COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT, SOLIDARITY AND CITIZENSHIP

Name of Learner: _____________________________Grade Level:________________

Section: _____________________________________ Score:_____________________

LEARNING ACTIVITY SHEETS (LAS) #6 (Week 4)

SYSTEMATIC METHODS OF COMMUNITY ACTION IN UNDERSTANDING
COMMUNITY

Background Information for Learners:

Community action is an alternative research method that uses the community as the unit of
analysis. This approach forges research alliances with relevant stakeholders in the community to
explore and develop solutions to local problems. Community action includes a broader range of
activities and is sometimes describe as “social action” or ‘community engagement’ that increases
the understanding, engagement and empowerment of communities in the design and delivery of
local services including:
• Building community and social capacity-helping the community to share skills and ideas.
• Community resilience-helping the community to support itself.
• Prevention- a focus on early access to services or support, engagement in design, cross-
sector collaboration and partnerships.
• Maintaining and creating wealth- for example helping people into employment or
developing community enterprise.
Action research makes a reasonable resolution or accurate evaluation more probable in two
ways. First, by involving the people directly affected by the issue or intervention, it brings to
bear the best information available about what’s actually happening. Second, it encourages
community buy-in and support for whatever plans or interventions are developed. If people are
involved in the implementation of solutions to community issues, they’ll feel they own the
process, and work to make it successful. (e.g. community engagement in decision making-
through public engagement events where the community helps to decide local priorities,
codesign or co-commission services).
In the previous lesson we discussed the different methodologies and approaches in
community action in understanding community. A researcher conducting community action
should apply systematic methods to understand community such as partnership, community
profiling which is a process of creating a series of information that is applied to something or
someone through techniques of date elaborations, needs assessment, participatory action
planning, resource mobilization, implementation plan, and monitoring and evaluation.
It is also figured out by tapping the participatory and interactive process between the
community and the support groups or institutions.
Another method to be used in conducting community action is the need assessment that identifies
the strengths, weakness, needs, and resources which could help tear down the barriers and
resistances that prevent the community from achieving their goals. Community profiling and
needs assessment are the most basic methods used in conducting community action.
This toolkit provides guidance for conducting assessments of community needs and
resources.
1. Describe the makeup and history of the community to provide a context within which to
collect data on its current concerns.
 a. Comment on the types of information that best describes the community (e.g.,
demographic, historical, political, civic participation, key leaders, past concerns,
geographic, assets)
b. Describe the sources of information used (e.g., public records, local people, internet,
maps, phone book, library, newspaper)
c. Comment on whether there are sufficient resources (e.g., time, personnel, resources)
available to collect this information
d. Assess the quality of the information
e. Describe the strengths and problems you heard about
2. Describe what matters to people in the community, including a description of:
a. Issues that people in the community care about (e.g., safety, education, housing,
health)
b. How important these issues are to the community (e.g., perceived importance,
consequences for the community)
c. Methods the group will (did) use to listen to the community (e.g., listening sessions,
public forums, interviews, concerns surveys, focus groups)
3. Describe what matters to key stakeholders, including:
a. Who else cares about the issue (the stakeholders) and what do they care about?
b. What stakeholders want to know about the situation (e.g., who is affected, how many,
what factors contribute to the problem)
c. Prioritized populations and subgroups that stakeholders intend to benefit from the
effort
d. Methods you will (did) use to gather information (e.g., surveys, interviews)
4. (For each candidate problem/goal) Describe the evidence indicating whether the problem/goal
should be a priority issue, including:
a. The community-level indicators (e.g., rate of infant deaths or vehicle crashes) related
to the issue
b. How frequently the problem (or related behavior) occurs (e.g., number of youth
reporting alcohol use in the past 30 days)
c. How many people are affected by the problem and the severity of its effects
d. How feasible it is to address the issue
