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Community Indicators Consortium to Hold Inaugural E-Conference
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ASR is pleased to announce the popular Community Indicators Consortium (CIC) conference will be readily available to everyone from the comfort of their office or even home computers. The conference is entirely on-line this year, allowing individuals from all over the world to participate. The conference will highlight the most cutting-edge information about indicator projects and, given no travel or lodging expenses, is more affordable than ever. The CIC is a growing network of organizations, institutions, public agencies and individuals using data, indicators and performance measures to drive and track progress in our communities.
The e-conference will be held April 11-15.
The CIC is a big asset in tracking best practices from community assessment projects around the world.In 2007, ASR won a first place award from the CIC for having the best community assessment project in the nation: the Santa Cruz County Community Assessment Project. Susan Brutschy, President of ASR, now serves as treasurer on the CIC Board of Directors.
To register or to learn more, click here.
If you would like to organize an in-person gathering of people to watch the on-line conference and discuss a community indicator project in your community, please contact Deanna Zachary by clicking here.
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| Vol. X1, Issue 1 | March 2011 |
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The First Ever Silicon Valley Latino Report Card Unveiled March 18th
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The first Silicon Valley Latino Report Card will be unveiled on Friday, March 18th from 8-11 a.m. at the San Jose Convention Center.
The report will show the challenges and strengths of the Latino community in the Silicon Valley. The report appoints letter grades of A through F in education, economic stability, health, housing, and environmental sustainability, based on data gathered by ASR.
Representatives from the Hispanic Foundation of Silicon Valley expect the report will be used by many organizations and individuals, from small non-profits to policy makers, to make decisions based on reliable data and not on assumptions or myths.
"We can no longer stand on the sidelines," said Ron Gonzales, who led the Hispanic Foundation of Silicon Valley in launching the project. "We plan to use this report to engage the community to improve the quality of life for Latinos and Silicon Valley."
To be a part of the history-making debut, visit http://hfsv.org/whats-new-6.html. Space is limited so register now.
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Connecting Homeless Individuals to Crucial Services in Santa Cruz County
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ASR, the United Way of Santa Cruz County, and dozens of other partners are launching Project Homeless Connect in Santa Cruz on Tuesday March 22nd from 10 am to 4 pm at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium. Project Connect is a day-long event where dozens of services are offered to homeless individuals and families, but those services can last long after that one-day event. A wide range of housing supports are offered along with medical care, dental care, employment services, eyeglasses, foot care, wheelchair repair, legal services, the ability to get a California identification card from the DMV so that individuals can apply for jobs and other services, even a haircut.
Last year was the first year for Project Homeless Connect in Santa Cruz County, based on a model first created by Mayor Gavin Newsome in San Francisco. More than 300 volunteers and 80 service providers showed up to help over 1,000 homeless individuals. Last year, several people were hired for jobs by organizations at the event, and more people learned how to create a resume, and later found jobs and housing. This year, we are hoping to support several thousand homeless people.
If you would like to volunteer for the project, or for more information, please visit the Project Connect Website at:http://www.phc-santacruz.org/index.html
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| Homeless Census and Surveys a 'Huge Success' |
ASR is completing the final steps of the homeless census and surveys for eight different regions of California and Arizona. Samantha Green of ASR deems it a huge success, "We worked with hundreds of volunteers and homeless guides to walk or drive all the census tracts to count the homeless and to conduct surveys about their lives." The seven California counties included Orange, Riverside, Santa Cruz, Monterey, Santa Clara, San Francisco and Sonoma, in addition to Clark County in Nevada.
ASR has developed a unique and prize winning methodology which involves training homeless individuals to help both count an d survey the homeless population. The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) characterizes ASR's methodology as a best practice in the field of homeless research. The federal government requires that counties count the number of homeless individuals in their regions every two years. The counts help the regions to obtain additional funding and decide how to best support homeless individuals and families.
Reports will be available in April. ASR received lots of media coverage for our homeless census and surveys, including from the San Jose Mercury News, the Orange County Register, and the Las Vegas Review Journal. Read some of the articles at www.appliedsurveyresearch.org/about/news.html
For more information, contact Peter Connery at 831-728-1356.
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Santa Clara Children's Summit Triggers Action
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The Fourth Annual Santa Clara County Children's Summit, held in February, brought together an impressive 230 community leaders to discuss the state of children in Santa Clara County. Summit attendees closely examined user-friendly, data graphs created by ASR to learn more about the well-being of children in Santa Clara County and discussed the next steps needed to improve outcomes for children and youth. Of the attendees who evaluated the Summit, an inspiring 90% said, "They believed (very much) that we can improve outcomes for children even in a time of declining resources."
Dana Bunnett, Director of Kids in Common, said, "We are going to take the ideas for change to the Visi on Council and develop an action plan for Children's Agenda-led activities for the coming 1 - 2 years."
Bunnett also said that Dave Cortese, President of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, is working to include "Child Impact Statements" on Board Transmittals (the written reports developed by County staff and submitted to the Board to inform decision-making) so all decisions made by the Board of Supervisors will take into account the impact of the decision on children. Cortese also declared 2011 the "Year of the Child."
Follow the link below to read a compelling editorial Bunnett submitted to the San Jose Mercury News prior to the Summit.
www.appliedsurveyresearch.org/www/press/2011_CIC_MercuryNews_1-30.pdf
For more information, please contact Susan Brutschy at 831-728-1356.
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Countries with Big Gaps Between Rich and Poor Have Worse Quality of Life Outcomes
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A group in Britain called Equality Trust created a very powerful presentation about the impact on people's health and wellbeing based on inequalities within countries (a big gap between the rich and poor) and between countries. The PowerPoint presentation shows how people in more equal countries live longer, have fewer mental health problems, have less drug use, higher levels of education, more trust, and less violence than countries with big gaps between the rich and poor. The United States, the United Kingdom, Portugal and New Zealand have far worse outcomes on these measures than Japan, Sweden or Norway. To see the presentation, please click here. For more information, please contact: http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/
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Contact Us
Let us help you to collect information about your programs and your community in order to sustain your work during these tough economic times. We can also help you to analyze the data that you already have! Call us in our Watsonville office at 831-728-1356 or in our San Jose office at 408-247-8319. View our website at www.appliedsurveyresearch.org.
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