understanding community level work...• an expectation of a community change that can be observed...
TRANSCRIPT
Understanding Community Level Work
Workshop
Implementing the ROMA Cycle in the “Next Generation” Performance Management
Framework
ROMA NEXT GENERATION TRAINING SERIES
Learning Objectives for the Series
Participants will be able to:‐ Recall and describe the basic elements of the Results Oriented Management and Accountability (ROMA) principles and practices
‐ Explain the new focus on ROMA for the Next Generation: ‐ Describe the role of a “Theory of Change” throughout the ROMA Cycle‐ Identify community level work‐ Describe the inter‐relationships between family, agency and community level changes
‐ Explain the role that data analysis plays in the ROMA Cycle‐ Identify key data analysis techniques and how analysis can be used for improvement
‐ Discuss how all the elements of the Performance Management Framework work together
ROMA Next Generation Video Series
Implementing the Full ROMA
Cycle
Introduction to Analysis and Use of Data
Setting the Stage for Data Collection
Understanding Community Level Work
Creating a Local Theory of
Change
• Who’s here?• Why are you here?
Welcome and Introductions
Learning Objectives for this Video
Participants will:‐ Recognize the place of “community work” in the National Community Action Theory of Change
‐ Identify defining characteristics of “Community Level Work”‐ Understand the steps in creating a community level project
– Define community level needs • Identify data to verify a community level need• Identify factors that support and restrict what needs to change
– Recognize community level outcomes and indicators– Establish partners and community level strategies – Identify how to observe and document change at the community level
‐ Understand the elements of the CSBG Annual Report, Module 3
JO1
Slide 5
JO1 Why are there quotes around community work and community level work?Jackie Orr, 11/14/2017
What is Community Level Work?
What elements are included in the concept of “community level” activities and outcomes?
JO3
Slide 6
JO3 same comment here about the quotes.Jackie Orr, 11/14/2017
When agencies conduct Community Needs Assessments, they identify causes and conditions of poverty that may be unique to their own community.
Standard 3.4 • The community assessment includes key findings on the causes and conditions
of poverty and the needs of the communities assessed.
Causes and Conditions of Poverty
• When an agency is willing to work on elimination or reduction of the causes of poverty, it will take different strategies than when they decide to provide services directly to individuals and families.
• The agency will devote resources to an issue, and so will want to be sure their investment is going to make a difference.
• Engaging in the strategic thinking process will help to assure that the agency’s work will be productive.
Addressing Causes
Levels of Need
• Individual or Family Level –Some needs are related to specific individuals or groups of people.
• Community Level–Some situations are identified as being systemic in the community – impacting the community at large.
Must have three key elements:
• A clearly identified community level need• An expectation of a community change that can be observed
– and knowledge of how it will be observed and measured
• Community strategies that include those outside the CAA– May include your customers, community partners or others in the low‐income community
Our definition of Community Level Work
Steps in Establishing Community Level Work• Gather and verify data.• Do a factor analysis – consider the trends.
Identify the Need
• Identify factor/s that will drive the selection of strategies.
Identify the outcome you want
• How will you meet your goal? • Who will be your partners?Identify Strategy
• Consider data that will demonstrate change.
Identify performance measures
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STEP ONE:Identify and verify the need
Support the need with dataAnalyze the factors related to the need
How do you know there is a need?• From Community Needs Assessment?• From other sources?
IDENTIFY THE NEED
• Statement of need establishes the focus and rationale for the project– It must be a concise and coherent statement that is easily understood by the general public
– If you do not have a compelling need, you do not have a compelling project
• Clearly state why you know it is a community problem– Use comparison data to contextualize the need.– Provide qualitative and quantitative data to support the need
Establish a strong statement of need
• Don’t assume everyone knows the circumstances and conditions that prompted the project
• Don’t editorialize or bring in emotional appeals — the data will help you focus on the facts
• Make sure statement of need has local data– The need/problem may be a national problem as well, but make sure that you establish that it is a local problem through relevant data
• Make sure the data is up‐to date (current)
Key Points in Identifying a Need
• Some times we think that just identifying the absence of something can be identified as the problem
• For example: “The problem is that we have no youth center.
