Pittsboro, adult community members with disabilities, Chatham County, North Carolina : focusing on life with a disability in Pittsboro, NC : an action oriented community diagnosis : findings and next steps of action
Creators: name: Lowman, Amy
name: Beard, Ashley
name: Brown, Austin
name: McMullin, Katherine
name: Antilla, Jennifer
name: Scott, Sally
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2003

description: This document is a qualitative report of the findings from an Action Oriented Community Diagnosis (AOCD) focused on persons with disabilities, 18 years and older residing in and/or using services in Pittsboro, North Carolina. AOCD is a process in which the strengths and needs of a community are assessed in order to gain an understanding of the community from the perspective of those that live or work there and then have them identify goals and action steps to move toward achievement of these goals. This AOCD began in October 2002 and was conducted by six graduate students from the University of North Carolina (UNC) School of Public Health under the direction of two preceptors from the North Carolina Office on Disability and Health (NCODH) and instructors from the Department of Health Behavior Health Education at the UNC School of Public Health. As part of the AOCD process, the team spoke with service providers, community members with disabilities, and community members without disabilities in Pittsboro as well as reviewed secondary data sources. The information gleaned from the interviews, focus groups and other data sources were analyzed and themes were identified. While conducting these interviews and focus groups, it became apparent that the team was speaking with people who had different points of view. The team referred to these points of view as “insider” and “outsider.” Insiders were community members with and without disabilities and the family members of persons with disabilities. The team looked to insiders to supply a perspective of someone familiar with Pittsboro’s history and inner workings. Outsiders were service providers who worked in Pittsboro, or who worked at an agency that served Pittsboro. Although the team realized that some of the outsiders were actually residents of Pittsboro, the team chose to interview these people for their expertise as professionals serving Pittsboro, and for information on how services are delivered; thus they were considered to supply an outsider point of view. The team felt that it was important to examine both the insider and outsider perspectives because, by looking at the experiences and interpretations of persons with different points of views, steps could be taken to begin action on areas where points of view were similar, and discussion could be encouraged in areas where points of view differed. Two categories of themes were identified from the AOCD findings: descriptive themes and active themes. The team noted two themes as being descriptive: strengths, and finance and income. Strengths was considered a descriptive theme because it represented potential resources for the Pittsboro community to tap into as they worked to achieve action steps in prioritized areas. Pittsboro’s overall strengths will be increased through progress in other areas. Finances and Income was also considered a descriptive theme but for slightly different reasons. While all services are affected by finances available, to a certain extent, finances are affected by less changeable forces such as the national economy and budget. The team wanted to ensure that concrete action steps could be developed that did not require an unrealistic influx of funds. Active themes are those where the power to take action lies within the community. Active themes include awareness, attitudes, support, accessibility, activities, housing and transportation. The team hosted a community forum May 1st in Pittsboro. During the forum the community members and services providers extensively discussed two of the active themes: attitudes and support. As a result of the discussions the community identified several action steps for each theme. To address attitudes, the community plans to work within existing committees and organizations to increase representation of community members with disabilities and to work with Pittsboro’s strong faith community to provide outreach and needs assessments for persons with disabilities. To increase support for persons with disabilities, the forum participants plan to investigate resources available to persons with disabilities and update and distribute a resource list of services to persons with disabilities. The support action steps were also directed at utilizing Pittsboro’s strong volunteer community to help persons with disabilities obtain jobs. Another result of the forum was that some of the service providers and community members who attended became better acquainted with one another. Building new partnerships between people will hopefully lead to future collaborative efforts to help Pittsboro better serve community members with disabilities.