An Asset Based Approach
 

An important aspect of the Health and Well Being Boards is the need to address underlying ‘determinants of health’, the adverse social, economic or environmental circumstances in which some people live. Unless these can be addressed, tackling the direct causes of ill health (e.g. smoking, drug and alcohol abuse) will be difficult or impossible for conventional approaches to health that try to “fix” the problem.

A key way to begin addressing these issues is to first look at what assets the community already has that supports its health and wellbeing - this is called an Asset Based Approach. A conventional approach tends to look at the ‘deficits’ in communities - what is missing, what needs “fixing” and focuses on addressing the gap. An asset based approach such as ‘Asset Based Community Development’ (ABCD) however values the existing capacity, skills, knowledge, connections and potential in a community that can be added to.