforcement of Existing Laws or Policies
- Lobbying Decision-makers
- Conducting a Petition Drive
- General Rules for Organizing for Legislative Advocacy
- Developing and Maintaining Ongoing Relationships with Legislators and their Aides
- Organizing Public Demonstrations
- Initiating Legal Action
- Organizing a Boycott
- Using Social Media for Digital Advocacy
- Advocacy Over and For the Long Term
- Building Relationships with People from Different Cultures
- Strategies and Activities for Reducing Racial Prejudice and Racism
- Learning to be an Ally for People from Diverse Groups and Backgrounds
- Creating Opportunities for Members of Groups to Identify Their Similarities, Differences, and Assets
- Multicultural Collaboration
- Building Inclusive Communities
Phew, that’s a lot to get through P. L., but the resources provided will give you a good start. Just remember, you don’t have to do everything all at once, one step at a time. I suggest reading through the CTB model first, then Chapter 30, Chapter 33, and Toolkit 10 pretty much in that order. If the resources provided don’t give you everything you need then do visit the CTB again and I will try and find you more of what you need; as I said, you have enough at the moment to get you moving in the right direction. With that, on behalf of the CTB thank you so very much for presenting me with an interesting and challenging question, and for what you are attempting to do in your community. We wish you the very best of success in all your endeavors.
Ask an Advisor
Hi Mavis,
Welcome to the Community Tool Box (CTB) and Ask an Advisor, we’re very glad you chose to visit us and for your question. We also thank you for the work you are doing on behalf of your community and for wanting to improve the lives of everyone who lives there.
In sort, the answer to your question is yes, yes we can assist you with usage in your rural area, but you’ll need to provide us with more information about the type of usage for which you want assistance. Usage means many things so help us to help you by explaining, in as much detail as possible what you want to do in your community. Once you’ve thought it through a bit more, do revisit the CTB again and we’ll take it from there.
I think it would be helpful to explain how Ask an Advisor works. The advisor, in this case me, finds resources within the CTB in the form of chapters rich with information, toolkits with nuts and bolts, how to get stuff done information with examples, and community stories from people just like you who have done what you want to do, while drawing upon my own community building work to help you come up with the answers you're looking for. In short, the advisor provides links to information in the CTB or from elsewhere if necessary, it is then up to you to sort through and determine the information likely to be the most relevant and helpful. If the advisor thinks her/his own experience might be helpful too then that's added into the mix. Make sense?
With that, on behalf of the CTB thank you for your question, and for wanting to improve conditions in your community. As I said, in your next submission provide us with more detail about what you want to do, specifically, so we can better serve you, that’s what we’re here for. I’m looking forward to hearing from you again soon with more information. Until then, we wish you the very best of success in all your endeavors.
Ask an Advisor
I am currently setting up a new community hub to connect practitioners from around the world, who are fighting and studying loneliness. The idea is to establish more international collaboration and knowledge exchange.
The question I could use some guidance with is:
Which platform would you recommend to build the community around and enable a continuous exchange of ideas, questions and answers? We're currently looking into Slack, Facebook & Mighty Network - are there any good articles or publications, which can help us to decide?
Thank you so much!
Sending sunshine,
Jannis
Hi Jannis,
Welcome to the Community Tool Box (CTB) and Ask an Advisor, we’re very glad you chose to visit us and for your most excellent, and somewhat challenging question. We also thank you for the work you are doing on behalf of your practitioner community and for wanting to create a professional collaborative.
Truth be told Jannis, in all my time as an advisor I’ve never been asked this question so I had to root around a bit in the CTB to see if we have something that will suit your needs, and I am happy to report that I think I’ve found an answer, but not the one you’re expecting. We, the CTB have a service called Community WorkStations (https://ctb.ku.edu/en/community-workstations) which is built on Microsoft SharePoint, allowing you to create an online collaboration space just like you want to do. In all honesty, the CTB doesn’t have links to the good articles or publications you’re looking for to inform your choice, none that I could find anyway, so I suggest taking a look at some examples of CTB WorkStations by clicking on this link: Community WorkStation; the list of WorkStation clients is available at http://www.myctb.org and the testimonials are illuminating.
