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Needs Assessment
b>SECTION 2 OUTLINE
NEEDS ASSESSMENT
The main purpose of a needs assessment is to define the central problem that your Early Childhood Care for Development (ECCD) project is intended to address. This is a critical step in the development of any program. No matter how well-defined a project, if it does not address the needs as perceived by the community, it will fail.
What Process Should be Followed?
In conducting a needs assessment, the process of gathering and analyzing information is key. Needs assessment is (or should be) the first step in a dialogue–it is not just a passive, anonymous task of gathering facts and data. It is the best way for the program developers and the community stakeholders to begin to work together dynamically and come to joint understandings.
Basic Principles
While each needs assessment should be geared to the particular situation and particular constraints you face, certain principles are helpful in most needs assessment processes.
Keep an Open Mind
Foster Participation by Establishing a Participatory Process from the Beginning
Take a Constructive Rather Than a Compensatory Approach
·SIDE TRIP LINK: C. Arnold. 1998. Early Childhood: Building Our Understanding and Moving Towards the Best of Both Worlds.
The Steps in Needs Assessmen and the Information to be Sought
It is possible to set out, more or less, a sequence that information collection and analysis might follow, and to identify the kinds of information to be gathered at each of the steps. All of this will help provide the basis for choosing the project’s goals and objectives, and the particular type of project to be undertaken.
Do Your Homework
LEARN WHAT YOU CAN ABOUT THE COUNTRY
·LIBRARY LINK: The Convention on the Rights of the Child. 1989.
·LIBRARY LINK: The World Declaration on Education for All: Meeting Basic Learning Needs. 1990.
·LIBRARY LINK: Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs Education. 1994.
·LIBRARY LINK: World Declaration on the Survival, Protection and Development of Children, Agreed to at the World Summit for Children on 30 September 1990.
·LIBRARY LINK: Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, adopted on 18 December 1979.
KNOW YOUR OWN ORGANIZATION/GOVERNMENT MINISTRY
Determine Who to Involve–Identify the Stakeholders
·ECCD BRIEF LINK: Why Consult Initially with Stakeholders?
DIRECT BENEFICIARIES
GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS
REPRESENTATIVES OF CIVIL SOCIETY
THE PRIVATE SECTOR
UNIONS
PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
FUNDERS
MEDIA
·WORKSHEET 2-1 LINK: Stakeholders matrix.
Determine the Kinds of Information Needed
• Economic, social, political and demographic indicators.
• Resources.
• Community.
• Family characteristics.
• Status of children.
·WORKSHEET 2-2 LINK: National and Community Statistics.
ECONOMIC, SOCIAL, POLITICAL AND DEMOGRAPHIC INDICATORS
·LIBRARY LINK: J. L. Evans. 1995. Creating a Shared Vision: How Policy Affects Early Childhood Care and Development.
·LIBRARY LINK: C. Landers. 1990. Language Planning in Preschool Education.
·WORKSHEET 2-2 LINK: National and Community Statistics.
RESOURCES AVAILABLE TO BE INCORPORATED
INTO THE PROPOSED PROJECT
·WORKSHEET 2-3 LINK: Project Matrix: An Inventory of Existing Projects/Programs.
·WORKSHEET 2-4 LINK: Human Resources.
SERVICES AVAILABLE WITHIN AND ACROSS COMMUNITIES
·WORKSHEET 2-5 LINK: Profile of Community Services.
FAMILY CHARACTERISTICS
·LIBRARY LINK: J. L. Evans and P. A. Stansbery. 1998. Parenting Programs Designed to Support The Development of Children from Birth to Three Years of Age.
·SIDE TRIP LINK: R. G. Myers and J. L. Evans. 1998. Women’s Work and Child Care in the Third World. From Childrearing Practices.
·WORKSHEET 2-6 LINK: An Analysis of Childrearing Practices.
·LIBRARY LINK: J. Timyan. 1988. Cultural Aspects of Psychosocial Development: An Examination of West African Childrearing Practices.
·LIBRARY LINK: J. L. Evans and R. G. Myers. 1994. Childrearing Practices: Creating Programs Where Traditions and Modern Practices Meet.
