Identifying Needs and Strengths

Index by Content Type

Practical

• Building Your Community: an Asset Based Community Development Toolkit
  - The Toolkit provides a practical guide on how to build on a community’s strengths and assets through a range of community activities.
• Capable Communities – Outcome-Asset Impact Model
  - The Outcome-Asset Impact Model from Michigan State University provides people and organizations with a framework for understanding social issues and the foundation for establishing a detailed strategic plan to guide them at every stage of the community change process, including an evaluation framework to assess their progress.
• Communities By Choice – An Introduction to Sustainable Community Development
  - This illustrated booklet explores three basic dynamics of community, introduces sustainable community development as a process for making choices about the future, and outlines a series of steps to guide communities toward becoming sustainable.
• Community Development Toolbox
  - An online support tool for communities to survey needs and plan community development
• Community Indicators and Local Democracy Project
  - The Community Indicators and Local Democracy Project is at work in two local government areas in NSW, Waverley and Queanbeyan.
• Community Profile of the Southern Suburbs of Wollongong NSW 2004
  - The Illawarra Forum Inc has put together a profile of these communities which experience high levels of social disadvantage.
• Community Resilience Manual
  - A resource for rural recovery and renewal (Canada).
• Focus Group Manual - Public Behaviour in Public Spaces
  - A manual developed to train community members to run consultations.
• General Guidelines for Conducting Interviews
  - A useful guide for conducting interviews - one of the strategies for community consultation, participation and story telling.
• Measuring Social Capital – an Australian Framework and Indicators
  - A comprehensive descriptive framework and indicators for the measurement of social capital from the Australian Bureau of Statistics
• Online Survey Tools
  - Two online tools to collect information
• Review of NSW Local Government Social Plans
  - The State Government has released a report to help local councils better consult and involve young people in the decisions which affect them.
• Sample questionnaires for use in community organisations
  - These questionnaires, from the Paul Bullen Management Alternatives website, are likely to be of use to people working in small community based, non-profit, welfare and church organisations.
• Strengthening Rural Communities Resource Kit
  - The Resource Kit is designed as a manual to assist in planning and undertaking a process of community renewal. It functions as a toolkit and reference manual for information about community sustainability and resilience, especially in rural and regional communities.
• Survey Design
  - A guide to the basics of survey design.
• Survey techniques
  - Surveys can elicit community attitudes, beliefs, behaviours and suggestions, in response to specific questions. This article shares some survey techniques and provides two sample consumer surveys based on tracking behaviours in relation to consumer use of local businesses.
• The Social Audit Cookbook: recipes for auditing the way we connect - by Eva Cox.
  - Are you trying to influence social change? This cookbook is for community activists and provides a practical guide to the 'what' and 'how' of social auditing and measuring social capital.
• Why do some towns thrive while others languish?
  - Why is it that some towns demonstrate resilience, optimism and growth, whilst not far away there are other towns in decline? A study of 8 small Queensland towns.

Case Studies

• Neighbourhoods that work
  - The Blue Mountains Community, Housing, Employment and Co-operation project is encouraging neighbourhood participation through the establishment of food gardens, a neighbourhood events program, a community fire unit and the pooling of resources.

Related Reading

• Australia Institute - Discussion, Background, Web Papers and other Publications
  - A list of papers, with abstracts, on a range of social, environmental and economic issues available from the Australia Institute.
• Australian Policy Online
  - Australian Policy Online (APO) offers fast access to much of the best Australian social, economic, cultural and political research available online.
• Community adversity and resilience - Professor Tony Vinson, March 2004
  - This study provides measurement of the concentration of disadvantage according to postcode areas in N.S.W. and Victoria.
• Experiencing Poverty: the Voices of Low-Income Australians - Stage 1 Research Report
  - This research report forms the first stage of a project designed to develop new indicators of poverty and disadvantage for Australia in the new millennium.
• Imagining Australia – Ideas for Our Future
  - Jointly written by four young Australians, Imagining Australia offers a host of ideas to transform Australia into the quintessential twenty-first century nation.
• Indicators of Community Strength: a Framework and Evidence
  - This report from the Department for Victorian Communities (June 2006) examines social participation and the evidence for the benefits it creates for individuals and communities.
• Profile of Young Australians: Facts, Figures and Issues
  - The Foundation for Young Australians has commissioned this publication – Profile of Young Australians - to provide a snapshot of the status of young people at the beginning of the 21st century, across major areas that affect their well-being.
• Social Justice in an Open World: the Role of the United Nations
  - This publication seeks to provide an overview and interpretation of the meetings of the International Forum for Social Development, a three-year project undertaken by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs between November 2001 and November 2004.
• State of the World 2004 – Richer, Fatter and Not Much Happier
  - The world is consuming goods and services at an unsustainable pace, with serious consequences for the well-being of people and the planet, reports the Worldwatch Institute in its annual report, State of the World 2004.
• UNICEF: State of the World's Children Report (2006)
  - UNICEF has released its 2006 'State of the World's Children' report, which focuses on excluded and invisible children who have no access to essential services, protection and participation.