Evaluation with Limited Resources - Essay Example

Needs Assessment part a What resources are available to complete a needs assessment? How is the scope of evaluation affected by the availability of resources? How do you develop an evaluation with limited resources? The fundamental resources available for undertaking or completing a needs assessment are the people and resources within the community, the government institutional resources like government professionals and documents/records, the non-government document/records and people resources, and the human and non-human resources available in the international community. Like local resources, the resources available in the international community can be government and non-government. One possible effect of the availability of resources is on the scope of the needs assessment: micro needs assessments will require less resources compared to macro needs assessments. In macro needs assessments, surveys will probably be required. In contrast, in very micro settings, consultations with the local population and professional judgment can suffice to make a valid need assessment. This is because in very micro-settings, the community people can be convened for headcounts to substitute for surveys or census and professional judgment based on ocular inspection or rapid random sample or 100% physical check-ups on the population can suffice to identify health needs. If resources are limited then a combination of the following can be done to make rapid needs assessment: 1) key informant interviews; 2) focused group discussion; 3) consultations meetings with the community, local authorities, and local professionals; and 4) workshops with community leaders, local authorities, and local professionals. In the key-informant interviews, we focus on the local people or non-residents of the community whom we believe have an intimate of the locality. For instance, community leaders and anthropologists/sociologists who have been studying the community can be classified as “key informants”. In a focus group discussion, we convene a small group who are usually composed of people whom we can also classify as key informants to discuss needs and make an assessment of the situation or needs of the community under our supervision. In consultations meetings with the community and other stakeholders, we can convene a meeting with them even without making a distinction between key informants and non-key informants and discuss with them community needs. We ask them to identify for us what their community needs are---under our supervision, of course. Workshops are very similar with focused group discussion except that the latter are more democratic and participatory. The unities arrived at workshop are usually stake-holder driven rather than driven by the group sponsoring the workshops. All of these can be employed singularly or in combination to produce a community needs assessment. Meanwhile, one type of a community needs assessment approach that can also be undertaken is what the World Health Organization named in 2000 as the “Client-centered Community Needs Assessment” or CCCNA (WHO, 2005, p. 16). CCCNA is a “data collection procedure that assesses what clients or patients think about services that are needed”. part b You are asked to put together a needs assessment for a community immunization project. Discuss potential barriers to an effective needs assessment and detail possible solution to overcome these barriers. The procedure I will use in conducting a needs assessment will depend on the time given to me. However, I will try hard to convince my superiors in the organization to kindly provide adequate time for me to conduct the needs assessment. The first step will be to conduct pre-community visit preparations. In this step, I will try to read all the relevant literature and documents on the target community. In particular, I will check the latest estimate on the population as per the estimate of the government agency with the appropriate mandate. I will also check on the population structure. This means that I will check on the population is distributed across age groups. I will try my best to estimate the need for vaccine based on the population and population structure consistent with the age group or bracket for which the vaccine is appropriate. I will also be checking on the incidence of the disease in the community for which the vaccine will be used. The data will allow me to estimate the quantity of the vaccine that will have to be brought. I will also check on the stock of the vaccine that we can bring to the community and the logistical requirements that are implied by the stock of the vaccine that we will have to bring to the community or area. I will have to go to the community or area for which immunization is being programmed but the pre-community activities that have just described are very important PRIOR to the community visit for validating my initial plans and mobilizing both local authorities and local volunteers for their possible assistance on the immunization program. Prior to the trip to the community for data validation and making requests for cooperation and possible assistance from the local population and authorities, I will also check the list of organizations in that community as well as the local authorities that I have to deal in the locality. I will also obtain physical, institutional, street, and terrain maps to visualize how the physical positioning for the immunization program can be implemented. For instance, the immunization program may be appropriate to conduct in the local health centers of the community or communities or, in some instances, the physical location for immunization programs can be the schools if the appropriate logistics are available. Based on the pre-community visit data, I will formulate a tentative plan for the immunization program. The second step is to visit the community for validation of data and coordination with local authorities and possible volunteers for their possible support and assistance in the community immunization program. In this step, I will attempt to validate the data that I have obtained prior to the community visit. The validation can cover population size, population structure or distribution across age groups or brackets, data on the map itself, terrain, and even estimate on the need for the vaccines. I will also familiarize myself with the local authorities, organizations or civic groups, terrain, physical layout, population spatial distribution across the geographic area of the community or locality, and refine the initial plans I made prior to the visit. I will initiate a meeting with local authorities and, preferably, even with civic groups in the community and solicit their support as well as assistance. At minimum, the local authorities and the civic groups can be mobilized to mobilize people’s participation in the immunization program, crowd control, and maintain order as the immunization is implemented. The meeting with authorities and civic groups is important because doing so will allow health workers to focus on tasks on which we are most needed: managing the immunization supplies and materials and administering the immunization proper. The local authorities and the volunteers can focus on the mobilization of the population, crow control or management, and the orderly enlistment of the population for the immunization. The third step is to finalize the immunization plan with my health superiors. If adjustments have to be made then I will have to communicate the adjustments with the local authorities and civic groups targeted for the immunization. The fourth step will involve preparation of the immunization the materials. The fifth step is to implement the immunization program. Finally, the sixth step is to conduct an evaluation of the immunization program with the community and establish goodwill with community in the process. I see no major obstacle to the plan community assessment I have outlined. Typically, there can be problems on logistics, coordination, and mobilization of authorities and volunteers. However, the task of immunization is important enough for the authorities and volunteers to allow themselves to be mobilized to assist the immunization team. For example, the problem of coordination is addressed by “simply” strengthening coordination. Related to this, the problems related to mobilization is “simply” done by strengthening the mobilization efforts. If the importance of the immunization is properly disseminated, logistics are adequate, health workers establish goodwill with communities good enough, and transparent with the target communities on their manpower constraints, authorities and volunteers will probably allow themselves to be mobilized by the health workers or authorities. In doing the plan for community needs assessment, I have indicated as well the plan for implementing the immunization program. I consider steps 1 to 4 as the continuum in which the needs assessment is also done. The need assessment should be covering needs or requirements that are crucial for implementing the immunization program itself. Reference List WHO. (2000). Workbook 3: Needs assessment. Geneva: World Health Organization. WHO. (2001). Community needs assessment: An introductory guide for the family health nurse in Europe. Geneva: World Health Organization. Read More