So constructs of readiness are really important to understand, and what I will be giving information on are two specific constructs. Though they're not the only ones. So we want to be able to think about readiness as it relates to our community, so those recipients, and as it relates to our implementers, the people who are actually doing that. So readiness, you might be asking yourself, what is readiness? So readiness is the extent to which organizations or individuals are both willing and able to implement particular adaptation actions. So how ready are they to actually do this thing? How ready are they to receive this thing? It is a multi-level construct, so it's not as simple as are you ready. So it can happen and can be looked at, and theorized, and evaluated at the individual level, at an organizational level, at regional level, so on and so forth. So it's important to think about that. But a lot of the organizational science tells us that it's a necessary precursor to any type of implementation plan. So if you're thinking about making a change, it's very important and some argue necessary that you consider the readiness. Likewise it's often, this idea of readiness, is often embedded somehow into the larger program or to the implementation plan. So it's in there, it might not be called readiness but it's considered in some way or another. Oftentimes it's unmeasured, but we'll be showing you our two constructs that we can actually start to think about readiness and measure them in a way that might help us inform how we design our action. So you might be asking yourself, why? Why readiness? So to address an issue as complex as the health effects of climate change, practitioners need to implement strategies at numerous levels. So some organizations might feel that they are ready to do something, but the community might not be ready. So going back to that idea of context, it's really important to think about what the context is in terms of readiness for both the implementers and the receivers. We also want to think about this in terms of borrowing from other areas. So in implementation science, they use this idea often. So this is something that is not just a construct I've thought of and I'm showing you, this is rooted in implementation science. It's important because as we try to move towards evidence-based practices and evidence-based interventions, we want to design actions that have evidence for effectiveness, and we want to demonstrate that implementers and communities are ready for these activities and that we can replicate them and they can be adopted. This is really important because being able to demonstrate that your action worked will help you with your funding opportunities. Additionally, if you are able to demonstrate that a community received it you might be at a better place to be able to apply for funding that say requires you to have community engagement, which is now becoming more and more increased and in practice. So then lastly, readiness really does a good job of linking the research to practice. So we're going to talk a lot about trying to operationalize these actions and assessing readiness as one of the main ways that we're able to make that jump, that we're able to say, "here's this theoretical idea, I'm going to put into place." So the models that we're going to be talking about are the implementation readiness model and the community readiness model. So implementation, we're calling it implementation but it's also often referred to as organizational readiness or innovation readiness, and it's made up of three main ideas; motivation, general capacity, and innovation or adaptation specific capacity for our case. Then community readiness which is comprised of five dimensions; the community knowledge of the issue, the community knowledge of the efforts, the community climate, no pun intended, and leadership, and resources. So you'll see these sources here, the citations that are associated with these. I encourage you to read them. They provide a wealth of information about these models and how they can be implemented. The community readiness model specifically has a lot of supporting information that you will probably want to refer to as you go through your community readiness assessment.
