NEEDS ASSESSMENT: THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS

1. NEEDS ASSESSMENT: THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS • Kettner, Chapter 4

2. THEORETICAL UNDERSTANDINGS OF NEED • Ponsioen (1962): 1st responsibility of society is to meet the basic survival needs of its members, identifying below which no one should fall. e.g., British National Health Service - give priority to making primary medical care and health services to the general population. • Maslow (1954): value of discussing need in hierarchical terms; people become aware of their needs in a prescribed manner, from the bottom up. e.g., programs dealing with family violence

4. Self-Actualization Needs Esteem (Ego) Needs Social (Belonging) Needs Safety and Security Needs Survival and Physiological Needs MASLOW

5. NEED ASSESSMENT & THE PLANNING PROCESS • Need is difficult to define and difficult to measure • Qualitative definitions of need was talked about in chapter 3, this focuses on the quantitative dimensions or quantification of the problem

6. FACTORS INFLUENCING THE DEFINITION OF NEED • Need is elastic and relative rather than static and absolute. Therefore needs assessment assists the planner in estimating what the need is at that moment and what it may be in the future if things don't change too much. • Three ways need proves to be elastic: standard of living, the sociopolitical environment, and the availability of resources and technology. • Standard of living - has changed over time, housing without indoor plumbing used to be adequate.

7. FACTORS INFLUENCING THE DEFINITION OF NEED • Sociopolitical environment - public attitudes and expectations change. e.g., placing children in day care from the 1960s to today has changed dramatically. • Availability of resources and technology - if people do not believe that resources are adequate, it is unlikely that they will follow through on their concerns and take any action. e.g., programs for the elderly focus from just income to social, vocational, and physical needs of this population.

8. DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES ON NEED • Normative - standards and norms; custom, authority, or general consensus. Limitations: need levels change. • Perceived - what people think or feel their needs are; people with higher standard of living may feel they need more than do those who are living in poverty. Limitations: the need changes with each respondent. • Expressed - in terms of whether it is or is not met; whether an individual attempts to obtain a service. Limitation: may only represent the tip of the iceberg, what about those who don't seek help? • Relative - the gap between the level of services exciting in one community and those existing in similar communities.

10. NEED CATEGORIES AND THE PLANNING PROCESS • All four dimensions of need should be explored during the planning process. • Needs assessment can show what actual demand is and what potential demand might be. • Needs assessment can provide a useful early warning system regarding potential changes in demand.

11. DETERMINING WHO IS IN NEED • Needs assessment consists of establishing a standard of need and devising some methodology (which is discussed in Chapter 5, which are are not reading) of counting the number of people in a given community who fall below the standard and therefore are in need. • When a group of people are considered at risk or vulnerable, it doesn't necessarily mean that all members are so, this could lead to dangerous stereotypes. e.g., advanced age and poverty, chronic illness, mental illness, and social isolation.

12. TWO MAJOR PROBLEMS • Reliability - data collected at this stage is often estimate only and sometimes decision makers want more precise figures, which is unnecessary and unrealistic. Precise figures can come later in the planning process. • Availability of Data - data may be unavailable, unusable, or not exactly on point. Planners need to accept these limitations and use existing data creatively. • Surrogates measures of need (working mothers with children under 6, single parent families, and families with incomes below poverty line are surrogate measures of day care need.

13. The Social Worker as Program Developer Section IV of reader, Brueggemann

14. History of Program Development • 1609 – Dutch Reformed Church • Voluntary collection leads to compulsory taxation • Private associations: nationality groups, fraternal societies, and social organizations

15. History of Program Development • Institutional care • Post-Civil War: emergence of many programs • YMCA, Salvation Army, Red Cross, Goodwill Industries, Boy Scouts of America

16. Identifying the Need • Verifying the Need • Begin by examining statistical reports such as census data, county government surveys, and health surveys • Purpose is to verify that a problem exists within a client population to an extent that warrants the existing or proposed service.

17. Identifying the Need • Verifying the Need • Two different kinds: • Normative Need: focused on comparing the objective living conditions of the target population with what society, or at least that segment of society concerned with helping the target population, deems acceptable or desirable. • Demand Need: only those individuals who indicate that they feel or perceive the need themselves would be considered to be in need of a particular program or intervention. • Demand data should be combined with normative data to determine the extent which those eligible for a particular program would actually use it.

18. Identifying the Need • Needs Assessments • Five different approaches: • Social indicators: data on crime, abuse, housing, health can be gathered from those concerned with these problems. • Rates under treatment: the extent to which people demand or utilize service within a community over a period of time, can be obtained from many social agencies. • Focused interview or key informant: talking to key informants who are experts or are knowledgeable about the needs of a particular problem area. • Focus groups or community forum: easy and quick, but are suspect from a scientific perspective; NIMBY effect • Survey: representative random sample of the community or a sample of the target group; accuracy issues if low response rates.

19. Identifying the Need • Working with an Advisory Group or an Action Board • Difficult to develop a new program without the existence and active support of a group in the community that is highly committed to its development.

