Community Cohesion Toolkit
This toolkit is designed to help people involved in the delivery of projects – especially smaller projects with limited time and stretched resources – evaluate their project and its impact on community cohesion. Many of the materials in this toolkit are also applicable to more general evaluation work. The toolkit is organised into the following sections:
Introduction to the Community Cohesion Toolkit - an introduction to the toolkit and advice about how to use it.
About Community Cohesion – an introduction to community cohesion including some definitions and advice about choosing definitions appropriate for the project.
An Introduction to the Evaluation Process – this section contains advice and exercises that will help in deciding the scope, purpose and audience of the evaluation. The section focuses on developing an evaluation plan, structuring evaluation reports and disseminating findings.
Strategic Evaluation – this section contains advice about how to evaluate the extent to which the project’s planned activities and outputs will contribute to its stated longer-term outcomes.
About Evaluation Indicators – this section provides advice about identifying and developing appropriate indicators for use in evaluating the project’s impact on community cohesion.
Conducting Evaluation Research – this section provides practical advice on topics such as running focus groups, designing and administering questionnaires, and researching contextual information for the evaluation. This section also contains advice about how to interpret data from questionnaires, focus groups and interviews once it has been obtained.
Bibliography and Resources – this section comprises a bibliography on community cohesion as well as practical resources that may be helpful in conducting evaluative work.
Completing the templates and exercises in the “Planning Your Evaluation” section and using the guidance, information and checklists provided in the sections about particular research methods should leave the reader with the basis of a robust evaluation document tailored to the specific needs of their project. If elements of the templates and exercises do not apply to a particular evaluation (or if other questions need to be addressed in the evaluation), the reader should use their judgement and make appropriate modifications. Evaluation should not be about trying to fit square pegs into round holes.
Summary Measures for Distributions - contains information about how to calculate simple measures of central tendency and dispersal.
Blank evaluation forms
- Demographic Questions
- Evaluation Planning Form
- Indicators for Festivals Open Days
- Indicators for Projects focused on Education
- Indicators for Projects focused on Increasing Community Involvement and Engagement
- Indicators for Projects focused on Supporting Vulnerable People
- Indicators for Projects focused on the Environment
- Indicators for Projects focused on Sports and Culture
- Survey Planning Form
- Access to Information
- Area Committees
- Civil Contingencies
- Consultation Events
- Council News
- Councillors
- Decision Making
- Directorates
- Elections
- Equality and Diversity
- Finance and Corporate Governance
- Mayoralty
- Oldham Language Shop
- Online Services
- Overview and Scrutiny
- Publications
- Procurement
Equality and Diversity:
- Diversity & Cohesion Unit
- Equalities & Diversity Team
- Community Development Team
- Research Team
- Corporate Equalities Plan
- The Equality Standard for Local Government
- Equality Impact Assessments
- Equality Legislation
- What is an Equality Scheme?
- Community Cohesion Toolkit
- Guidance Notes