e. Possible impact and/or consequences of addressing the problem/goal
5. Describe the barriers and resources for addressing the identified issue(s), including:
a. Barriers or resistance to solving the problem or achieving the goal (e.g., denial or
discounting of the problem) and how they can be minimized (e.g., reframing the issue)
b. What resources and assets are available and how the group can tap into those
resources to address the issue
c. Community context or situation that might make it easier or more difficult to address
this issue.
To build effective community partnership, first, you have to connect with leaders at partner
organizations to promote engagement to a community with the same mind set. Define and
prioritize your goal make sure that goals and directives are clearly defined so everyone is on the
same page. Build new partner relationships and strengthen long-standing ones. Lastly, ensure
screening and referral protocols are seamless, designate a person or group to take ownership of
resource collection so team members know who to talk to for those concerns. There are seven
steps for conducting a successful needs assessment: (1.) Clearly define your needs assessment
objectives, when defining objectives, ask yourself why are you conducting the needs assessment
and what do you plan to do with the findings. (2.) Be realistic about your resources and capacity.
Consider how much time, money and staff capacity you can devote to the needs assessment. The
availability of resources will greatly impact the needs assessment activities you are able to
conduct. (3.) Identify the target audiences and data sources. Given your objectives and resources,
consider the target audiences and data resources that will help you assess your needs. Consider,
also, the competing priorities of your target audience and how to encourage them to participate in
your needs assessment.(4.) Think small and big when summarizing results. Upon collecting the
necessary data to your needs assessment, it’s time to dig in to that data, try to summarize and
reflect on data for each of your needs assessment objectives individually. (5.) Get feedback, it is
important to engommunity members as equal partners in understanding and translating results
from the needs assessment. This ensures that the people most affected by the program will have
power in determining its design. (6.) Disseminate- this helps ensure that the project stakeholders
are on the same page regarding project priorities and resource allocation and present your finding
internally and externally.
(7.) Take action. At the conclusion of the needs assessment process, review your original
objectives with the final results and recommendations. Doing so will highlight what steps are
needed to achieve your goals and most importantly, take action and use those findings to develop
your project approaches.
In Participatory action planning it is grounded in the belief that blending local knowledge and
expert knowledge leads to strong outcomes. Here are the steps how we implement participatory
action planning; (1) Launch- establish a partnership with local stakeholders and lay out an action
plan. (2) Understand- Create a diagnostic portrait of the use of public space. (3) Explore- Identify
design scenarios that will meet needs and resolve issues.(4) Decide- with the various
stakeholders, validate and improve upon the developed solutions.
(5) Act- implement the design solutions and advocate for citizen vision. (6) Inaugurate-celebrate
the project’s accomplishment.
Tools/Steps for Resource Mobilization:
1. Submitting proposals to typical donor agency is the most conventional way of getting
support.
2. Organizing fundraising events where you invite guests and request donations for your
organization.
3. Donation boxes where you request small amounts of money from public.
4. Collecting in-kind contribution such as used clothes, books, etc.
5. Volunteer support where volunteers provide their time and resources to support the
work organization.
6. Income from business-oriented projects of your organization like selling publications,
offering consultancies, microfinance, or micro-enterprise-based activities.
All the above listed types of support are essential for NGO’s though all of them do not
contribute equally to the funding needs of an organization.
Learning Competency with code:
Apply systematic methods of community action in understanding community.
(Week 4)
Activity 1: TRUE OR FALSE!
Direction: Assess whether the statement is true or false. Write T if the statement is true
and F it is false.
_______1. Conducting community action requires community profiling.
_______2. Needs assessment is a tool to give solution to the problem of community.
_______3. Applying systematic methods in conducting community action promotes positive
change in the community.
_______4. Methodologies and approaches in community action increases understanding,
engagement, and empowerment of communities.
_______5. Different stakeholders are engaged in community action.

Activity 2. COUNT ME IN!

