Community Assessment Project (CAP)

Project Description & Background

The Community Assessment Project is a collaborative project to measure the quality of life in Santa Cruz County. A broad consortium of public and private health, education, human service and civic organizations was formed to design and implement this comprehensive annual project. The five goals of the CAP are to maintain and enhance the quality of life for Santa Cruz residents by:

• Raising public awarness of human needs, changing trends, emerging issues and community problems;
• Providing accurate, credible and valid information on an ongoing basis to human services planners and those providing funds;
• Providing information for individual insitutions to guide decision-making about creation, management, and redesign of programs;
• Setting Community Goals using measurable quality of life indicators that will lead to positive, healthy development for individuals, families and communities; and
• Supporting and assisting with the establishment of collaborative action plans to achieve the Community Goals.

The CAP focuses on the strengths fo the community as well as people's perceptions of need. Through the CAP process, a series of approximately 82 quality of life indicators in six areas: health, education, economy, social environment, natural environment & public safety, were defined to serve as benchmarks to measure the issues that people feel impact the quality of their lives. These indicators are measured annually so that institutions and other community groups can determine if their policies and programs are effective.