Place-based approaches—information for community service providers

Place-based approaches provide you with a framework for identifying and responding to local needs and improving social, economic and physical wellbeing in a particular location.

This page provides advice and resources for community service providers and stakeholders who are delivering place-based initiatives.

Community readiness assessment resources

These resources can be used to help you assess your community’s readiness to participate in place-based approaches.

  • The Queensland Stay On Your Feet® Toolkit – Phase 1: Investigate Developed by Queensland Health, the toolkit is based on an evidence-based 4 phase Community Good Practice Model. It was developed to support falls prevention and healthy active ageing strategies for use by anyone who works with older people including individuals, community organisations, health professionals, government departments and fitness providers. The Phase 1: Investigate tool provides a practical approach to assess community readiness to take action.
  • Community tool box, Section 9 community readiness Developed by the Centre for Community Health and Development at the University of Kansas, USA, Section 9 of the community tool box helps stakeholders to understand and measure a community’s readiness to address a particular issue, and how to use that knowledge to stimulate community change. This tool box is suitable for those working to improve community wellbeing and bring about social change.
  • Community readiness for community change handbook Designed by the Tri-Ethnic Centre at Colorado State University, USA, the handbook describes the process used to asses a community’s readiness to address a range of complex issues such as drug and alcohol use, domestic and sexual violence, head injury, HIV/AIDS, suicide, animal control and environmental issues.

Queensland Council of Social Services (QCOSS) resources

Place-based approaches for community change toolkit

The Place-based approaches for community change: QCOSS’ guide and toolkit will help build the capability of community members (including government and industry) to actively participate in place-based approaches.

The toolkit provides an overview of place-based approaches and focuses particularly on the important elements of community engagement and participation.

The toolkit outlines QCOSS’ experience in engaging with communities, including Elders and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and offers some practical ideas and tools that may be useful in the early stages of place-based work.

Evaluating place-based approaches

There is no ‘one size fits all’ method for evaluating place-based approaches. Evaluation needs to be situation specific and based on the collective needs of community and stakeholders.

Place-based Evaluation Framework and Toolkit

The place-based evaluation framework and toolkit has been designed to help communities and diverse partners implementing place-based approaches. The framework and toolkit have been developed in way that they can be applied to place-based approaches with different levels of complexity and resourcing.

The framework is relevant for planning, establishing and implementing the initial, middle and later years of place-based approaches. It outlines practical steps and things to consider when designing evaluation solutions. It also provides guidance and tools to help users to evaluate the processes, changes, impact and principles of place-based approaches.

The place-based evaluation framework outlines clear guidance on:

  • scoping evaluation projects at different phases of a place-based approach
  • setting up evaluation for multi-site place-based approaches
  • ensuring cultural capability in evaluation approaches
  • developing a theory of change and principles to guide the evaluation
  • selecting key evaluation questions, indicators and measures
  • ensuring ethical conduct of evaluations
  • planning resources required for an evaluation.

Platform C

Platform C is a knowledge and learning platform created to offer support, learning and connections for people tackling big, tough problems and creating large-scale impact through collaboration.

This virtual hub is designed to be open and accessible it offers a library of helpful tools and resources curated from thought leaders and change-makers around the world regardless of budget or geography.

Based on the Collaborative Change Cycle, Platform C is fuelled by continuous learning and will grow over time to accelerate the emerging practice of collaboration on complex social change.