Benefits of Using the Community Readiness Model
The Community Readiness Model (CRM) can help a community move forward and be more successful in its efforts to change in a variety of ways. Some of these include:
• measuring a community’s readiness levels on several dimensions that will help diagnose where we need to put our initial efforts.
• helping to identify our community’s weaknesses and strengths, and the obstacles we are likely to meet as we move forward.
• pointing to appropriate actions that match our community’s readiness levels.
• working within our community’s culture to come up with actions that are right for our community.
• aiding in securing funding, cooperating with other organizations, working with leadership, and more.
While the CRM is a well-researched and highly valued approach to initiate community change, it is not:
• a method for determining whether an issue is actually occurring in the community.
• a tool that tells exactly what to do to increase our readiness levels.
• a prevention program, per se.