Community Assessment Model

This paper will address the meaning of community assessment, Participatory Rural Appraisal as a community assessment model followed by the rationale for community assessment before program design and implementation and the subsequent shortfalls likely to happen when community assessment is not done and lastly the concluding remarks.

It has been argued that for a community to be effectively understood and served it should be done through community assessment. The community assessment findings will define the extent of the needs that exist in a community and the depth of the assets available within the community to address those needs. The relevant, planned, successful and timely services will be achieved through understanding the needs and

However, several literatures have highlighted a number of process used when conducting community assessment, but this paper points out the four processes of conducting a community assessment which includes the following: (1) scanning the community to locate existing information, (2) developing a family focus, (3) identifying community assets and their accessibility to the people who can benefit from them, and (4) analyzing the information obtained through the first three steps (Foster, D., 1994).

Lastly, community assessment has two major goals that aim to understand the gaps or needs and their associated impacts upon the community members. Secondly, community assessment aims to develop a detailed analysis of community assets, or resources including organizations, people, partnerships, facilities, funding, policies, regulations, and a community’s collective experience, that currently exist in the community and can be used to help meet community needs (Bruner, C. et al,

All this features enable the practitioner to get enough information from the community and work together with the community member from the planning to implementation phase to achieve the intended results (Chambers, Robert., 1990).

Despite Participatory Rural Appraisal being very famous and useful by both governmental and Non Governmental actors there are a lot of limitations that face Participatory Rural Appraisal in its practice. This paper shall address only a few limitations below that are likely to be faced by practitioners while using Participatory Rural Appraisal as a model for addressing challenging issues in the community (Hilary and Jannice, 1994).

1. The community may have false expectations when Participatory Rural Appraisal is done especially when then know there will be financial support. Community members may think money will be available to everybody after Participatory Rural Appraisal is accomplished (Hilary and Jannice, 1994).

2. Miracle solutions would not be achieved through Participatory Rural Appraisal, the fact that problems and solutions are identified by both the community and the expert it does not guarantee that actions and results will be instantly