The solution is to build a youth center.”• But why do you want a youth center?
– What makes you think a youth center is needed? – What data will back up your identification of this as a need?– What will change because there is a youth center?
Avoid circular reasoning
• What/who is the target population that you feel needs the agency’s help?
• What are the demographics and conditions of that population?
Whose need is it?
Qualitative data: • What do people tell you about the need?• Who are the people with the need? What is important to them?
Quantitative data:• What statistics verify the need? • How recent is the data? • What is scope? How big is the issue? • Is there concentration in one neighborhood? • One segment of the population?
Gather and Review the Assessment Data
• Find the top needs that are identified in your most recent Community Needs Assessment.
• Are they needs of the family or the community?
Consider these questions: –How much change is needed? –How important is it to address the need?
Refer to Your Community Needs Assessment
STEP TWO: Identifying Outcomes
We are “results oriented” so we need to identify what will happen
What change do you think will happen?
RESULT
• Let’s say the community doesn’t have easy access to a certain service, resource or asset… such as an early childhood program.
• Many agencies secure funding to provide this kind of service, develop the project and then manage it as long as funding is available.
• The discussion about this kind of project work has been that it may not fit the broad understanding of community change. – The addition of assets is seen in most professional circles to be a strategy, not an outcome.
Counting the expansion of “assets”
• What is the purpose of the asset (or resource)?
• What happens because the resource now exists in the community?
What did the “asset” change?
• Saying “the unemployment rate in our community is high” is clearly stating a community level issue.
• If you think about the outcome being “the unemployment rate in our community is reduced” that is much too big to provide you with a path toward a strategy to address the need.
• You will want to identify the factors related to the big issue so you can decide what is reasonable for you to change.
• Consider “causes and conditions” as a way to think about what is influencing the need you have identified in your community.
What Factors Have To Change?
We will refer to a “factor” or an “element” and we mean: A circumstance, fact, or influence that
– contributes to a result (or outcome or change)– has the potential of affecting a trend line*.
Identifying the components that are impacting a trend line will help get to root causes.
Understanding the factors or elements will allow the agency to focus on a narrowed outcome, which will drive strategy selection and development.
Understanding Components of the Change
What factors have been known to influence the results?
There are two kinds of factors: Restrictive and Contributing
Restrictive factors Contributing factors
• Contributing factors (increasing the result)
Identify Factors to Promote Change
• Restrictive factors (decrease the result)
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Factors increasing trend (contributing)
CurrentHistory Forecast
Factors decreasing trend
(restricting)
Is it Better? Does it stay the same? Is it worse?
Whole Population
Where will we go if nothing changes?Where do we want to be?
Predict what can happen to the trend if you address the factors
From Annie E. Casey’s Results Based Leadership
• Long Term Results
• Intermediate Results
• Short Term Results
What Results Can You Expect
• The outcomes you just identified are the changes you expect to affect in the community.
• In addition to identifying the outcomes, the agency must identify “indicators” that can be measured. –An indicator is a specific piece of information that allows you to measure all or part of the outcome.
–You often need to use several different indicators to get a sense of progress toward the outcome.
Connecting Indicators With Outcomes
Good indicators generally have the following characteristics:They are:• well defined
• it is clear that this will demonstrate the expected change.
• meaningful – the indicator is clearly related to the outcome
• actionable • it is possible to change the indicator by activities/strategies employed by an organization, community group or collaboration
• measurable • it is clear what data is needed and how to collect it.
Characteristics of Indicators
Module 3, Section B: Community National Performance Indicators (CNPIs)
• In the CSBG Annual Report there are new community level CNPIs.–They are a menu of options.–Every domain includes an “other” option.
• There are two indicator types:–counts of change – rates of change.
