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3. Responsive Planning

With assessment and planning participants build upon their common purpose and use this vision and purpose as a framework from which all specific tasks, decisions and projects evolve.  As part of community systems development work, participants must engage in exploration of the goals and assessing the needs of the community. Once the data has been gathered, analyzed and summarized, assessments can be used to build support in the community and develop collaborative strategies to work toward established goals, including community wide strategic planning processes.  Further assessment includes defining collaborative leadership and planning for building leadership capacity of members in order to carry out the work.

Contents

Smart Beginnings Community Assessment Checklist

Planning Tool June 7, 2022

This document, developed by the Virginia Early Childhood Foundation for SMART BEGINNINGS local entities is an example of a project management and organizing tool for conducting a community assessment. This was designed to assist local leaders in completing the community assessment process. The checklist can serve as both a self-monitoring tool and a tool to assess and document your progress by providing space to add notes about your activities, progress, and barriers encountered.

Prenatal-to-Three Outcomes Framework Data Guidebook

Planning Tool June 7, 2022

The purpose of the Data Guidebook is to provide additional information on each of the outcomes and indicators the NCIT and its partners identified (Healthy Beginnings, Supported Families, and Quality Care and Learning) as important for supporting families and children from prenatal to three. This resource is intended to help support communities interested in tracking outcomes for children by providing recommendations and guidance on how to collect and assess indicator data.

Assessing Infants and Toddlers In Your Area: Use Data to Create a Community Profile

Planning Tool June 7, 2022

The purpose of this tool is to help you hone in on the unique characteristics, strengths, and needs of infants, toddlers, and families in your community. It includes questions designed to help you focus on creating healthy starts at birth, support families with infants and toddlers, and increase access to high-quality infant and toddler child care.

County Health Rankings and Roadmaps: Action Learning Guides

Planning Tool June 7, 2022

The County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, a program of the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, provides data, evidence, guidance, and examples to build awareness of the multiple factors that influence health and support community leaders working to improve health and increase health equity. The Action Learning Guides offer concrete tools to understand and use data to address inequities in health.