6/6/2010
Douglas County Human Needs Assessment

The Leadership Douglas County Class of 2010 (LDC) today released the results of a six-month quantitative and qualitative analysis entitled “Human Needs and Services in Douglas County: A Stakeholders’ Assessment”. Human services concern areas such as youth and senior services, developmental disabilities, special needs, crisis intervention, and workforce development.

The study features interviews with the County’s human services Stakeholders: government agencies, service providers, elected officials and key business leaders. Despite an extremely optimistic outlook on the quality of life among Stakeholders in Douglas County now and in the future, the LDC white paper’s findings identify a doubling of poverty, homelessness and reports of child abuse in the past three years, and appraise other gaps in the delivery of services to low- income and at-risk populations in the community. While Forbes, Nielson and other quality of life barometers rate Douglas County standards of living as among the highest in the nation, the community lags behind Colorado and national averages for charitable giving as a percentage of per capita income.

Douglas County Commissioner Jack Hilbert said: “This study will go a long way to helping elected officials prioritize resources and revenue in the areas that can provide the greatest good. This project is but one step in many that involve making sure our most vulnerable members of the community receive the necessary attention to their situation.”

“This is the first time there has been a systematic analysis of the state and strength of the nonprofit community in Douglas County,” said Joel Block, Chairman of the Board of the Douglas County Community Foundation (DCCF), the chief sponsor of the report. “ This study should both serve as a platform for future research, policy discussions and programs, and help recommend ways all levels of private sector involvement, public policy decision makers and nonprofit organizations can make a difference for the neediest in our community.”

Leadership Douglas County is a structured ten-month program of the Castle Rock Chamber of Commerce for public and private sector leaders in the community, and is sponsored by Douglas County, the City of Lone Tree and several area Chambers of Commerce. The white paper will be posted on the class website (www.ldc2010.com) and on the DCCF website (www.dccf.org), both of which will contain much of the data on which the report is based. Sky Ridge Medical Center is also a major sponsor of the LDC Stakeholder class project.

View entire white paper by clicking on the link below.