Rural Needs Assessment: In our professional social work practice we may encounter information that would suggest a community wide problem or concern. We can react to anecdotal data or personal experiences, before we critically analyze a problem, which may create a perception that a problem has wider reaching effects on a community than it really does. To effectively address rural social concerns it is important to accurately assess problems, social issues or concerns to assure that, often limited, resources are utilized effectively and efficiently.

In this paper you are to identify a social issue that is relevant to rural social work and use a variety of professional sources including the catchment group, key informants (community leaders, service providers) and the larger community to assess the unmet service provision and service access needs related to the issue. You will use the needs assessment data you collect to inform your Developing Rural Services paper.  You will find some specific information about needs assessments and a case example in Chapter 11 of Ginsberg.

Use the following outline to organize your paper which should be about 6 pages with at least 5 professional references (this means academic journal articles and is in addition to the stakeholders you will speak with) and use correct APA style.  Use the rubric criteria for headings in your paper to keep yourself focused.

1. Identify a local social concern/issue/problem. Describe why you believe this issue is important and how it has led to unmet services or access to services.  What is the relevance to the profession of social work?

2. Plan your needs assessment.

a. Identify Key Stakeholders – who will you collect data from?

b. Determine the purpose of the Needs Assessment

c. Identify the underlying theories/assumptions

d. Determine required resources to complete the needs assessment

e. Know the community – provide statistical data

f. Choose the type of assessment

3. Conduct a basic needs assessment and share your findings.  Do the people affected by the problem view the problem in the same way that you view the problem (See your answer to Question 1)?  How does this compare to the viewpoint of key informants and the community at large? What needs are not currently being met in underserved rural areas according to the data you have collected?

Please Note: In order to complete this assignment you will have to actually collect data from real people. So you should choose a topic and area that is accessible for you to complete data collection.

You’ve already rated students with this rubric. Any major changes could affect their assessment results.

Rural Needs Assessment
Criteria	Ratings	Pts
Description of Problem 180515_295 view longer description threshold: pts Edit criterion description	Describes the problem and its relevance to the profession of rural social work in detail. 8 pts blank Edit rating Delete rating Add new rating category after current rating Description of the problem and its relevance to rural social work lacks detail. 6 pts 180515_9365 Edit rating Delete rating Add new rating category after current rating Description of problem does not include relevance to rural social work. 4 pts 214063_9572 Edit rating Delete rating Add new rating category after current rating There is no discussion of the problem or most required content is missing. 0 pts blank_2 Edit rating Delete rating Add new rating category after current rating This area will be used by the assessor to leave comments related to this criterion.	pts / 8 pts —
Assessment Plan 180515_3202 view longer description threshold: pts Edit criterion description	Includes all required components of assessment plan. 8 pts 180515_6716 Edit rating Delete rating Add new rating category after current rating Missing one required component of assessment plan. 6 pts 180515_409 Edit rating Delete rating Add new rating category after current rating Missing two required components of assessment plan. 4 pts 180515_5202 Edit rating Delete rating Add new rating category after current rating Missing three or more required components of assessment plan. 0 pts 214063_402 Edit rating Delete rating Add new rating category after current rating This area will be used by the assessor to leave comments related to this criterion.	pts / 8 pts —
Conduct Needs Assessment 180515_2984 view longer description threshold: pts Edit criterion description	Presents detailed evidence that needs assessment was conducted using actual stakeholders. 8 pts 180515_5890 Edit rating Delete rating Add new rating category after current rating Evidence presented lacks detail. 6 pts 180515_3096 Edit rating Delete rating Add new rating category after current rating Actual needs assessment data collected is missing components. 4 pts 180515_2234 Edit rating Delete rating Add new rating category after current rating Fails to conduct needs assessment. 0 pts 214063_9989 Edit rating Delete rating Add new rating category after current rating This area will be used by the assessor to leave comments related to this criterion.	pts / 8 pts —
Professional Communication 180515_339 view longer description threshold: pts Edit criterion description	Written work is free from grammatical, spelling or punctuation errors and uses correct APA citation style. Includes at least 5 references. 8 pts 180515_5340 Edit rating Delete rating Add new rating category after current rating Written work includes minor grammatical, spelling or punctuation errors (5 or fewer) and/or has some errors in APA citation style. Includes 4 references. 6 pts 180515_8678 Edit rating Delete rating Add new rating category after current rating Written work includes minor grammatical, spelling or punctuation errors (6-10) and/or has some errors in APA citation style. Includes 3 references. 4 pts 180515_3092 Edit rating Delete rating Add new rating category after current rating Written work contains numerous grammatical, spelling or punctuation errors (more than 10) and/or has numerous errors in APA citation style. Includes less than 3 references. 0 pts 214063_8384 Edit rating Delete rating Add new rating category after current rating This area will be used by the assessor to leave comments related to this criterion.	pts / 8 pts —
Findings of Needs Assessment 251310_4314 view longer description threshold: pts Edit criterion description	Presents detailed evidence of needs assessment findings. 8 pts 251310_3229 Edit rating Delete rating Add new rating category after current rating Presentation of findings lacks detail. 6 pts 251310_9140 Edit rating Delete rating Add new rating category after current rating Presentation of findings is incoherent. 4 pts 251310_1188 Edit rating Delete rating Add new rating category after current rating No findings are presented. 0 pts 251310_2775 Edit rating Delete rating Add new rating category after current rating This area will be used by the assessor to leave comments related to this criterion.	pts / 8 pts —
Description of criterion view longer description threshold: 5 pts Edit criterion description	Full Marks 5 pts blank Edit rating Delete rating Add new rating category after current rating No Marks 0 pts blank_2 Edit rating Delete rating Add new rating category after current rating This area will be used by the assessor to leave comments related to this criterion.	pts / 5 pts —
Total Points: 40

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8

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8