If after looking at what we have to offer you decide that you might like to try CTB WorkStations, do get in touch with my most excellent CTB colleague, Cristina Holt at the KU Center for Community Health and Development because she is the absolute best person to discuss this with, either by phone at (785) 864-0533, or by email at toolbox@ku.edu.
With that, Jannis, thank you for your challenging question, and for wanting to create an online practitioner collaborative, it’s truly a great idea. I do think that CTB WorkStations is a viable alternative to the platforms you mentioned, and better yet, you’ll have the support of the entire CTB! Not that I’m trying to sell you on it, but it’s definitely worth looking at and might even inform your choice of platforms if what you see here doesn’t suit. Of course, feel free to drop by again and I’ll go outside of the CTB if necessary to come up with a satisfactory answer for you. On behalf of the CTB I wish you the very best of success in all your endeavors.
Ask an Advisor
How can I cite this online book apa format 7 edition?
Thank you
Hi Igor,
Welcome to the Community Tool Box (CTB) and Ask an Advisor, we’re very glad you chose to visit us and for your questions. I will give you two pieces of information; first how to cite an e-book and second, how to cite CTB material.
To create an e-book citation, you will need the following information on your source:
- First Name Initial and Last Name of the author(s)
- Year Published
- Title of the e-book
- Translator name (if applicable)
- Publisher name
- DOI or URL (if applicable)
- For republished books ONLY: Year the original work was published
E-Book Reference Structure:
Author Last Name, First Initial, Middle Initial. (Year Published). Title of e-book in sentence case. Publisher Name. DOI or URL
The example above is not only appropriate for e-books, but is the basic structure used for any authored print book that has a DOI.
In-text citation structure:
- Parenthetical citation: (Author Last Name, Year Published)
- Narrative citation: Author Last Name (Year Published)
E-Book Citation Examples
Citing an Authored E-book With a DOI or URL
Structure: Author Last Name, First Initial, Middle Initial. (Year Published). Title of e-book in sentence case. Publisher Name. DOI or URL
Example: Clark, M. & Phelan, J. (2020). Debating rhetorical narratology: On the synthetic, mimetic, and thematic aspects of narrative. The Ohio University Press. https://doi.org/10.26818/9780814214282
In-text citation examples:
- Parenthetical citation: (Clark & Phelan, 2020)
- Narrative citation: Clark & Phelan (2020)
Citing an E-book Without a DOI or URL
If you are trying to reference an electronic book that does not have a known DOI or URL, then you may end the reference after the publisher name. This is also the case for e-books that are sourced from academic research databases.
Structure: Author Last Name, First Initial, Middle Initial. (Year Published). Title of e-book in sentence case. Publisher Name.
Example: Cialdini, R. B. (2009). Influence: The psychology of persuasion. Harper Collins E-books.
In-text citation examples:
- Parenthetical citation: (Cialdini, 2009)
- Narrative citation: Cialdini (2009)
Citing a Republished E-book
Structure: Author Last Name, First Initial, Middle Initial. (Year Published). Title of e-book in sentence case. Publisher Name. DOI or URL (Original work Published Year)
Example: Wells, H.G. (1992). The war of the worlds. Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/36/36-h/36-h.htm (Original work published 1898)
In-text citation examples:
Notice how the in-text citations include both the original publication date and the e-book publication date, separated by a slash with no spaces.
- Parenthetical citation: (Wells, 1898/1992)
- Narrative citation: Wells (1898/1992)
Citing a Translated E-book
If the e-book has been translated from its original version, provide the name of the translator(s) in parenthesis after the work’s title.
Structure: Author Last Name, First Initial, Middle Initial. (Year Published). Title of e-book in sentence case (First Initial Last Name of Translator, Trans.). Publisher Name. DOI or URL
Example: Yoshimoto, B. (2015). Kitchen (M. Backus, Trans.). Grove Atlantic. https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/kitchen-15
In-text citation examples:
- Parenthetical citation: (Yoshimoto, 2015)
- Narrative citation: Yoshimoto (2015)
If you are looking to cite CTB material, APA style citations usually include the author, the publication date, the title of the page or article, and the URL. If there is no author, start the citation with the title of the article. If the page is likely to change over time, add a retrieval date. The 7th edition of the APA manual recommends linking directly to the specific article. It also omits the words “Retrieved from.” For example: Center for Community Health and Development. (n.d.). Chapter 3, Section 10: Conducting Concerns Surveys. University of Kansas. Retrieved January 2, 2020, from the Community Tool Box: http://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/assessment/assessing-community-needs-and-resources/conduct-concerns-surveys/main.