THE STATUS OF CHILDREN
·SIDE TRIP LINK: High/Scope Foundation. IEA Preprimary Project: an Observational Study of Early Childhood Settings– Instruments.
·ECCD BRIEF LINK: L. Atkin. Developmental Indicators: Some Examples from Latin America.
·WORKSHEET 2-7 LINK: The Status of Children.
Identify Sources of Data: Where Do You Find What You Need to Know?
·ECCD BRIEF LINK: Needs Assessment: The Data That Should Be Gathered and Where to Find It.
EXISTING DOCUMENTS–SECONDARY SOURCES
PRIMARY SOURCES–DATA GENERATED FOR THE PROJECT
·LIBRARY LINK: R. Heaver and J. Hunt. 1995. Improving Early Childhood Development: An Integrated Program for the Philippines.
·SIDE TRIP LINK: Standardised Indicators of Program Impact Agency-Wide: An Example from Christian Children‘s Fund.
·SIDE TRIP LINK: Early Childhood Care and Development PLA Protocol.
·SIDE TRIP LINK: PLA (Participatory Learning And Action).
·LIBRARY LINK: E. Kane. 1995. Seeing for Yourself: Research Handbook For Girl’s Education In Africa.
·WORKSHEET 2-8 LINK: Very Young Children (birth—3 years).
·WORKSHEET 2-9 LINK: Pre-school Aged Children.
·WORKSHEET 2-10 LINK: Children of Primary School Age.
·WORKSHEET 2-11 LINK: Assessment of the Quality of Life in the Community.
Some Reflections on the Needs Assessment Process
The goal of a development project should be to set in motion a process that will be maintained once external funders leave the area. There is no better way to begin the process than by having those who will ultimately be responsible for activities in the community take ownership of the project from the beginning.
A Caution
Cross checking for the validity of data depending on the degree of trust you have in the orginal source.
Putting It All Together
An example of what an assessment of a situation might be in relation to Care.
·LIBRARY LINK: P. Engle, L. Lhotska, and H. Armstrong. 1997. The Care Initiative: Assessment, Analysis and Action to Improve Care for Nutrition.
Determining Underlying Causes of Problems
It is not enough to know that infant mortality rates are extremely high, or that the school drop-out rate is three times the national average, or that the crime rate for adolescents has increased sharply in the last three years.
In order to create a project that is going to make a difference in those rates, it is critical to try to figure out why the rates are so high. What is going on in the community or region that creates such an unsupportive environment for children and youth?
The conceptual framework developed by UNICEF (See Box 2.1), indicates the
process of working from the immediate symptom to an understanding of the
underlying causes.
Box 2.1: Identifying the Underlying and Basic Causes of Problems
THE PROBLEM: Malnutrition and child
mortality
IMMEDIATE CAUSES: Inadequate feeding
Frequent infections
UNDERLYING CAUSES: Lack of food
Inadequate child care
Poverty
Poor health services
Lack of clean water and sanitation
BASIC CAUSES: Environmental degradation
Economic inequalities
Lack of political will
To be effective, an ECCD project should try to address both the immediate causes and the underlying causes, and to the the greatest extent possible, the basic causes.
In summary, the goal of a development project should be to involve those who will be ultimately responsible for activities in the community take ownership of the project from the beginning. Those who will ultimately benefit from the project-the children, parents, and the commnity-are critical partners in any endeavour.
Stakeholders-government, non-governmental organisations, funders and the private sector, should be part of the process, both in terms of defining the kinds of questions that need to be asked and in collecting the relevant information that will help inform the project.
Stakeholders also need to be part of the process of analyzing and making sense of
the data. If they are among those who see the need and help define the approach,
they are going to be interested in how the project actually operates. They will
also be in a good position to provide an assessment over time of whether or not
the project is working.
The needs assessment process should support decisions about which populations
will participate in and receive benefits from the project. It should be used as the
basis for defining a project’s goal(s) and purpose(s) (see Section Three), and provide clues as to how the project should be designed and implemented (see
Section Four). Within the project it will be possible to set up mechanisms for
answering some of the many questions raised by the needs assessment process.
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