A range of tools that can help you start asset mapping.
'A health asset is any factor or resource which enhances the ability of individuals, communities and populations to maintain and sustain health and wellbeing. These assets can operate at the level of the individual, family or community as protective and promoting factors to buffer against life's stresses.'
'A glass half-full', I&DEA 2010
A growing body of evidence shows that when services begin with a focus on communities assets as opposed to what they need, a community's ability to meet its own needs increases ('A glass half-full', I&DEA 2010). Asset based approaches support the building of local networks that encourage mutual help, supportive friendships and the capacity for communities to act together in their shared interests.
See the tools below:
Tool: Community engagement
Publisher: NICE Local Government Briefing
Description: NICE's recommendations for local authorities and partner organisations on how community engagement approaches can be used to improve the planning and delivery of all services, including those that impact on health. It is particularly relevant to health and wellbeing boards. This includes local healthwatch organisations that sit on these boards.
Tool: Asset based community development workshop
Publisher: Altogether Better
Description: Information, presentations and further information on asset mapping from an asset based community development workshop.
Tool: Mapping local assets to support a community-wide approach to improve mental health and wellbeing
Publisher: Medway Council
Description: This paper aims to scope the main methodological options for undertaking an asset mapping exercise within Medway in the context of taking an asset based approach to improving community health and wellbeing. This asset based approach is intended to complement Medway's joint strategic needs assessment and significantly enhance understanding of the strengths and assets, as well as the deficits, which exist within Medway's communities.
Tool: Brighter futures together - map assets in your community
Publisher: Social Communities North East Initiative
Description: This factsheet has been written if you want to find out more about how to map assets in your community.
Tool: Identifying community assets and resources
Publisher: Community Toolbox (Workgroup for community health and development - University of Kansas)
Description: To use a community's assets, we first have to find out what they are. In this section, we will focus on identifying community assets and resources. We'll also show how they can be harnessed to meet community needs and to strengthen the community as a whole.
Tool: Mapping community assets
Publisher: Institute for Healthcare Improvement
Description: Learning session - understand the basic principles of asset based community development and how it differs from a needs based approach. Explore techniques for mapping assets within your community.
Tool: What makes us healthy? The asset approach in practice. Evidence, action, evaluation
Publisher: Jane Foot
Description: The follow-up to 'A glass half-full: how an asset approach can improve community health and wellbeing', this report responds to the many requests for help we have received from public health, local government services and community organisations. They wanted more information on the evidence for the beneficial effects of assets such as social relationships and networks on health and wellbeing; ideas about how to put asset principles into practice; and help with assessing whether the new ways of working are having an impact.
Tool: Putting asset based approaches into practice: identification, mobilisation and measurement of assets
Publisher: Glasgow Centre for Population Health
Description: The aim of this briefing paper is to present and discuss a range of methods and techniques which can be used to identify and mobilise individual and community level assets. The paper will also examine the features of asset based activities and the current challenges of measuring assets and evaluating asset based approaches. The paper does not present real life illustrations of the methods in action but provides a range of additional sources of information where examples are available.
Tool: Ageing well: An asset based approach
Publisher: Local Government Association
Description: This handbook is for those who want to improve life for older people in their community. It introduces and explains an asset-based approach and describes how it has been used in a variety of localities. It also suggests how this approach could be used to create new activities and support for older people in local communities. It is based on the work OPM has done with colleagues from shared intelligence and the Local Government Association as part of the Ageing Well programme. The content is drawn from the learning from ten pilot sites across the country and from the practice exchange with professionals and older people across those sites.
Tool: CASE programme - asset mapping guidance
Publisher: Department of Culture, Media and Sport - GOV.UK
Description: Guidance for local areas looking to develop better knowledge about their local supply of culture and sport.
Tool: Development of a method for asset based working
Publisher: NHS North West
Description: This work is designed to support partner organisations across the north west (and potentially nationally) to effectively plan and commission services in order to achieve the best possible outcomes for the people in their area. It should significantly complement the work done to date developing the deficit model- based joint strategic needs assessment and support commissioners and managers to better understand both the strengths and the assets within their communities.
Tool: Begin your partnership: the process of engagement
Publisher: Jones L, Meade B, Forge N, Moini M, Jones F, Terry C, Norris K. Ethnicity and Disease Autumn; 19 (4 Suppl 6): S6-8-16. PMID: 20088077
Description: Community partnered-participatory research (CPPR) is based on and utilises community engagement as its central method and principle. In this chapter we explain the key differences between engaging the community vs merely involving the community. The chapter also reiews the plan-do-action cycle of work that is used in each stage of CPPR. We define five key values of CPPR: respect for diversity, openness, equality, redirected power (empowerment) and an asset-based approach. In addition, we present 12 operational principles, which guide work throughout every stage of all CPPR initiatives.
Tool: Community Asset Mapping Project
Publisher: Lincolnshire County Council
Description: This paper provides a summary and analysis of the community asset-mapping project undertaken in three pilot communities in August 2008 - Toft Newton, Wrangle and Wragby.
Tool: Community engagement to improve health PH9
Publisher: NICE Public Health Guidance
Description: This guidance aims to support those working with and involving communities in decisions on health improvement that affect them. It is for people working in the NHS and other sectors who have a direct or indirect role in - and responsibility for - community engagement. This includes those working in local authorities and the community, voluntary and private sectors. It will also be of interest to members of the public.
