The Community Tool Box is a public service of the

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States, and several satellite campuses, research and educational centers, medical centers, and classes across the state of Kansas. T ...

in Lawrence, Kansas, United States. It is maintained by the Work Group for Community Health and Development at the University of Kansas (formerly KU Work Group). The Community Tool Box is a free, online resource that contains thousands of pages of practical information for promoting community health and development, and is a global resource for anyone engaged in the work of community health and development.

History

The Community Tool Box was founded in 1995 by colleagues at the University of Kansas (including Stephen Fawcett, Jerry Schultz, and Vincent Francisco) in partnership with other national partners, including Bill Berkowitz and Tom Wolff. Phil Rabinowitz has been a major contributor to content for the Community Tool Box. The website was created by the Schiefelbusch Institute for Life Span Studies at the university. With over 7,000 pages of information, the Community Tool Box contains guides and aids for problem solving common barriers faced in

community development The United Nations defines community development as "a process where community members come together to take collective action and generate solutions to common problems." It is a broad concept, applied to the practices of civic leaders, activists ...

. In 2006, the website had a daily average of 3,315 visitors. It was initially an offline project which provided information to people about substance abuse and

gun A gun is a ranged weapon designed to use a shooting tube (gun barrel) to launch projectiles. The projectiles are typically solid, but can also be pressurized liquid (e.g. in water guns/cannons, spray guns for painting or pressure washing, p ...

violence but later expanded to the Internet so that it could reach more people. The website serves as a resource for community improvement efforts, and has become widely used as text for courses in the following disciplines: public health, community health, social work,

community psychology Community psychology is concerned with the community as the unit of study. This contrasts with most psychology which focuses on the individual. Community psychology also studies the community as a context for the individuals within it,Jim Orfor ...

, and nursing. The development of the Community Tool Box has been supported by funds from the

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) is an American philanthropic organization. It is the largest one focused solely on health. Based in Princeton, New Jersey, the foundation focuses on access to health care, public health, health equity, ...

and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Kansas Health Foundation.

Site features and resources

With funding support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and with the support of a team of 75 translators around the world, the Community Tool Box is available in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

and

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

. The resources of the Community Tool Box are organized in a

user-friendly Usability can be described as the capacity of a system to provide a condition for its users to perform the tasks safely, effectively, and efficiently while enjoying the experience. In software engineering, usability is the degree to which a soft ...

format. It contains a

table of contents A table of contents, usually headed simply Contents and abbreviated informally as TOC, is a list, usually found on a page before the start of a written work, of its chapter or section titles or brief descriptions with their commencing page numbe ...

which links to 300 sections providing practical, step-by-step guidance in community-building skills. It also has

forum Forum or The Forum (plural forums or fora) may refer to: Common uses * Forum (legal), designated space for public expression in the United States *Forum (Roman), open public space within a Roman city **Roman Forum, most famous example *Internet ...

s and

chat room The term chat room, or chatroom (and sometimes group chat; abbreviated as GC), is primarily used to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing. The term can thus mean any technology, ranging from ...

s, which allow users to request assistance from the community.

Institutional Background

The Work Group for Community Health and Development is a research, teaching and public service organization which was established in 1975 and is based at the University of Kansas. The Work Group has been designated a World Health Organization Collaborating Centre since 2004. Over the past three decades, the Work Group has researched, implemented, and evaluated community-based efforts to create environments that promote health and well-being.

References

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External links

Official website
(in English)
Official website
(in Spanish)
Community Tool Box on Facebook

Community Tool Box on Twitter
American health websites University of Kansas 1995 establishments in Kansas World Health Organization collaborating centres