20. Redefining the Task Group • Establishing the Board of Directors: • a legal entity to establish the program that makes decisions • Ownership over the program, sets policy, owns the assets • For-Profit Agencies • Income becomes the property of the owners and is taxable; small business enterprise • Not-for-Profit Agencies • Tax exempt; profits go back into the program; access to grants otherwise not available; can fundraise and solicit donations • Incorporation • Officially listed and legally recognized as a corporation; must incorporate to become a non profit, at the state level • Articles of incorporation; constitution and by-laws

21. Establishing the Agency • Defining the Agency’s mission • Purpose: state the purpose for which you have formed the new agency, statement of need, description of the population • Organization’s goals and a specific set of program objectives to reduce or ameliorate the problem. • Developing the Agency’s Structure • Small = fewer subsystems; personal; unstructured roles, open communication. • Staffing the Agency • Executive director hired first • Job descriptions; application forms; interviews by board if small

22. Establishing the Agency • Recruiting Clients • Best source: referral from other agencies in your area • Networking with information about your program • Television and radio: community service announcements

23. Establishing the Agency • Obtaining Funding • No need for particular background, economic status, writing skills; just desire to raise funds. • Solicitations • Independent Solicitation: most charitable come from individuals rather than foundations, government, or other sources; quicker than other solicitation; money can come with strings attached, however. Business and corporation solicitation included here. • Cooperative Solicitation: councils of social agencies developed by macro social workers who make fund raising more efficient through joint fund raising. Most don’t fund untested/new projects, however.

24. Establishing the Agency • Obtaining Funding • Membership Dues • As you engaged in a drive, will also gauge community support and build community support. • Benefits • Dinners, entertainment, dances, fairs, cook-outs, raffles, auctions, theater productions, walk-a-thons, telethons, carwashes, and yard sales. • Side benefits: publicity, community education, relationship build for staff • Fees for Service • Often on sliding scale, have psychological benefit – more likely to respect service and take it seriously.

25. Establishing the Agency • Obtaining Funding • Private Foundation Grants • Not taxable, used by many wealthy individuals, specific purpose • Types of charitable foundations: • Operating: dedicated to only one project, organization, or program. Usually set up by the program itself • Community: Specific geographic area, usually a city or several counties; smaller, specific stipulations • General purpose: Large and heavily funded, broad interest, national in scope; often have own staff and board; heavy competition; named after deceased founder • Family: like general, but founder still alive • Corporate: funds given that will provide some benefit to the company’s interests; community where does business, special interests of employees, areas of corporate concern.

26. Establishing the Agency • Obtaining Funding • Government Grants • Pilot projects, start-up grants, research grants, or ongoing funding grants • Sometimes to assist small, struggling programs • Not intended to establish large bureaucracy, allow local control of programs.

27. Establishing the Agency • Obtaining Funding • Obtaining a Foundation or Government Grant • 2 different approaches: • Reactive: Wait until the grant announcements come to you and then you apply • Proactive: Actively searching for potential funding sources • Most boards use both

28. Establishing the Agency • Obtaining Funding • Obtaining a Foundation or Government Grant • Steps: • Choosing the Source: waste of time to apply for everything, search for specific grants • Information Resources: The Foundation Center and the Federal Register to help find the right foundation • Idea Statements and RFPs: Idea statement = document that shows the foundation that you know what you want to do and that you have the ability to do it. 2-4 pages long: what, how, how much; RFP = invitation to provide a proposal on a specific project (gov’t) • Writing a proposal: If invited to write one, shows that you’re able to perform, that you’re responsible, budget, set goals and objectives, sand provide an evaluation component. • Carrying out the project: Must keep records and statistics on services provided, clientele, staff service hours, etc. • Contracting • Government gets private nonprofits to administer instead of themselves; vendors

29. Evaluating the Program If you can show that your program did what you intended it to do, you can make a case for continued funding or expansion or learn what went wrong to correct; assess and improve • Types of Program Evaluation • Needs Assessment: whether there is a need for a service or program and that the solution that program offers has a reasonable chance of doing something about it. • Process Analysis: reviewing internal processes of the program: members’ skills, attitudes, and values; leadership, decision making, and communication; structures and technologies; organizational goals, strategies and cultures. • Outcome or Impact Analysis: measure extent to which program is achieving its goals, did the program make a difference in remedying the social ills for which it was designed.

30. Evaluating the Program • Goals • Mission goals aren’t easily assessed, need goals that are clear, specific, and measurable. • Some goals are incompatible with one another; choosing which goals needs to be collaborative with stakeholders • Effectiveness Criteria • Quantity vs. quality of services • Measurements • Scales, indices, tests, instruments, and measures – many of which exist. http://aspe.hha.gov/daltcp/reports/dcwguide3.pdf • Best if multiple measures are used.

31. Evaluating the Program • Designing the Evaluation • Pure Experimental Research: randomly selected; controlled settings; not always feasible • Quasi-Experimental Research • Good when can’t strictly control variables • Types of design: • Time Series: account for events that give false indicators of success; data is collected at regular intervals over time to obtain a picture of trends in a program’s service pattern. • Nonequivalent Control Group: find a similar group that parallel’s your program’s population, then time series baseline them and implement program. Creates a control without having to deny treatment.

32. Evaluating the Program • Designing the Evaluation • Benefit-Cost Analysis • Create ratios where on one side is the cost of implementing something, and on the other side is the amount of results or benefits that will come of it. Hard to quantify non-tangible benefits, making this difficult.