0132 - Community Consultation and Needs Assessment

Delivery Options Remote

Course Description

Whether you are starting up something new or working to keep an established project relevant and sustainable, it is no longer sufficient to show that you have good intentions or a new program idea. In today’s nonprofit environment, it is important to be able to show that your plans respond to the issues that matter most to the people you serve, the residents of your community, your partners and your funders. This course will help you do that better.

Community consultation and needs assessments help you understand your community, and they can also set the stage for good strategic planning. They are very helpful for proposal development and for marketing campaigns. There are many models for consulting with the community. Where should you start and how far should you go? Should you begin by pulling together local statistics? Consult the research literature? When, how and who should you talk with in the community? How do you make sense of what you learn and what you hear? This course will focus on an approach that is based on the idea that a healthy organization is always looking outside itself in order to set its direction.

You will have a hands-on experience of what this approach looks and feels like. In this course, you will be encouraged to reach beyond your usual contacts and sources of information in order to develop a deeper and more well-rounded understanding of your community. The course will include an overview of the Harwood Institute’s approach to community engagement. We will talk about how to interpret the information that you gather, and what to do with the answers once you get them. We will offer suggestions on how to incorporate the knowledge you gather through community consultations to reframe your needs assessment work so that your planning and program proposals have greater relevancy and impact for communities and funders.

Notes

For more information contact the Faculty of Social Work Professional Development office:

Email: fswprofessionaldevelopment@wlu.ca
Phone: 548-889-5128

Cancellations and Transfers
Be sure to carefully review our cancellation and transfer information before registering.

Website: wlu.ca/fswpd