I hope that helps you out Watanabe, if not, do revisit the CTB and Ask an Advisor and I’ll try to get it sorted for you. With that, thank you for visiting the CTB and for your question. On behalf of the CTB I wish the best of success in all your endeavors.
Ask an Advisor
Hi Jennifer,
Welcome to the Community Tool Box (CTB) and Ask an Advisor, we’re very glad you chose to visit us and for your question. I have to chuckle a little because you’re the fourth person during my present tenure as an advisor to ask about citing CTB material which tells me that the CTB is being put to very good use, so thank you for that!
If you are looking to cite CTB material, APA style citations usually include the author, the publication date, the title of the page or article, and the URL. If there is no author, start the citation with the title of the article. If the page is likely to change over time, add a retrieval date. The 7th edition of the APA manual recommends linking directly to the specific article. It also omits the words “Retrieved from.” For example: Center for Community Health and Development. (n.d.). Chapter 3, Section 10: Conducting Concerns Surveys. University of Kansas. Retrieved January 2, 2020, from the Community Tool Box: http://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/assessment/assessing-community-needs-and-resources/conduct-concerns-surveys/main.
I hope that helps you out Jennifer, if not, do revisit the CTB and Ask an Advisor and I’ll try to get it sorted for you. With that, thank you for visiting the CTB, for your question, and most important for using CTB material. On behalf of the CTB I wish the best of success in your graduate studies and in your community building endeavors.
Ask an Advisor
-two positive objectives
-two personal objectives
-one choice with a positive and negative objective
Hi Thandeka,
Welcome to the Community Tool Box (CTB) and Ask an Advisor. Before I get into the particulars I think it would be helpful to explain how Ask an Advisor works. The advisor, in this case me, finds resources within the CTB in the form of chapters rich with information, toolkits with nuts and bolts, how to get stuff done information with examples, and community stories from people just like you who have done what you want to do, while drawing upon my own community building work to help you come up with the answers you're looking for. In short, the advisor provides links to information in the CTB or from elsewhere if necessary, it is then up to you to sort through and determine the information likely to be the most relevant and helpful. If the advisor thinks her/his own experience might be helpful too then that's added into the mix. Make sense?
That said, I’m not sure Thandeka what you’re asking or the kinds of resources you’re looking for related to community building, it seems this is more of a personal issue rather than a community issue in that you're being asked by some unknown entity to describe your own experience in choosing from different kinds of objectives. Truth be told, I've never heard of a positive or negative objective, a personal objective of course is a goal you have for yourself in any number of situations, whether for your education, for your career, for your health, etc. What I’d like you to do, to help us to help you, is to explain in as much detail as possible, to clarify if you will, the specific information which you seek and the context in which it will be used. Once you’ve thought it through a bit more, do revisit the CTB again and we’ll take it from there. If you're trying to understand what is being asked of you, what information you're being asked to provide, it would be helpful to know that as well.
While I await clarification on the information you’re looking for, the best I can do for you, based on your interest in choosing among objectives, is to provide you with some resources from the CTB Trouble Shooting Guide: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/troubleshooting-guide, specifically #3 - We Don’t Know How to Solve the Problem: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/dont-know-how-to-solve-problem. When you click on this link the first thing you’ll notice is that 15 questions are asked about typical problems people tend to have in community building. If you look at the fifth question - Have we developed objectives and strategies? - you’ll notice three links.
- An Overview of Strategic Planning or “VMOSA” (Vision, Mission, Objectives, Strategies, and Action Plans)
- Creating Objectives
- Developing Successful Strategies: Planning to Win
In my estimation, the second link on creating objectives will be of most use even if the information contained therein doesn’t directly address your issue; to my way of thinking, by understanding what an objective is and how objectives are created you might get a clearer perspective about how to choose among them. Again, based on the information you provided this is the best I could come up with from the resources we have here in the CTB.
