Community Action Guide:

1. Community Action Guide: A Framework for Addressing Community Goals and Problems.

2. What is action planning? A process to increase your community’s ability to: • Affect conditions and outcomes by working together over time and across issues of interest.

3. What is an action plan? An action plan outlines: • What should happen to achieve the vision. • Desirable changes and proposed activities. • Who will do what by when.

4. How does action planning help the community? • Understand the community’s issues. • Generate action steps. • Assure inclusive and integrated participation. • Build consensus on what should be done. • Specify concrete ways to take action.

5. An action plan helps assure that… • No detail is overlooked. • Proposed action steps are feasible. • Collaborators follow through with their commitments. • Measurable activities are documented and evaluated.

6. When should you utilize an action plan? • Within the first 6-12 months of starting an initiative or organization, an action plan should be created. • The action plan should be revisited frequently and revised to meet changing needs.

7. Components of an action plan framework • Determine people and sectors of the community to involve. • Convene a planning group. • Develop an action plan to address proposed changes. • Review your action plan for completeness.

8. Components of an action plan framework (cont.) • Implement the plan. • Communicate progress. • Document progress. • Celebrate progress and revisit and revise the action plan.

9. As you begin the process… • Document information about the problem or issue with information and statistics. • Learn more about your community. • Involve other community members.

10. Information to gather during listening sessions • Information about the problem or issue. • Perceived barriers or resistance to addressing the issue. • Resources for change. • Recommended solutions and alternatives. • Current and past initiatives.

11. Gather data to document the problem • What are the issues related to the problem in your community? • What are the consequences of these issues? • Who is affected? • How are they affected? • Are these issues of widespread concern?

12. Data Sources • Government records. • Hospital and police records. • Local and national agencies and organizations. • Schools and libraries. • Government websites.

13. Agents of Change • Who is in a position to create or block change? • What neighborhood groups are most affected? • What individuals and groups make things happen? • Who are important contacts to reach officials, individuals, and groups?

14. Reaching Consensus in Group Meetings • Avoid “one best way” attitude. • Avoid “either/or” thinking. • Combine points of view rather than “majority rule”. • Do not end healthy conflict prematurely. • Solve problems by all participants communicating and listening.

15. Approaches to Conflict Resolution • Avoidance: Temporarily avoid the problem. • Accommodation: Ask participants to yield to the positions of others. • Compromise: Everyone wins but also gives up something. • Collaboration: For issues of greatest importance, consider many possible solutions, the consequences of each, and select the alternative.

16. Tips for Group Facilitation • Seat participants around small tables or in semicircles. • Ask questions frequently and use open-ended questions. • Create opportunities for participants to work in teams. • Give small assignments in advance. • Encourage participants to offer solutions. • Talk with quiet participants during breaks and help them express their ideas and share their thoughts with the group.

17. Tips for Group Facilitation (cont.) • Use flipcharts or overhead transparencies to record comments, but face participants while writing or ask someone else to do it. • Suggest the “next step” if a meeting seems to be stagnating. • Walk around to gain attention, but look directly at participants. • Expect to make some mistakes.

18. Brainstorming Sessions • Freewheeling: suggestions are called out randomly. • Round Robin: each member gives a suggestion in turn. • Slip: each member submits a suggestion on a slip of paper.

19. Rules for Brainstorming • No critical remarks allowed—evaluation will occur later. • Give the thought only—defense of the idea comes later. • Give only one idea at a time. • You may add to or improve someone else’s idea.

20. VMOSA Vision Mission Objective Strategies Action

21. Vision Craft a vision statement that is: • Understood and shared by members of the community. • Broad enough to include a diverse variety of perspectives. • Inspiring and uplifting. • Easy to communicate (fits on a t-shirt!).

22. Mission Craft a mission statement that is: • Concise. • Outcome-oriented. • Inclusive.

23. Objectives Develop objectives that are “SMART+C”: • Specific • Measurable • Achievable • Relevant to your mission • Timed • Challenging

24. Strategies Broad strategies for change include: • Advocacy • Coalition building • Community development • Education • Networking • Policy or legislative change

25. Sort generated ideas into categories: • Providing information and enhancing skills. • Altering incentives and disincentives. • Modifying access, barriers, and opportunities. • Enhancing services and support. • Modifying polices and practices.

26. Factors to consider while developing strategies • Population levels to be affected. • Universal versus targeted outreach. • Personal and environmental factors, which community sectors can benefit from and contribute to efforts. • Behavioral strategies to be used.

27. Each action step should outline: • What actions or changes will occur? • Who will carry out those changes? • By when the changes will take place and for how long? • What resources are needed to carry out proposed changes? • Communication (who should know what?)

28. The best action steps are: • Specific • Measurable • Achievable • Relevant • Timed • Challenging

29. Review the Action Plan for: • Comprehensiveness • Clarity • Feasibility • Timeliness • Flexibility

30. Prioritizing Action Steps • Which changes are the most important to the mission? • Which would inspire, encourage, and build credibility? • Which need to happen first? • Which are easier or quicker (could give the groups member’s a sense of success)?

31. Communicate Progress • Continue to hold planning group meetings. • Publicize meetings well. • Communicate with all relevant audiences.

32. Document Progress • Helps clarify action steps so they are measurable. • Helps provide feedback for refinement of efforts. • Provides information about costs and effort for tasks.

33. Celebrate Progress, Renew the Action Plan Focus on small wins in order to: • Reward outcomes. • Provide multiple opportunities for celebration. • Prevent partners from getting locked into a single course of action. • Provide a sensitive, easily monitored measure of progress.

34. Action Planning Helps You… • Understand the community’s perception of the issues and potential solutions. • Assure inclusive and integrated participation across sections. • Build consensus on what can and should be done. • Specify concrete ways in which members can take action.

35. Action Planning Includes… • Convening a planning group in your community that consists of: • Key officials • Grassroots leaders • Representatives of key sectors • Representatives from all parts of the community, including diverse ethnic, cultural, and socioeconomic groups

36. Action Planning Includes… • Listening to the community. • Documenting problems that affect healthy youth development. • Identifying risk and protective factors. • Developing a framework for action. • Becoming aware of local resources and efforts.

37. Action Planning Includes… • Refining your group’s vision, mission, objectives, and strategies. • Refining your group’s choice of targets and agents of change. • Determining what community sectors should be involved in the solution. • Developing a tentative list of changes to be sought in each sector.

38. Action Planning Includes… • Building consensus on proposed changes. • Outlining action steps for proposed changes. • Documenting progress on bringing about community and systems change. • Renewing your group’s efforts along the way.