Directions: Among the different methods used in community action choose one that you can
apply in undertaking community action. Enumerate the steps in each method. (e.g. needs
assessment- the issue of Distance learning of the Department of Education in relation to the
pandemic Covid 19)
1. Identify one method that you can apply in undertaking community
action_______________.
2. Select one method in conducting community action and give the steps of the specific
method.
3. a. ____________________
b.____________________
c.____________________
d. ____________________
e.____________________
f.____________________

Activity 3. ESSAY!
Direction: As method of community action, explain in 300 words the relationship of
Community profiling and needs assessment in understanding community.
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Activity 4. EXPLORE!
Directions. Based from the toolkits mentioned above, make a community action applying needs
assessment
method in relation to pandemic Covid 19 to the different learning modalities proposed by the
Department of Education using the given template below: (Use the example below as your basis).

Sample Action Plan Template

Objective Tasks Success Time Frame Resources
(List of Goals) (What you Criteria (when you (What or who can help
need to do to (How you will need to you complete the task)
achieve the identify complete the
goals ) your success) task)

RUBRIC FOR SCORING

5 4 3 2
EXCELLENT VERY AVERAGE NEEDS
GOOD IMPROVEMENT
This paper is This paper is the writer is topic is welldefined
clear and mostly focused, beginning to and/or there are too
focused. It holds and has some define the topic, many topics.
Ideas the reader’s good details and even though
attention. quotes. development is
Relevant details still basic or
and quotes general.
enrich the
central theme.
The Paper (and The Sentences within
organization paragraphs) are organizational paragraphs make
enhances and mostly structure is sense, but the order
showcases the organized, in strong enough to of paragraphs does
central idea or order and makes move the reader not.
theme. The
Organization sense to the through the text
order, structure
reader. without too
of information is
compelling and much confusion.
moves the
reader through
the text.
 The writing has The writing The text hums The text seems
an easy flow, mostly flows, along with a choppy and is not
rhythm, and and usually steady beat, but easy to read orally.
cadence. invites oral tends to be more
Sentences are reading. businesslike
Sentence well-built, with than musical,
Fluency strong and more
varied structure mechanical than
that invites the fluid.
expressive oral
reading.

Example:
Toolkit number 1- Describe the makeup and history of the community to provide a context
within which to collect data on its current concerns.
• Describe the strengths and problems you heard about
Toolkit number 2- Describe what matters to people in the community, including a description of:
• Issues that people in the community care about (e.g., safety, education, housing, health)
Toolkit number 3- Describe what matters to key stakeholders, including:
• Who else cares about the issue (the stakeholders) and what do they care about?
• What stakeholders want to know about the situation (e.g., who is affected, how many,
what factors contribute to the problem)
• Methods you will (did) use to gather information (e.g., surveys, interviews)
Toolkit number 4- Describe the evidence indicating whether the problem/goal should
be a priority issue, including:
• How many people are affected by the problem and the severity of its effects
• Possible impact and/or consequences of addressing the problem/goal
Toolkit number 5- Describe the barriers and resources for addressing the identified
issue(s), including:
• Barriers or resistance to solving the problem or achieving the goal (e.g., denial or
discounting of the problem) and how they can be minimized (e.g., reframing the issue)
• Community context or situation that might make it easier or more difficult to address this
issue

Activity 5. ENGAGED!
Direction: Applying systematic method, identify the problems/issues in your respective
community, who are directly affected? What describe the population your respective community,
and think how you give solution to the problem by applying the need assessment method using
the template below.
Note: same Rubrics will be used for this activity.

Who
What
Why
Where
When
Reflection:
Complete this statement:
What I have learned in this activity
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I enjoyed most on
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I want to learn more on

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_______________________________________.

References:
Websites: -Minemyer, Paige. “ 4 Steps to Build Effective Community Partnership.” December

13, 2016.

https://www.fiercehealthcare.com

-O’Donnel, Emily. “ Steps for Conducting Successful Needs Assessment.”

https://www.nichq.org -“ Guidebook –Participatory Planning PDF.”
https://www.participatoryplanning.ca.

(Date accessed: July 2020)

“What is Resource Mobilization?-Funds for NGO’s.” https://www.fundsforngos.org

-“Resource Mobilization.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org (Date accessed: July 2020)