Queensland Stay On Your Feet® - Toolkit Phase 1 Community stocktake

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Community stocktake

A community stocktake is an important part of investigating the problem. It involves collecting information from a wide range of members in the community including:

  • individuals
  • service providers
  • community organisations
  • health professionals (including medical and allied health professionals)
  • fitness professionals
  • community services
  • carers
  • clubs and sporting associations
  • retail businesses
  • service clubs
  • government departments
  • non-government organisations.

Conducting a community stocktake helps to:

  • determine the relevant structures, systems, activities and resources already in place in the community to address falls and healthy active ageing [17]
  • identify the providers of activities and programs.

Determining the relevant structures, systems, activities, and resources that already exist in the community allows you to explore the potential to integrate your project/program into what currently exists. This reduces potential duplication, saves time and money, and increases the reach and maintenance of your project/program strategies.

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How to conduct a community stocktake

You can use a variety of methods to undertake a community stocktake, such as:

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Case study

The Queensland Stay on Your Feet® Wide Bay/Burnett trial project conducted a community stocktake using a mail survey to over 1,000 individuals, organisations, community groups, fitness groups and services in the project area at the beginning and completion of the project [100].

Developing the Survey and Database

As preliminary consultation by the trial project indicated that providers often did not consider they were involved in falls prevention activities, the stocktake survey collected information about services, resources and activities related to falls risk factors, rather than using the term 'falls prevention' [100].

Apart from developing the survey, a mailing list database of people who would receive the survey was needed. The Queensland Stay on Your Feet® Wide Bay/Burnett trial project developed the database using a range of sources including project contacts, attendees at project-related meetings and from existing relevant phone and service directories [100].

During the project, the database was regularly updated and expanded by individuals requesting to be included and by adding contacts identified by key stakeholders already on the database. The database provided a means of initiating and maintaining regular communication with target group and the community, as well as providing a way to evaluate the reach of the project [100].

Community Stocktake Results

The results from the initial community stocktake provided a useful baseline that informed the planning of the project and allowed comparative analysis as part of the project's evaluation. By comparing the community stocktake results from the beginning and completion of the project, changes in the number of the programs, services, activities or resources which focused on known falls risk factors could be measured.

For more information on the Queensland Stay on Your Feet® Wide Bay/Burnett trial project, see Queensland Stay on Your Feet® Wide Bay/Burnett Trial Project.

To see the community stocktake survey tools used for the trial project (you are welcome to adapt these for your project), refer to:

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Last updated: 7 August 2012