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(��mprchcnsnc!�'righbourh„nd S!uJic.: C'he�.irtcriiine Drrlinc proportion was higher than in most other neighbourhoods in the city. The Next Door Foundation, an innovative youth agency on Milwaukee's West Side, saw a special need for service iu the West Side neighbourhood. According to Tatian, a First-Time Parents Program, which was developed in the neighbourhood, employed paraprofessionals to visit young parents, provide counselling on parenting skills, and offer friendship that would help prevent their isolation. In preparing the plans, the Foundation recognised the value of having mapped information that would provide clear visual evidence of the need for the program and also be used ro direct resources to areas where needs were especially high: The 1990 U.S. Census data include block group level data de�ailing [he age of residen[s and family structure. Maps were prepared showing the location of blocks H�ith higher proportions of children under age seven and with children living in Iwo- parent households. Each bloc;k group on the map was shaded to denote the prvpor[ion o( different popWa[ions in Ihat block. These maps clearl�� demonstrated the need for a First-Time Parents Program in West Side—[here were high numbers of very young children per block compared with other areas in the city. They also indicated a subset o( neighbourhood blocks where there was the most cntical need for fceused ouVeach (ibid. p.10). Using these maps as guides, the neighbourhood was divided up into a number of "service azeas" by combining clusters of block groups for maximum flexibility. A selection of detailed demographic tables was prepared, customised for the service areas. Recognising distinctions within the neighbourhood helped make the program implementation process more sensitive to local conditions. Program organisers felt that the First-Time Pazents proposal and subsequent operating plans were much more solid because of the use of geographic information. The tables, maps, and additional graphics both demonstrated the need and suggested specific target areas to make implementation more effective. The proposal was funded, and the program has now been operating successfully for several years. 4.2.2. Cleveland: The Community-Building Initiative Tatian refers ro the study lmplementing a Theory of Change Evaluation in the Cleveland Community-Building lnitiative (CCBI) (Milligan et al. 1998) that describes the initiative established in 1993 in response to a report on poverty in Cleveland's neighbourhoods. The CCBI was formed to implement a comprehensive community- building approach to address Cleveland's persistent poverty problem. The emphasis for a neighbourhood's strategy was to be an inventory of the community's assets, not its deficits. CCBI selected four geographic areas ("villages") for testing its approach and identified groups of key stakeholders to articulate concepts of change in each of these areas. This process was further refined until the key stakeholders reached a consensus. The concepts of change produced by the village stakeholders identified a series of early, intermediate, and long-term outcomes and related them to a set of observable indicators that can be used to monitor and evaluate the success of the community-building initiatives. The result was a focused plan for bringing about change in these communities. -. ,..� 31