Community Consensus Building-Focus Groups and/or Community Health Survey's

One very necessary step in achieving health care in the Kagulu community will be convincing the local government that it is necessary. HICA (Health Ideal Care Africa) has already approached the Ministry of Health, however no progress has been made.
The more people in the Kagulu community agree to stand with the members of HICA (Health Ideal Care Africa) in support of this effort the better. This will help them continue the momentum that has already been generated in support of establishing healthcare, and allow them to continue talking with community members about the importance of establishing a local healthcare center in Kagulu.
For this task, we are looking for information-are there existing community health questionnaires that could be adapted for HICA to use to gain more information and a clearer picture of the present health status in Kagulu? Are there existing questions that could be asked in a series of focus groups to gain this information?
If we can't find existing materials that we could use or adapt-we will need to discuss creation of of our own. It is expected that the information gained from this task will be used to help document/support the need for healthcare and eventually be presented at the Ministry of Health.

Hi all, I have done a little bit of research into community consultation/ consensus building. I have created a short document which includes some Aims for community consultation and some handy tips for Fred and HICA memebrs to consider when organising this important meeting. They are only meant as a guide so if anyone has more handy tips then please include them here.
I would suggest that HICA members agree on a timeframe for this consultation meeting to occur. It is important to give the community time to consider what will be discussed. So perhaps we could help you with 2-3 key questions.
Then the next step is to advertise/spread word of the meeting, and if there is any other information people need to know before the Consultation- then this is the time to give them that info.
The third step is decide who will Facilitate the meeting.It needs to be someone who can be a good listener, ask the community questions to clarifiy their thoughts and ideas, and someone who can manage a crowd and discussion. HICA will aslo need to find 2 people who can act as "reporters'. They will need to write down any ideas, suggestions, concerns that come up at the meeting. This important info will be used to develop a Plan for healthcare in the community.
Ok so these are my ideas for the first part of this consultation process. Once there is agreement on the above steps- we can work on what type of information we need to get from the community.
Carolyn
Hi Carolyn-
Thanks so much for this! I think it will be helpful. I will review it with Fred and the other HICA members at our Sunday meeting.
Jennifer
I came across this website the other day during my research and felt it would be a really beneficial reference point for this task. It has a lot of great ideas and suggestions for how to move forward based on what the specific need is, or what the community is trying to do.
http://ctb.ku.edu/en/
I am going to go ahead and close this task.
Between Carolyn's document and the Community Health Toolbox, Fred seemed to think that they had the resources necessary for further community meetings. Thanks Carolyn, for your time and effort on this!
Jennifer