National Performance Indicators (NPIs)Module 3
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• That matches the needs (the factors) you have identified?
Can you find a CNPI…
STEP THREE: Identifying Strategies
What will you do?
Identifying What You Will Do
Pick a factor or factors
Define expected
outcomes and indicators
Identify strategies
• In successful community work, a group of “partners” work together to move from a fragmented approach to a collaborative one.
A Collaborative Approach
• The first step in the selection of strategies is to identify the other individuals, groups, organizations, businesses, policy makers, etc. who will have
• Consider who is recognized as being connected with the specific need you will be addressing.
“Map” your potential partners
Who Is With You?
JO2
Slide 38
JO2 have what?Jackie Orr, 11/14/2017
Common Agenda
Shared Measurement
System
Continuous Communication
Backbone Organization
Mutually Reinforcing Activities
The power of collective action comes not from the sheer number of participants or the uniformity of their efforts, but from the coordination of their differentiated activities through a mutually reinforcing plan of action.
Mutually reinforcing activities ensures that the significant efforts and activities of collaborators are aligned towards achieving the common agenda and shared measures.
Mutually Reinforcing Activities
• Remember that community level work will engage many different activities that may be pulled together to create a comprehensive strategy.
• It is important to identify the partners that will work together to address the big community need. Each of these will have unique strengths and resources to add to the overall strategy.
Community Level Strategies
• This way of thinking about all of the partners working together is also known as “Aligned Contributions.”
• The theory of Aligned Contributions involves the partners being able to clearly articulate the necessary conditions needed to bridge the gap between desired results and current reality in complex systems.
• This theory posits that population level changes are most likely to occur if a core group of multi‐sector, cross‐agency leaders not only respond to a call to action, but also take aligned actions at scope and scale towards a result.
AKA: The Theory of Aligned Contributions
• In the CSBG Annual Report, there are community level strategies identified in Module 3, Section C.
• Use the strategy list to find strategies that might be appropriate to your identified needs and factors.
Finding Strategies
STEP FOUR: Identify your measures
How do you know your strategies are working?What will you measure?
• How will you know if there is a change?• Who will gather data? How will it be aggregated and analyzed?
• How and with whom will the information be shared?
Measuring Community Change
• How do local agencies document their contributions?• If you fulfill your designated role and the initiative moves (makes progress ) toward the outcome, you can report these movements.
Getting Credit
• Your plan for the community initiative will – clearly define the activities that each of the partners is to take to contribute to the overall goals.
– articulate how your specific activities will impact on the long term population level changes that are identified
– And will identify the data elements that will be used to document the changes.
• It is important to know what data must be collected, what measurement tools will be used, what personnel will do the measurement, and how the data will be stored.
A Well Constructed Plan
• Data my agency will collect and measurement tools we will use
• Data partners or other sources will provide
Where Is The Data?
• When we are working at the individual and family level, we often develop a Logic Model to tie all of the elements related to a desired outcome together.
• At the community level, we have the Community Initiative Status Form that serves as this linkage.
• It includes many of the elements of a logic model, and some additional information that can help with planning, management and accountability at the community level.
Using the Community Initiative Status (CIS) Form
Case studyPro Action of Steuben and Yates, Inc
Example of Completed Form
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ROMA Inservice – CSBG Annual Report, Module 3 62
Completing the Community Initiative Status Form
Using our information
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Final Check
Considering: is it community work?
Does it have:
• A clearly identified community level need• An expectation of a community change that can be observed
– and knowledge of how it will be observed and measured
• Community strategies that include those outside the CAA– May include your customers or others in the low‐income community
Community Level Work
NEXT STEPS
www.communityactionpartnership.com
For More Information
Barbara Mooney, DirectorAssociation of Nationally Certified ROMA Trainers
Tiffney Marley, LCRC Community Action Partnership
Courtney Kohler, Senior AssociateCommunity Action Partnership
Jarle Crocker, Director T/TACommunity Action Partnership