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Needs Assessment Cycle

Jessica Padilla
CUR/528
March 12, 2015
Gretchen Meyers

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Needs Assessment Cycle
The program that will utilize this assessment is a community program for young adults
called the Transitional Living Program. This program focuses on young female adults ages 17-24,
with or with out children who need assistance in living on their own. The program is apart of a
bigger non profit organization that assists with educating, empowering, and protecting young
women and their children. The transitional living program provides housing, resources, case
management, community partnerships and a life skills course. The focus of the needs assessment
will be in regards to the mandatory life skill classes the participants engage in weekly while in the
transitional living program.
The purpose of this needs assessment is to capture the specific life skill needs participants of
the transitional living program must have in order to be successful in the program and living on
their on while caring for themselves and their children. The participants have a 2 year maximum
length of stay in the program, but average about 8 months in participation before they transition
out. The life skills program is set up in 6 week training intervals, so every six weeks the theme of
the life skill set changes based on the need of the participating clients.
Participants come from the community through an application process and are given the
needs assessment during the first week of the section or their first week in participation. Stake
holders involved in the training include program staff, interns, community leaders, and graduated
participants from previous years. The budget for the life skills courses in the program is about
$2000 for the year for activities, materials, and any other resources needed that we cannot get
donated by partnering agencies. The time allotted for the life skills training goes along with the
life of the transitional living program. Once the transitional living program is no longer funded
then the there will be no funding or clientele for the life skills training.

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The specific information that needs to be acquired for each participant is level of education,
living/housing history, number of children and ages currently responsible for, and any other special
needs that staff should be aware of. The curriculum of the training is dependant on finding the
level of knowledge and application the participants have in the following categories:
Transitional living program requirements, budgeting, nutrition, shopping, hygiene care,
cleaning techniques, tools, and products, resume building, interviewing skills, etiquette,
child care, domestic violence, community resources, and self esteem.
The information that needs to be obtained comes directly from the clients themselves.
Although some of the participant information can be pulled from their applications it is important
to inquire again through the assessment format as they may have felt more comfortable at that
time to share more than they did when first applying. Participants of the program will be
introduced to all staff, co habitants, and be settled into living space before being introduced to the
life skills program and the initial needs assessment.
The methodology of the assessment begins with providing a level of comfort for the client
so that their answers can be as open and honest as possible for their introduction to the program.
The more that we can find out the participant knows or does not know and to which level the
more in depth we know to be with in each topic of life skill addressed. The needs assessment will
be introduced to each participant in their first week of the life skills course and given in the
resource classroom where a majority of the courses will be given; distributed in paper and pencil
format. The assessment will be given twice during each 6 week interval. The level of education,
living/housing history, number of children and ages currently responsible for, and any other special
needs that staff should be aware of will be asked at the beginning of the very first written needs
assessment given and will be followed by a traditional 40 question assessment that will explore the
knowledge on the topics of program requirements, and explore the level of knowledge the

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participants have in budgeting, nutrition, shopping, hygiene care, cleaning techniques, tools, and
products, resume building, interviewing skills, etiquette, child care, domestic violence, community
resources, and self esteem. This traditional assessment will consist of fill in the blank, true or false,
multiple choice, and short answer questions. The program coordinators will be responsible for
scoring each assessment with the key provided and summarize the scores in a report.
The second time the participant will see the assessment will be in the fifth week of the 6
week block of classes. This assessment will be a similar transitional 45 question assessment with
40 questions identical to the initial needs assessment and 5 extra questions inclusive to the topic
being covered during that section. For example if the initial topic taught was budgeting then the
participant would answer the same 40 questions from the first assessment and then 5 additional
questions only focused on the their skill and knowledge of budgeting. Having the participants
answer the same 40 initial questions will show their progress with all of the topics and determine
if it is something they are learning from the other components of the transitional living program or
just from the life skills class itself. It is important to keep in mind the comfort level of the
participant will have changed over time and this will also become a factor in what the participant
decides to be open about so leaving room for a decrease in knowledge of topics should be
expected. For example a participant who is a mother may list that they are knowledgeable of all
parenting skills and later feel trust enough to admit they do not know.
The needs assessment will be given again at the beginning of the next 6 week class, and
again in the fifth week of that concentrated section. The extra 5 questions during the mid term
assessment is to reflect the depth of the knowledge obtained on that topic. The transitional living
program offers living accommodations, community partnered classes, individual case
management, and many social opportunities for participants to interact and learn from each other
so these must be taken into consideration when assessing the progress of the clients. This is why

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the classes are focused in a 6 week interval so that when improvements show in other categories
we can identify these other factors as contributors. For example if we were in the budgeting block
but the participant showed major progress in the nutrition portion of the assessment then we
cannot contribute that to the budgeting class but rather social interaction in the house, outside
community programs, or access to the tools and resources for them to self teach.
The added instrument to the needs assessment will be the case management portion of the
program as that provides opportunity for an observation piece. This piece will have some affect on
the decision of what topic is relevant to the needs of the present participants. The observation
piece will take place during one on one case management meetings with clients, weekly housing
checks, social events, and reports by other staff or community agency interactions. The
observation piece is an added benefit but has yet to be incorporated as an official piece of the
needs assessment.
The needs assessment can and will change over time if we see that some questions,
language, or topics do not apply to the group at hand but for grant funding purposes there will be
questions that will remain consistent as they are specific to what the grant would like for us to
track. Funding is dependant on the mission we stated we would be able to complete with our
application for funds, given the funds were allotted to the program. The needs assessment will
provide a base for the measurement of how far we were able to take the mission with each client
and help prove what works and why the funding for the success is necessary.