Understanding community readiness – how ready a community is to address a particular issue – is an important tool for anyone concerned with health and community development. A community can’t be convinced to approach an issue until it realizes that the issue exists, and furthermore, that it affects the community. A community can’t be forced into action it is not ready for, or that goes against what most of its members believe.
The Tri-Ethnic Center’s community readiness model analyzes community readiness in a way that makes it possible to pinpoint a community’s level of readiness. Community builders can then use that readiness information to devise strategies for addressing the issue at hand that the community will support, and that will at the same time help the community reach the next level of readiness.