Section 7. Identifying Action Steps in Bringing About Community and System Change

• What is an action step?

• Why should you identify action steps?

• When should you determine action steps?

• How do you identify action steps?

Identifying action steps from your action plan is essential for achieving your organization's goals. Determining action steps helps group members find practical ways to reach objectives, clarify responsibilities, anticipate needed resources and support, and focus on the details necessary to succeed. This section provides a guide for developing action steps in order to increase the coordination and effectiveness of your organization.

What is an action step?

An action step refers to a specific effort undertaken to carry out your organization's strategies and reach its objectives. Action steps are the concrete details of your action plan. They should be clear and comprehensive, and each action step should explain:

• What will occur
• How much, or to what extent, the action will occur
• Who will carry out or coordinate the action
• When the action will take place, and for how long when duration matters
• What resources and support, such as funding, staff time, volunteers, expertise, facilities, equipment, or partnerships, are needed
• What barriers, risks, or dependencies could affect the action and how they will be addressed
• How completion or progress will be assessed when a measure or milestone is useful
• Who needs to be informed, consulted, or involved

Taken together, your defined action steps comprise your group's action plan.

Why should you identify action steps?

Identifying action steps helps an organization prepare for implementation rather than leaving important details to be decided as problems arise. It clarifies what needs to happen next and helps people coordinate their work.

Other reasons are:

• To concentrate on the details that must occur to succeed in your mission
• To decide on workable ways to reach your goals
• To allow people with different roles, knowledge, and experiences to think in a structured way about the future of your coalition or organization
• To save time, energy, and resources in the long run by clarifying responsibilities, dependencies, and needed support before implementation
• To make it easier to monitor progress and recognize when the plan needs to change

When should you determine action steps?

You should determine your action steps after you have decided what changes you want to occur and have identified the strategies you will use to pursue them. You probably do this informally already: you decide what needs to change, then determine the specific work required to help bring that change about. Those specific activities become your action steps.

Ideally, important action steps will be thoughtfully developed early enough to guide implementation. They should then be reviewed at intervals appropriate to the pace and complexity of the work and whenever responsibilities, resources, evidence, community conditions, policies, or other circumstances change significantly. Even if your organization has been operating for some time without clearly defined action steps, it is still useful to develop them.

How do you identify action steps?

Determine the strengths, skills, relationships, resources, authority, knowledge, and experience available within your group and community. Are members experienced in fundraising, communications, organizing, facilitation, research, program delivery, policy, design, evaluation, or other areas? Do partner organizations have useful facilities, services, expertise, or community relationships? Do people directly affected by the issue bring lived experience or practical knowledge that should help shape the work? Brainstorm the resources available to you, including strengths that may not initially seem obvious.

Brainstorm different, specific ways these strengths can be used to carry out the changes you have decided upon.

For example, if your organization is trying to improve adolescents' access to contraceptive and reproductive-health information and services, you might work with young people, schools, health professionals, pharmacies where appropriate, community organizations, and youth-friendly health providers to identify barriers to access. Someone with strong health-system relationships might help connect the coalition with local providers, while someone with communications or design skills could develop an accessible resource guide or webpage explaining where young people can obtain accurate information and appropriate confidential services.

Consider possible barriers, risks, concerns, and dependencies involved in implementing your proposed changes, and identify responsible ways to address them. Some questions you might ask yourselves include:

• Do we have enough funding to carry out the proposed action steps? If not, are there appropriate grants, partnerships, in-kind contributions, or other resources we can pursue?
• Do we have enough staff and volunteer capacity? Can the workload be reduced, divided, or supported through additional partnerships or volunteers?
• Do we have enough time to carry out these changes?
• Are these action steps meaningful, realistic, relevant, and sustainable for the people responsible for them?
• What concerns, differing perspectives, legal or policy requirements, logistical barriers, or unintended effects might arise? Which can be addressed through better information, changes in design, additional support, negotiation, partnership, or another responsible approach?
• Are there accessibility, language, transportation, privacy, technology, scheduling, or other barriers that could prevent people from benefiting from or participating in the action?
• Does completion of this action depend on another person, organization, approval, policy change, or earlier step?

For instance, in the example above, pharmacies, health providers, schools, families, and young people may have different concerns about confidentiality, legal requirements, communication, access, and the accuracy of sexual-health information. Rather than trying simply to get around those concerns, the coalition should understand them and design the action in ways that are medically accurate, developmentally appropriate, respectful, legally appropriate, and practical for young people and community partners.

Brainstorm different ways -- your action steps -- to implement the proposed changes in each sector that you have chosen. Make sure someone documents the discussion and decisions clearly. Again, each action step should include:

• What will occur
• How much, or to what extent, the action will occur
• Who will carry out or coordinate the action
• When the action will take place, and for how long when duration matters
• What resources and support are needed
• What barriers, risks, or dependencies need to be addressed
• How progress or completion will be assessed
• Who needs to be informed, consulted, or involved

Example: The RTR Coalition

One action step might involve improving high school students' access to accurate information about sexual health, healthy relationships, contraception, STI prevention, and appropriate health services.

