Interviewing an informant for a community needs assessment

COMMUNITY NEEDS ASSESSMENT PLAN—DEVELOPING INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

When you carry out a community needs assessment, it is useful to interview stakeholders (referred to as informants) to better define the problem that you are addressing, achieve a common understanding of it, and reach an agreed upon scope for the assessment. The informants whom you interview should be well versed in the problem, either through personal experience or professional expertise, and should be able to see it from different perspectives.

For this Discussion, you will identify one informant whom you could interview if you were to carry out your community needs assessment plan. Then, you will develop a series of open-ended interview questions to ask the informant.

RESOURCES

Be sure to review the Learning Resources before completing this activity. Click the weekly resources link to access the resources.

WEEKLY RESOURCES

TO PREPARE

· Review your Course Announcements for possible information related to this week’s Discussion and Assignment.

· Review the Learning Resources on interviewing an informant for a community needs assessment. Consider the examples of questions that are provided and think about how each would help to better define a problem or achieve a common understanding of it. In addition, think about which questions you would ask to reach an agreed upon scope of the community needs assessment.

· Reflect on the team that you assembled last week for your community needs assessment. Identify one stakeholder (referred to as an informant) that you would interview and consider why you chose this stakeholder over the others.

· Think about the open-ended questions that you would ask the informant to better define the social problem, achieve a common understanding of it, and reach an agreed upon scope of the community needs assessment.

BY DAY 4

Post a brief description of the social problem that you chose for your Final Project. Then, describe a stakeholder (referred to as an informant) from the team that you assembled last week that you would interview to learn more about your social problem. Explain why you selected this stakeholder to interview, rather than the other stakeholders on the team. Finally, post five broad, open-ended interview questions that you would ask the informant to help you better define the problem, achieve a common understanding of it, and reach an agreed upon scope of the community needs assessment.