What is community readiness and what is the community readiness model?

Community readiness examines the level to which a community is prepared to act on a particular issue (Eg., engaging with end-of-life care). The readiness you measure needs to be focused on a very specific issue/concern. 

The community readiness model aims to give an approximation of the degree to which a community will engage with a programme/service focused on targeting a specific issue of concern. 

The model was originally developed for use when targeting a community’s readiness to address alcohol and drug abuse but has subsequently been applied to cover a wide range of issues, which shows its versatility. 

Why do we need to understand a community’s readiness?

Exploring readiness provides key knowledge that helps inform the development of services to target the issue. Using this approach can increase the likelihood of successful take-up of a new service. This can subsequently increase the likelihood of being able to improve the issue of concern. 

Key components of the community readiness model:

More specifically, the community readiness model breaks down its model into the following steps:

• Identify issue/concern 
• Define your ‘community’
• Conduct key respondent interviews
• Score interviews to determine a community’s community readiness score 
• Develop strategies (to work on improving the understanding of the issue/concern) that are stage appropriate for your community 
• In time, evaluate the effectiveness of the new strategies and adjust if needed

How do you measure community readiness?

We recommend that you look at the Community Readiness Model handbook here (Plested et al., 2006) for further guidance, but as a brief overview, the following steps will need to be conducted as part of the model:

• Identify your issue/concern (be as specific as possible)
• Identify your community of focus (i.e., who experiences the issue of concern)
  • For example: understanding a community’s stage of readiness to prevent childhood obesity (amongst children aged 8-12) 
• Identify people who you could ask to be key respondents (to understand more about the topic of concern). To find suitable individuals, you could find community/charity organisations/healthcare teams, patient support groups, community service groups and reach out to see if anyone would be interested in sharing their time/understanding with you.