Recipes for Community Success

Recipes for Community Success: A Guide for Improving the Condition of Children and Families in your Community captures the many lessons learned by successful communities.

Each section describes tools, provides helpful hints, and lists the key ingredients your neighborhood/community will need. You can combine these ingredients with your own enthusiasm, dedication, and leadership to achieve success. Experienced professionals and key community members have volunteered to assist you each step of the way.

We all have things in common. We want our children to be healthy and successful. We want our families to be strong and self-sufficient. We want our neighborhoods — where we our children attend school, where we work, and where we live — to be safe places in which we feel we truly belong. We are all too busy for our own good. We are also, each of us, individual and unique. Our differences are the source of our unique talents and resources which are ingredients that, when carefully combined, can make our communities better in the ways we decide are most important.

With the leadership and support of the Kern County Network for Children, people throughout Kern have used their talents, set aside valuable time, experimented with collaborative processes, and have overcome natural power struggles to take effective action to fix the alarming problems facing our neighborhoods. Their most significant successes included increased employment opportunities, increased public transportation for a rural area, and improved school attendance and performance.

To achieve measurable improvements in the lives of their children and families, these communities tried and tested a number of processes and strategies. Most were tremendously successful, a few were disappointing.

Recipes for Community Success: A Guide for Improving the Condition of Children and Families in your Community captures the many lessons learned by successful communities. Each section describes tools, provides helpful hints, and lists the key ingredients your neighborhood/community will need. You can combine these ingredients with your own enthusiasm, dedication, and leadership to achieve success. Experienced professionals and key community members have volunteered to assist you each step of the way.

The strategies are designed to assist you with garnering and maintaining the grassroots support and determination, which your community will need to build its success.

THE STEPS:

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Section 1

COLLABORATE
Begin by getting to know one another; establish a community coordinating council to provide structure and governance; define whom you see as belonging to your community; and support the leadership development of community members.
– Community Coordinating Council
– Defining the Community
– Leadership Development

Section 2

ASSESS YOUR COMMUNITY
Before you begin the process, what do you need and what do you have to work with?
– Needs Assessment
– Resource Mapping

Section 3

CHOOSE RESULTS
What is your vision and what do you most want to achieve?
– Creating a Vision Statement
– Priority Results

Section 4

USE EFFECTIVE STRATEGIES
Create then use a plan that will enable you to resolve pressing community concerns. Some proven strategies include: Case Management, multi-disciplinary teams, and family resource centers.
– Creating an Action Plan
– Case Management
– Multi-Disciplinary Teams
– Family Resource Centers

Section 5

INTEGRATE & TRACK YOUR WORK
Measure the impacts you’ve achieved after combining ingredients and using successful strategies.
– Measuring Results

TOOLS
– Printable forms and documents that may be helpful.

APPENDIX
– Research
– Publications
– Technical Assistance
– Grant Writing
– Testimonials
– Glossary
– Directory

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Special thanks to the many people who helped make “Recipes for Success: A Guide for Improving the Condition of Children and Families in your Community” possible. The personal and professional commitments of the following individuals have resulted in measurable improvements in the lives of children and families throughout Kern County:

Lily Alvarez
Tom Corson
Paula Herrington
Michael Hulsizer
Members of the East Bakersfield Community Coalition
Members of the Kern County Collaborative
Kern County Network for Children Board of Trustees
Dr. Dixie King
Members of the 34th Street Neighborhood Partnership

Members of the Delano Neighborhood Partnership
Members of the Lamont/Weedpatch Neighborhood Partnership
Members of the Southeast Neighborhood Partnership
Judith O’Hare Newman
Natalie Sentz
Dr. Marvin Southard
Jayme Stuart
Allene Zanger
Gary Boleschka