Community Asset Mapping

The Community Asset Mapping (CAM) project is a collaboration between local communities and Washington State Maternal and Child Health Title V partners. These partners include the University of Washington Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (LEND), the Washington State Department of Health, and the Washington State Medical Home Partnerships Project (MHPP). CAM staff and a network of state partners help communities strengthen local systems to screen, evaluate, diagnose and provide timely intervention services to children with autism and other developmental disabilities. CAM is a process and forum for communities to identify issues around serving all children, but especially children with special healthcare needs and their families. This is done through a community-driven process of identifying assets and challenges in how children are currently being identified and served, prioritizing opportunities to improve care, and moving forward as a community to pilot and implement improvements. CAM staff help communities identify and address training needs, as well as examine how to improve communication and referrals to state diagnostic centers for more complicated evaluations.

The CAM project was developed by the state Washington Autism Advisory Council in 2009 and has benefited greatly from the active support of council participants. Since 2009, twelve rural Washington State communities have had facilitated community discussions and continue to work on these issues locally. The CAM process has proven to be a successful tool for igniting community coalitions and improving services for children with special health care needs, specifically children with autism and their families.