What is community readiness and the Community Readiness model?

As part of defining the problem you have identified, and the potential solutions it’s vital to consider the relevant community’s readiness for intervention.

The community readiness model offers an indication of how likely a community will engage with a programme or service targeting a specific issue of concern. The readiness you measure needs to be focused on a very specific issue/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 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 (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)
• Identify people who you could ask to be key respondents (to understand more about the topic of concern). This might include community and charity organisations, healthcare teams, patient support groups, community service groups.

1. Understanding the readiness an inner-city estate has for engaging in services for promoting social and emotional health in children 
2. Understanding the barriers that influence how the South Asian community access and use palliative care services
3. Understanding the degree to which obesity and nutrition related concerns are deemed important to tackle within the Roma community