Chapter 4

COMMUNITY NEEDS ASSESSMENT

Knowing the Community

Community is simply defined as people with common interests living together in the same place. This term is derived
from the old French word comunité and the Latin term communitas which are broad terminologies for fellowship,
commonness, unstructured society, or organized society.

The most common and simplest definition of community is that it is an aggregation of families and individuals who
have settled in a compact and contiguous geographical area and share significant elements of common life as shown
in their manners, customs, traditions, and modes of speech. For Manalili (2009), a community refers to an
organization of people who are able to undertake projects based on its members' experience, resiliency, motivation,
and willingness to learn. In archeology, community is understood in two ways. First, it is a place where people
actually reside in, an idea quite similar to the concept of ancient settlement. Second, it is a group of individuals who
live near and interact with each other. An active community is an organization of people who strategize,
conceptualize, implement, and evaluate a program (Bunagan et al., 2009) The definition of a community may vary,
but certain commonalities are when explaining and describing the concepts (Norman, 1998). noticeable when
explaining and describing the concepts (Norman 1998).

In Genesis 1:27 of the Old Testament, the word community encompasses all God's creation in the universe, including
man and woman, whom He created in over all living His own image. He allowed dition, God placed the ft. Man and
woman in the other natural creations. In addition, God placed the forst man and woman in the Garden of Eden so it
could be guarded and cultivated. Man and woman are not created to live in isolation from one another. The first
framework established in understanding the essence of a community concentrates on the relationship of the Lord
with His creation.

Sociological Concept of a Community

Sociologically speaking, the family is the smallest unit of the society. It is composed of the immediate and non-
immediate members, while a community is composed of different families who live in the same place and share the
same interests. The activities of a family that are also conducted by a community include sharing common resources,
working for the common good, and building harmonious relationships.

These central qualities of a family are also the basic building blocks of any community. It is believed that stronger
families help develop stronger communities. An individual person can form a family, a family can form a community,
and a community can form a nation.

Aesthetic and Moral Values of a Community

The aesthetic and moral values of a community consist of the guiding and sometimes paradoxical ideas that its
members hold, e.g., how they know what is good from bad, beautiful from ugly, and right from wrong. The
justifications for the set values of communities are necessary in explaining their actions.

As a community develops, its values change. A change in values may result from innovations in technology or the
social hierarchy. Examples of values include solidarity, commitment, mutuality, and trust.
It was Greek philosopher Aristotle who first postulated the concept of community as a group established by people
with shared values. That initial definition has been refined and expanded throughout the years. It has been
recognized, for example, that people can belong to different types of communities (1) communities of place, in which
people are linked in the geographical sense (2) communities of memory, in which people who may technically be
strangers share a morally significant history; and (3) communities of face-to-face personal interaction in which
people are governed by sentiments of trust, cooperation, and altruism (Boyles 1997).

How, then can community be understood at the beginning of the 21st century? What will its future be in the time to
come?

Community Needs Assessment

A community needs assessment is a process in which the problems, issues, and concerns of the community are
identified by using several tools. Needs assessment, social analysis, or community diagnosis is a concrete basis for
the formulation of programs. It reflects the sentiments, needs, aspirations, and recommendations of the community.
It becomes significant when conducted as the students get integrated with the people. Assessing the needs of the
community is a prelude to effective program implementation. It hopes to solve the problems, issues, and concerns of
the people in the locality.

In determining the areas for improvement in a community, the following steps should be taken:

1. Gather information about the community's attitudes and opinions in order of importance.

2. Determine how citizens rank local issues, problems, and opportunities.

3. Give the citizens voice in determining policies, goals, and priorities.

4. Evaluate current programs and policies.

5. Speculate on what the people are thinking and what they may really want.

Steps in Conducting a Community Needs Assessment

The steps in conducting a needs assessment as follows:

1. Establish a working committee to solicit community involvement and develop plan of action.

2. List important aspects or areas that need to be analyzed.

3. Identify the population to be surveyed.

4. Determine the information needed.

5. Select a random sample of people to survey.

6. Develop and pre-test a questionnaire.

7. Collate the information gathered.

8. Analyze the data.

9. Go back to the community to validate the results or findings.

10. Finalize the report.

1. Focus group discussion (FGD) by key informants

The key informants of the community are the people who hold socially relevant positions such as educators, public
officials, clergymen, business representatives, or volunteers.

2. Community forum/assembly

This involves holding group events which include the entire community. Such events give visibility to the leaders and
raise the status of the community, however, they require extensive planning and Publicity Participatory action
research uses this method effectively.

3. Public records

Public records like the national census provide social and demographic data of the community. The data include the
profile of the population such age, gender, educational level, among others.

4. Survey

Surveys and questionnaires involve asking individuals in the community about their everyday needs. These can be
implemented through the following:

a. Mailing questionnaires to randomly selected members of the community

b. Doing telephone surveys

c. Handing out survey during assemblies

d. Posting questionnaires on the internet

Needs Assessment Survey

A needs assessment survey is conducted to identify community needs which are necessary for subsequent actions.
This survey contains a set questions to be answered by people in the community through personal or telephone
interview, online or face-to-face surveys, or email or written correspondences. The following data are gathered in a
needs assessment survey:

1. Historical data

2. Geographical data

3. Political and legal data

4. Demographic data (e.g., age, size, race, growth patterns, and population distribution)

5. Economic data (e.g., the nature of the economic base in relation to the social, cultural, educational, moral, and
cultural superstructure)

Roles of the Community in a Needs Assessment

1. Help identify interest groups and citizens who can be a part of working committees.

2. Facilitate a group discussion to determine important issues and priorities.

3. Select the sample to be surveyed and design a system to identify respondents.

4. Provide a pool of questions from which the working committees draw upon in addressing issues and concerns.

5. Design a way of distributing and collecting survey questionnaires and encoding and analyzing the resulting data.

6. Provide summary reports of data.

7. Suggest programs whereby results can be reported and strategies on community involvement solicited.

8. Work with citizens to come up with well-informed course of action.

CONCLUSION

A community needs assessment identifies the strengths and resources available in the community to meet the needs
of children, youth, and families. Community assessment is a systematic examination of the community status
indicators for a given population that is used to identify key problems and assets in a community.