Community Needs Assessment Paper Example

Introduction

Within the societal setting, we all live in; there are always social loopholes that do exist. Such gaps require solutions that are fit to address the existing social challenge in the community. Thus, the community needs assessment within so many areas especially the areas that target the services on children merely because they are going through a specific harsh condition due to lack of fulfillment of a given social situation. Therefore, a community needs assessment can be defined as the activity that identifies the given strengths and also the available resources within the community with the intention of meeting the needs of children, the youth and families. Thus, this assessment would focus on the community capabilities with the inclusion of its citizens, agencies, and organizations (Lillie-Blanton & Hoffman, 1995). Moreover, community needs assessment to focus the provision of a framework and the identification of services and the applicable solutions, together with the building of the communities that provide support and also nurture the community's children and families.

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However, a community needs assessment would be limited to the compilation of the available demographic data obtained from census records, surveys, and also informal feedback emanating from partners of the community. Various areas would require thorough assessment and get solutions from the relevant sources and resources. For example, the city I come from has this major social challenge facing young people especially teenagers. Over the last twenty years, the intensity of the youth service has seen to decrease drastically due to the decrease in parental care when it comes to playing their parental concern on the behavioral codes of their children. The main reason behind all these is because most of the parents have diverted their attention on their career and thus abandoned what is so essential as a responsibility on raising their children in the required ways and norms. The main consequences have therefore turned into to the highest percentage of the youths embracing the use of the social media as a way of consoling themselves and eventually cover the gap that has been created by their parents due to lack of better care. This paper shall hence focus on one of the challenges that are seen to need an assessment from the Australian health community. Precisely, an evaluation will be done on the Australian culturally and Linguistically (CALD) communities, which involves parents' experiences on the health access for child health surveillance together with the advisory guidance services for their children.

Existence of the Community Gap

Regular health records regarding parents with having young children give leeway for the developmental surveillance together with the anticipatory guidance related to the common childhood problems and also the given help intended to attain optimal developmental advancement preceding school entry. This area requires an in-depth assessment with the intention of identifying the leading causes of some of the parents do not meet this required medical standard despite its unavoidable necessity for the community. Possible solutions intended to narrow down this current trend related to parental unawareness or even negligence of taking care of their children's health should be obtained with immediate effect.

Reasons Behind the Assessment

In accordance to Australian cultural settings, early intermediation for the child progressive disorders has set to become an important health policy initiative for the Australian Government and also with the international reach, due to the research reports on the early brain development. It can be noted that, early childhood optimal development would have the impact of improving the physical, mental and also emotional health. Therefore, anticipatory guidance is necessary for the parents who have young children with the intention of tolerating regular checks on their current mental condition, and also to prepare them on what exactly is to expect as the next stage of the child's development. Moreover, information on child issues for health such as sleep, nutrition, behavioral management, and injury prevention is crucial.

One of the main reason behind the increase in the percentage unawareness of this cultural health program is as a result if the immigrants who come to Australia from non-English speaking countries whose language is limited to their native language. As a result, communication becomes a great challenge and thus obtained universal Australian healthcare is a challenge. This has been happening for the last five decades whereby as at now 15% of the total population is comprised of the non-English speaking people (Garg, 2017). Such a problem is widely witnessed in the South West region of Sydney. Moreover, the immigrants come from a broad variety of cultural settings, countries and also regions with so many spoken languages thus creating the widened disparity.

Assessment Method

For proper evaluation of the gap exists in the universal health services in Australia on the non-English speaking community, research was conducted to define the underlying truth over such matters. In order to accomplish this, qualitative data were collected from six groups, each group consisting of 33 parents and also interviews comprising seven in-depth CALD parents from the areas seeming disadvantaged in Sydney. The following research questions were asked to the participants during the interview:

• In case you need any explanation on your child's health, where do you specifically go?
• Do you consider to have regular checks for your child's health?
• What specific experience do you have for your child's health services?
• What could seem to be better for you, to embrace the services?
• What thoughts do you have on the Blue Book or Personal Health Record?

Results

Awareness and Beliefs

According to many parents, to access services on health matters for their children solely depended on what they were already aware of and believed on. Parents were also seen to have an interest in obtaining information related to their child's health condition.

Most of the parents proved not to be aware of the Blue Book information and thus demonstrated their broadened ignorance over the same. Most of the information related to the above questions are summarized by the flowchart below.

Conclusion

According to the research, CALD parents seem to have diverse experiences when it comes to primary health care. Such experiences are greatly influenced by what they seem to be aware of the sort available services according to the time they have stayed in Australia. The general practitioner together with the language concordance proposes the importance of the primary care improved worked force within the SW Sydney region. Moreover, the need for conducting training on the health professionals especially on the language matters is crucial and also making more language interpreters available to assist the health professional would seem a better solution in Australia.

References

Garg, P., Ha, M. T., Eastwood, J., Harvey, S., Woolfenden, S., Murphy, E., ... & Einfeld, S. (2017). Explaining culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) parents' access of healthcare services for developmental surveillance and anticipatory guidance: qualitative findings from the 'Watch Me Grow'study. BMC health services research, 17(1), 228.

Lillie-Blanton, M., & Hoffman, S. C. (1995). Conducting an assessment of health needs and resources in a racial/ethnic minority community. Health Services Research, 30(1 Pt 2), 225.