Purpose of the Toolkit
Nebraska Children believes that communities are the most powerful vehicle available for delivering positive change to our state's kids. This belief is core to our model of doing business across the state. Implementing a Community Prevention System, or any part of our Prevention Portfolio, requires buy-in and input from all the diverse and relevant voices within a community.
The Toolkit is intended to inform and provide resources for communities at various stages of development. The toolkit therefore integrates current research on Community Well-Being, community and coalition development and prevention systems, and provides concrete tools and processes to assist in the development of a Community Priority plan for Community Well-Being.
The intent of the Toolkit is to create a comprehensive integrated process for building capacity and strengthening individuals, organizations, community collaboratives, and state systems to support safe and nurturing environments in order to prevent problems before they begin.
Thus each of the sections is designed to be able to be used as a developmental guide on its own or in an integrated plan with the other assessments and tools. Nebraska Children's goal is to provide process and tools which communities may use over a period of time and on an ongoing basis. It is not anticipated that a community would complete all components of the toolkit in a short period of time.
The process by which the community will assess and plan for Community Well-Being incorporates the foundation of public health assessment and planning. The design of the toolkit is based on Institute of Medicine’s 2003 Framework for Collaborative Public Health Action which includes the phases in the cycle above.
