Bridging the Gap Between Asset/Capacity Building and Needs Assessment

James W. Altschuld, PhD, is Professor Emeritus at The Ohio State University where he taught program evaluation, needs assessment, and research methods. He has published and presented extensively in the field of evaluation particularly with regard to how needs are assessed.

1. Beginnings 2. Synthesis of Needs Assessment and Asset/Capacity Building 3. Looking Closely at the First Three Critical Steps of the Framework 4. Step 4 in the Hybrid Framework 5. Steps 5-8: Completing the Hybrid Process 6. A Checklist for the Hybrid Framework 7. Cases Exhibiting Hybrid Framework Characteristics: Examples From Public Health 8. Cases From Other Fields 9. Research and Utilization

"There is great tension between the two camps - and if this book can bring the two together to a certain extent it will be a valuable tool." -- Paul Komarek "Building capacity is an important concept to develop in areas like Emergency/Disaster Planning and Community Relations. In addition to its scholarly value, it could be useful for practitioners too." -- Kenneth Goldberg "The material reflects a strengths-based model that is among the best-practices currently available." -- Judith Birgen "Combining two approaches that are complementary in many ways...novel idea, have not seen this proposed before." -- Brian P. Leung, PhD "...Highlights the value of both Needs Assessment (NA) and Assets Based Community Development (ABCD), moving beyond "either/or" thinking about the knowledge and skills that are needed to bring about community change." -- Barbara Soniat "It provides a very good step-by-step approach to identifying community challenges and assets/capacities and how to develop plans to address them. Realistic and practical." -- Kenneth Goldberg "The virtue of this text is that it is specific, sequenced, and offers a number of examples useful to students who find the content somewhat novel. For social work, students can bring this kind of text into the practicum environment and employ it as a road map for working with community members in completing projects. So, the text lends itself to project-based, problem-focused, and/or action learning. This is an asset. " -- David P. Moxley "I have seen nothing as thorough as this work. No one else synthesizes the material the way the author has done. I enjoyed the continuum from cooperation to collaboration and found the needs and assets discussions to be useful." -- Judith Birgen