Don't Put the Cart before the Horse: Using Tribal Community Readiness to Inform Action

Beaudry, Philip J

Key Objectives:

To discuss the importance of informing action and change at the Tribal level through an assessment of Tribal community readiness to support such action/change.
To illuminate the Community Readiness Model (CRM) as an affordable, efficient, collaborative, and ultimately effective way of doing so through an overview of methodology and concrete examples from the field.
To provide a venue for sharing ideas to expand the readiness assessment toolkit with other innovative options from the field.

Brief Summary:
Too often, the field of public health puts the cart before the horse, throwing money at an issue and expecting things to change. We as public health practitioners frequently seem surprised when this type of approach fails. The shortfalls of doing so are often made even more significant in Tribal public health, given: 1) the complexity and severity of health issues at the Tribal level; 2) the extreme diversity that exists between Tribal communities; 3) the limited funding available for Tribal public health efforts; and, 4) the tendency for Tribal public health to be reactive rather than proactive. However, an assessment of readiness to change, and to support action, regarding a particular issue (any issue) can and has made a tremendous difference in the prioritization and action planning process. Readiness enables us to be intelligently, collaboratively, and competently proactive with regard to an issue by basing support and action in an informed and tailored understanding of a community's current status on that issue. This roundtable will involve a discussion of avoiding "cart before the horse" mistakes by utilizing readiness assessments (including the illumination of needs, assets, and other key factors). The facilitators will present the Community Readiness Model (CRM) as one way to conduct such assessments in a collaborative way, utilizing their own experience working with Tribal communities within a variety of topics. However, this roundtable also seeks to generate discussion to expand the readiness asessment process by looking beyond the CRM to explore other options that meet communities where they are at and that have worked in the field under a variety of circumstances.