Community Services Block Grant Assessments
As the Community Action Agency for Milwaukee County since 1964, the SDC is a recipient of Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) funding. The purpose of CSBG funding is to empower people and communities to overcome the effects of poverty and to support their progress toward greater self-sufficiency. Wisconsin’s CSBG-funded agencies have historically and consistently participated in formal needs assessment processes, which include a comprehensive, triennial needs assessment and subsequent updates during the two intermediate years. This process gathers input from key stakeholders in the community, including low-income persons, governmental leaders, and civic organizations. The goals of the needs assessment are to: 1. Identify and quantify the incidence or prevalence of individual need; 2. Identify gaps in human service provision; 3. Identify barriers to attaining self-sufficiency; & 4. Identify strategies for overcoming barriers to self-sufficiency. The quantitative and qualitative data resulting from the needs assessment is used by the SDC Board of Commissioners and SDC staff to strategically guide the SDC’s programming initiatives and to develop advocacy efforts in order to best meet the needs of Milwaukee’s low-income community.
2010 Community Needs Assessment - Comprehensive
2011 Community Needs Assessment - Update
Head Start Assessments
A Community Assessment for Head Start Programming in Milwaukee County is a comprehensive examination of the multi-systemic factors, which necessitate the need for Head Start programming. Assessments address the following topics:
1) SDC Head Start Campuses and Service Areas, 2) Milwaukee County Demographics, 3) Child Care and 4-Year-Old Kindergarten, 4) Disability Prevalence and Resources, 5) Secondary Data Indicators of Individual, Family, and Community Well-Being, 6) Head Start Parents, and 7) Community Resources.
These topics are addressed using primary and secondary data obtained from multiple sources using multiple methodologies. The central issue to these reports is poverty. Since prior Head Start community assessments conducted by the SDC, poverty in Milwaukee County continues to disproportionately affect female-headed households with children of color, namely children targeted by the Federal Head Start Program. Where significant change has occurred is geographic in nature. Historically, poverty in Milwaukee has been largely concentrated in the central city of Milwaukee. While this is still true for the most part, the current economic recession has led to a further erosion of historically working/middle-class communities. These communities are precipitously closer to becoming low-income because of unemployment rates that threaten the stability of working/middle-class neighborhoods. Unless socio-economically arrested, poverty in Milwaukee will begin to directly affect people that have escaped is detrimental effects to date. Thus, the Head Start Program is needed not just for existing populations but also for those to come in the future.
2012 Head Start Needs Assessment - Comprehensive