Support Resources

Support Resources for Planning

1. Develop the framework for action or logic model to describe what success looks like and the pathway by which our actions will lead to intended outcomes. This is important to guide evaluation later in the community engagement effort (see Evaluate section). The framework should include information about:
   • Mission and objectives (i.e., the issue or goal that the effort is addressing)
   • Context or conditions (i.e. the situation in which the effort will take place and the factors that may affect outcomes)
   • Inputs (i.e. the resources necessary to implement the action)
   • Strategies or interventions (i.e. what the initiative will do to effect change and improvement)
   • Outputs (i.e. direct evidence of having performed the activities)
   • Intended effects or outcomes (i.e. the changes to be made in the short, medium, and long term)

Key Resources

• • Developing a Logic Model or Theory of Change

2. State the mission (what and why) and the measurable objectives (how much of what you hope to accomplish by when) for the community engagement effort.

Key Resources

• • VMOSA (Vision, Mission, Objectives, Strategies, Action Plan): An Overview
  • Proclaiming Your Dream: Developing Vision and Mission Statements
  • Creating Objectives

3. Identify and assess promising practices to address the issue and achieve the objectives.
   • Review and assess evidence-based and practice-based interventions to address the issue
   • Consider specific changes in communities and systems to be implemented

Key Resources

• • Generating and Choosing Solutions
  • Developing Successful Strategies: Planning to Win
  • Analyzing Root Causes of Problems: The “But Why?” Technique
  • Identifying Opponents
  • Identifying Risk and Protective Factors: Their Use in Selecting Potential Targets and Promising Strategies for Interventions
  • Involving Key Influentials in the Initiative
  • Involving People Most Affected by the Problem

4. Choose strategies or interventions to achieve the objectives based on an assessment of promising practices. Specify the core components and specific elements of the strategies or interventions. This may include:
   • Providing information and enhancing skills (e.g., public announcements, skill training)
   • Modifying access, barriers and opportunities (e.g., improved access to health services)
   • Enhancing services and supports (e.g. peer support groups)
   • Changing the consequences (e.g. increasing incentives for desired behavior)
   • Modifying policies and broader systems (e.g. business and public policies)

Key Resources

• • Criteria for Choosing Promising Practices and Community Interventions
  • Promoting the Adoption and Use of Best Practices
  • Providing Information and Enhancing Skills
  • Modifying Access, Barriers, and Opportunities
  • Changing the Physical and Social Environment
  • Enhancing Support, Incentives, and Resources
  • Changing Policies

5. Target the strategies or interventions to be appropriate and accessible to the community context and specific groups you want to assure are reached and engaged.
   • Account for relevant social determinants affecting the issue or goal (e.g. education and training, social status, support networks, financial or other barriers, cultural norms and practices, discrimination)
   • Adapt the strategy or intervention to fit the needs and context of the community (e.g. differences in resources, values, interests, experiences, competence, language, power)

Key Resources

• • Participatory Approaches to Planning Community Interventions
  • Choosing and Adapting Community Interventions
  • Adapting Community Interventions for Different Cultures and Communities

6. Identify those who can best implement the action, and how they can be engaged in the effort, as well as the resources and assets to be used in the action (e.g. people, financial resources, knowledge and skills, technologies).
   • Targets of change: those from groups most affected by health inequities (e.g. low-income families) and those whose actions are critical for success (e.g. community workers)
   • Agents of change: those who may be in a position to change factors and determinants that affect the issue or goal, including those with power and influence (e.g. agency administrators, elected or appointed officials)
   • Sectors: those channels or settings through which targets and agents of change can be reached and engaged (e.g. health, education, food, housing, transport)

Key Resources

• • Identifying Targets and Agents of Change: Who Can Benefit and Who Can Help
  • Using Community Sectors to Reach Targets and Agents of Change

7. Develop an action plan that is based on evidence to move the work forward. This should include:
   • Strategies or interventions to be implemented, including the core components and elements
   • Considerations of the implications for communities, especially vulnerable groups
   • Action steps that define roles and responsibilities (e.g. who will do what by when)
   • Resources and supports needed for ongoing implementation and monitoring and evaluation
   • Anticipated barriers and/or resistance and planned counteraction
   • Communication and stakeholders that need to be informed

Key Resources

• • Developing an Action Plan
  • Obtaining Feedback from Constituents: What Changes are Important and Feasible?

 

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