Identifying and Evaluating Community Issues
Community improvement has grown into one of the popular subjects particularly in the context of the public health interventions (Bowen, Newenham-Kahindi & Herremans, 2010). Although a precise definition of community development is problematic, an affordable description might be empowerment of the community to be able to obtain self reliance and at the same time control over the factors which influence their health. It is the rich heritage of the communities initiatives for example establishment of education features, religious institutions, construction of health facilities and roads would certainly there be development of the health and human services (Bowen, Newenham-Kahindi & Herremans, 2010). It is thus awkward that health has continued to be the responsibility of the government; outside agencies together with the private industry and the facility of the medical services have become a big business. Many of the public and private health services have focused to establish large hospitals and business that have been in a position to cater simply to small privileged fraction of the population (Green & Haines, 2015). Nevertheless, in the recent year’s growth organizations they have got taken on the projects for promoting community involvement to be able to improve health development and consequently, this would help support health and human service delivery. In this research paper, it would discuss the value and impact of community Development in Health and Human service Delivery.
An identifying and evaluating community issue is the thought process meticulously about the problems or even problem before one act upon the solution. It first involves determining on the reasons an issues exists and determining any feasible solutions and a plan for the improvement. The approach to evaluate community problems involves easy logic, and occasionally the collection of the evidence (Green & Haines, 2015). To identify community problem is important so that to determine there the barriers as well as resources which are associated with addressing the issues. It is a good practice and planning to foresee on the obstacles and hurdles before they happen up. By doing this, it is possible to get around them (Green & Haines, 2015). Analyzing community problems can assist one to understand the resources which are required. Moreover, it helps it ensures one is better equipped with the right resources, this ensures there is greater chances of success. Identifying genuine solutions to a problem entails knowing what the real causes of the issues are (Head, 2007). Taking action without identifying what factors contribute to the problem could result to misdirected efforts, and that waste times as well as the resources. Method of solutions to community problem could be scientific technique. For issue plaguing a community, the community members could apply the scientific method to develop solutions (Sherraden, 2014). The scientific techniques methods begin with a question, for example in the case of community a member notices that the health and human service delivery is not efficient (Head, 2007). Thus the member could ask which ways could be undertake to improve the human and health service delivery? To solve on this issue the community member could apply the scientific method.
Community Engagement Methods
A variety of community engagement methods should be considered when establishing a health and human service delivery program (Sherraden, 2014). The methods used by the community engagement techniques depend on the group of the community members being consulted and the intended outcomes for the initiative (Sherraden, 2014). The reality is that the number of the engagement techniques would likely be needed to communicate with range of the community (Fortunato & Alter, 2015). The common community engagement methods are community meetings, and focus groups. These methods are essential since they provide opportunity to deliver information and at the same time gather on the feedback.
The challenges of effective community engagement they are as follows; one of the challenges is lack of the incentives for those who are involved (Driscoll, 2008). The need for changes to the policies as well as protocols around enhancing health and human service delivery in the community has become an issue. There is high level of skepticism, even hostility which exists in some community context. Another challenge is the operational factors such as lack of time and money (Fortunato & Alter, 2015). The community engagement project they might not available funding to enhance on the project which they has set to ensure there is health and human service delivery and the timing could also be an issue.
In every community there are health issues which could be helped by the community conversation techniques. The community conversation assists to make the community take initiatives to identify, discuss as well as work towards solving the major health issues using local resources. Community conversation is a community mobilization technique where the members of the community highlights their issues and come up with solutions to address them (Sherraden, 2014). It is also important to understand about the community asset identification techniques in which are the general approaches to learn more about the community (Sherraden, 2014). There is no single method which works best in all the cases. Some of the methods are; community forum, expert presentation and testimony, focus groups and environmental scan methods. These techniques are important since it helps to identify the assets and value of the resources within the community.
It is crucial to engage in the research and evidence based foundation in the community development since it assists in the facilitation of collaboration between community participants as well as resources external to the community (Driscoll, 2008). The researchers need to explicitly be committed to conducting this kind of research since it would benefit the members through direct interventions or perhaps through utilization of the results in order to notify action for change within the community such as providing health and human service delivery (Fortunato & Alter, 2015). This kind of research explicitly recognizes and at the same time seeks to supporting or perhaps expanding social structures along with social processes which could contribute to the ability of the community members to work together in order to improve health.
The community development specialists desire to be more efficient. Their funder’s want to evaluate the valuation on their investment and policy makers would like to display cost savings. Thus, everybody wishes to understand how the community truly benefited (Sherraden, 2014). The capability to measure the outcomes happens to be essential for the community development companies and also other entities which mainly depend on the government and philanthropic funding to be able to perform their work. Evaluating and measuring the influence of the community development work is essential since the problems which they are working on are significant to enable the community to succeed (Tindana et al 2007). To offer better health and human service delivery within the community, it is important to have a strong economic infrastructure, and one to know this would be to measure where it has happened. The only way to attain this would be to measure, and understand what the community is doing and where works and does not work in order to strive improve it (Sherraden, 2014). Complex community problem requires a flexible and adaptive method to the project design, implementation and evaluation. Thus, developmental evaluation techniques are useful in the community led projects and they entail continuous along with simultaneous learning process (Sherraden, 2014).
Conclusion
In this paper, it has discussed various aspects which are related to the value and impact of community Development in Health and Human service Delivery. The aspects which have been discussed relate to the community development more so, on how to improve health and human service delivery.
References
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Green, G. P., & Haines, A. (2015). Asset building & community development. Sage publications.
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