40 - Community Liaison Frameworks in Community Development: A Non-Profit’s Logic Model

Abstract Information: Community liaisons (CLs) are valuable assets when working with, conducting research on, or providing services to community members (Jowett & Armitage, 1988; Read, 2006; Wei, et al., 2021). Currently, there is little to no research on how non-profits incorporate CLs to advance community health and development initiatives. Urban Health Partnerships (UHP), a non-profit community health leader in Miami Florida, developed and incorporates a CL Framework. After reviewing CL models centered in community integration and building community power, UHP identified areas for improvement and development for its unique CL Framework. UHP’s CL Framework includes employing and training CLs to represent their community and work collaboratively with stakeholders on community projects. The purpose of this project was to create a logic model of UHP’s CL Framework to define the goals and objectives of the Framework and identify the tools needed to create, evaluate, and sustain it. The CL Framework goals were determined to be (1) to improve health equity in historically disenfranchised communities (short-term) and (2) to build community power through co-designing sustainable policy, systems, and environment change within the community (long-term). Five objectives were created for the CL Framework and will be discussed. After determining the goals and objectives for the CL Framework, we co-constructed the logic model. Poster attendees will be able to analyze the complexities of incorporating CLs in non-profits, understand the importance of CL’s role in community initiatives, and learn about the development and results of a logic model detailing the role and impact of CLs in community initiatives.

Relevance Statement: Building nonprofits' and foundations’ capacity for evaluation work is crucial for advancing sustainable community change (Wade & Kallemeyn, 2020). The lead author of this poster worked collaboratively with Urban Health Partnerships (UHP), a non-profit community health leader in Miami Florida, to build organizational evaluation capacity and create a logic model. The logic model was developed to understand how UHP may intentionally integrate, evaluate, and sustain its Community Liason (CL) Framework. The project was informed by utilization-focused evaluation to ensure that the results could be utilized and the community partnership felt ownership of the evaluation results (Patton, 2011). The poster adds to the current knowledge in the field because there is little to no research on the incorporation, integration, and sustainability of CLs in non-profits’ community health change work. Consequently, there is little to no research on how to evaluate CL's role and community impact. Lastly, this poster adds to evaluation practice because it details the first step in evaluating the role of community liaisons in non-profit community health initiatives by providing a logic model to understand the necessary tools and actions to create a CL framework.