• What action or change will occur: Develop and maintain medically accurate, developmentally appropriate information about healthy relationships, pregnancy prevention, contraception, STI prevention, and available school and community health services. Information may be provided through school webpages, QR codes, health classes, student-support offices, posters, digital displays, or other accessible formats.
• How much, or to what extent, the action will occur: Information will be available through several communication channels used by students and will be reviewed at regular intervals to ensure that service information, links, and health content remain accurate and current.
• Who will carry it out: A working group including students, parents or caregivers, educators, school health staff, coalition members, and appropriate health professionals will help develop and review the information. Designated coalition members will coordinate production, approval, and updates.
• When will it take place, and for how long: Initial information will be available within six months of adopting the action step, with a scheduled review after the first six months and additional reviews at intervals appropriate to the information being provided.
• What resources are needed to carry out the step: Staff or volunteer time, student input, health-education expertise, accessibility and translation support where needed, communications or design support, and funding for digital or printed materials.
• Potential barriers, risks, or dependencies: School approval requirements, privacy and confidentiality concerns, differing community perspectives, accessibility needs, and the need to keep information about local services current.
• How progress will be assessed: Confirm that information is available through the planned channels and periodically assess whether students know where to find reliable information and appropriate services.
• Communication: Keep students, school administrators, appropriate educators and health staff, parents and caregivers, coalition partners, and community health providers informed or involved according to their roles.

Accounting for each part of an action step makes implementation clearer and gives participants a concrete way to monitor what has been completed and what still needs attention.

Determine a final list of action steps for each community sector from the ideas that came from your brainstorming. Select steps that are feasible, evidence-informed, relevant to your goals, and comprehensive enough to address important individual, family, organizational, community, and systems factors.

Example:

Some strategies for preventing child maltreatment and neglect, organized by community sector, might include:

Changes in the schools:

• Connect parents and caregivers with evidence-informed family-support, parenting, mental-health, and stress-management resources when appropriate.
• Provide appropriate training for teachers, school nurses, counselors, and other school staff on recognizing concerns, responding in a trauma-informed manner, following applicable reporting requirements, and connecting children and families with support.
• Provide safe, supervised, accessible after-school, weekend, and vacation activities for children and young people, either on school grounds or through community partnerships.
• Strengthen connections among schools, families, mental-health providers, social services, and community organizations so families can find help before problems become crises.

Changes in health organizations:

• Improve access to health care, behavioral-health care, home-visiting programs, parenting support, and other services that help children and families thrive.
• Train relevant health professionals to recognize possible maltreatment, respond appropriately, communicate with children and caregivers respectfully, and follow applicable reporting requirements.
• Develop clear organizational procedures for child safety, documentation, referrals, reporting, confidentiality, and coordination with other appropriate services.
• Screen for family needs and social conditions when appropriate and connect families with food, housing, childcare, mental-health, financial, or other community resources.

Changes in businesses and work sites:

• Make employee assistance, mental-health, family-support, and community-resource information readily available to workers.
• Offer or connect employees with voluntary evidence-informed parenting, caregiver, prenatal, infant-care, and family-support resources.
• Provide family-friendly workplace policies where feasible, such as paid leave, predictable and flexible scheduling, livable wages, and accommodations that help workers meet caregiving responsibilities.

Changes in government and social services:

• Strengthen economic supports for families through appropriate tax credits, income supports, food assistance, housing support, affordable childcare, and other policies or programs that help families meet basic needs.
• Strengthen prevention, child-safety, reporting, investigation, treatment, and family-support systems consistent with applicable law and evidence-informed practice.
• Increase access to services and protections for people experiencing domestic or family violence, including safe housing, advocacy, legal assistance, health and mental-health services, and other appropriate support.
• Increase access to high-quality, affordable childcare and early childhood education.

Changes in community organizations:

• Maintain accessible community resource information about jobs, childcare, housing, health and mental-health services, food assistance, family activities, and other supports.
• Help families connect with public benefits, legal assistance, housing support, health services, and other appropriate resources.
• Increase access to voluntary evidence-informed parenting, home-visiting, peer-support, family relationship, and caregiver-support programs.
• Build social connection among families through neighborhood activities, mentoring, mutual support, and safe places where children and caregivers can gather.

Changes in faith communities and religious organizations:

• Build networks among faith leaders and community partners to share accurate information about preventing child maltreatment and supporting children and families.
• Train appropriate leaders and volunteers to recognize when someone may need professional or emergency assistance and to connect families with mental-health, domestic-violence, crisis, child-safety, and family-support resources.
• Use newsletters, bulletins, websites, social media, meetings, and other appropriate communication channels to share information about family supports, positive parenting resources, child safety, and community services.
• Provide practical support to families when appropriate, such as meals, transportation, childcare assistance, social connection, or referrals to community resources.

Once your final action steps are clear, begin implementation. Keep the steps visible to the people responsible for the work, monitor progress, follow through on commitments, and revise the action plan when new evidence, community feedback, barriers, resources, or changing circumstances show that an adjustment is needed.