What is the Community Development Health Check?

Community development is not only done by community development workers – any project or service can adopt the values of community development to improve the way these are delivered to local residents.  The Community Development Health Check is a tool developed by Thornhill Plus You to help us to demonstrate the many different shapes community development takes in Thornhill, and to help us all to improve the quality of the work we do for the benefit of Thornhill residents.

Using the National Occupational Standards of Community Development Work as a basis, the Community Development Health Check is a simple self-assessment that organisations and projects can use to reflect on how they incorporate the values of Community Development in their work, which is followed up with a simple action plan to identify areas for growth.

Want to find out more?

There are a number of documents you can look at on this webpage:

• The Community Development Health Check Guidance Notes explain in more detail what the Health Check is, and includes a step-by-step guide on how to complete it.
• Blank Community Development Health Check form
• Blank Community Development Health Check Action Plan
• An example of a completed Community Development Health Check and Action Plan produced by ‘Motiv8 Thornhill’, a community development and leisure project.

You can also have a look at the online forum which is a space for projects and individuals to ask questions or exchange ideas about how they went about using the Community Development Health Check, or any useful tips on completing it.