The role of the Community EMPACT Team is to identify factors that affect the quality of life of the local population and determine the availability of resources within the community to adequately address these factors.

 

Through collaborative efforts forged among community leaders, public agencies, businesses, and private organizations (to name a few), the community can begin to answer key questions such as (a) “What are the strengths in our community?” (b) “What concerns do community members have?” and (c) “What resources are available and what do we need in the community to address these concerns?”

 

With the information gathered through the efforts of the Community EMPACT Team community members take the lead role in forming partnerships, gathering community needs data, determining priority issues, identifying resources, and planning community programs.

 

In this framework, the assessment process starts with the people who live in the community and gives the community primary responsibility for determining the focus of assessment activities at every level, including collection and interpretation of data, evaluation of resources, identification of problems, and development of strategies for addressing these problems. In this view, community assessment is done by the community rather than on the community.