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Schools & Community Initiative

Community Assessment Framework:
A Guide for Organizing Data and Developing Strategies for Strong School-Community Partnerships

If communities are to design seamless, integrated services for children and families, they must conduct a comprehensive assessment of current partnerships, gaps in programs and services, barriers to creating partnerships, and successful models.

Building upon the work of LEFs and national organizations, PEN has developed a framework for a data collection in five core areas:

  1. Quality Education
  2. Family Supports
  3. Child and Youth Development
  4. Family and Community Engagement
  5. Community Development

The four steps listed on the right help organizations make sense of what is known and start planning a community approach to meet the needs of children and families.

Four Steps in This Community Assessment

1.

Develop local measures

2.

Organize several forms of data

3.

Make sense of the data

4.

Develop strategies for improvement