As I said, in your next submission provide us with more detail on the information you seek so we can better serve you, that’s what we’re here for. I’m looking forward to hearing from you again soon with more information. Until then, we wish you the very best of success in all your endeavors.
Ask an Advisor
Thanking you in advance for your assistance!
Hi Jennifer,
Welcome to the Community Tool Box (CTB) and Ask an Advisor. Thanks for your most interesting question, one we here at the CTB don’t get very often, if at all. As a survey research methodologist this question is right where I live so I’m excited to take a crack at it.
That said, the first thoughts that come to mind, which are really questions: what do you want to learn about city property development from community members’ perspectives?; who exactly are you going to sample?; and what are you going to do with the data you collect, that is, what is its ultimate use? The first question is the most relevant to our conversation today as what you want to learn from your survey respondents will inform the questions you’ll ask, make sense? I don’t know how much you know about or experiences you have with survey development, but survey questions typically ask respondents about their attitudes towards or opinions about a particular phenomenon or situation, about knowledge or skills they might possess, about experiences they’ve had, about their behaviors, about their aspirations or needs, etc. So, the question remains, what do you want to learn from community members about city property development? Do you want to learn their attitudes toward city property development? Do you want to learn what they know about city property development? Do you want to learn about their experiences with city property development? Do you want to know what goals they might have for city property development? A survey can take you in so many directions it’ll make your head spin! Okay, that’s the first thing to think about. Unfortunately I can’t help you in the development of specific questions without knowing what you want to learn from your potential respondents, but I can offer you guidance from a CTB chapter that discusses survey methods including how to formulate questions.
The CTB resources I suggest for your consideration are all found in Chapter 3 – Assessing Community Needs and Resources: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/assessment/assessing-community-needs-and-resources, specifically Section 7. Conducting Needs Assessment Surveys, Section 10. Conducting Concerns Surveys, Section 13. Conducting Surveys, and Section 21.Windshield and Walking Surveys.
Section 13 is especially salient because it gives you the nuts and bolts about how to do surveys and if you scroll down to Write Your Questions it will take you through the question writing process step-by-step; I would read the entirety of this section first before writing your questions. In the last section, 21, if you scroll down a ways you’ll see What to examine in a general community assessment survey which I think you’ll find very informative regarding some questions that are asked in these kinds of surveys; you can create your own questions accordingly – awesome. Like I said, I’m not sure what you want to learn, but these resources will explain how to write good survey questions and conduct surveys the way they’re meant to be conducted! I think you’ll find each of these Chapter 3 sections very useful so I urge you to read through them as you have time; if you don’t have time then just focus in on the two sections I mentioned above.
I hope that helps you out Jennifer, if not, do revisit the CTB and Ask an Advisor again with more information about what you want to learn from your survey and I’ll try to get it sorted for you. With that, thank you for visiting the CTB, and for your question. On behalf of the CTB I wish the best of success in all your survey endeavors!
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I am writing from the United Nations in New York, I am very interested in your digital advocacy presentation/training (https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/advocacy/direct-action/electronic-advocacy/main) and was wondering if you offer customized training?
I'd be very interested in discussing this.
Hi Deborah,
Welcome to the Community Tool Box (CTB) and Ask an Advisor. Thanks for your most interesting question, one we here at the CTB don’t get very often, if at all.
I’m not sure what types of customized training you’re looking for (digital advocacy?), but the answer is yes, yes we do. If you follow this link it will take you to a PDF-Training from our Team: https://ctb.ku.edu/sites/default/files/ctb_training_flyer.pdf, which can also be accessed through this link: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/capacity-building-and-participatory-evaluation, explaining the types of trainings we do. Once you go through the flier I suggest getting in touch with my most excellent colleague, Christina Holt, at the KU Center for Community Health and Development by phone at (785) 864-0533, or by email at toolbox@ku.edu and she can explain things in more detail.
With that Deborah, on behalf of the CTB I wish you the best of success in all your endeavors and do hope we can provide you with the customized training you seek. Be well,
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