About

The Autism Wandering Awareness Alerts Response and Education (AWAARE) Collaboration is a working group of six national non-profit autism organizations whose mission is to prevent autism-related wandering incidents and deaths.

MISSION STATEMENT

The AWAARE Collaboration will work to prevent wandering incidents and wandering-related deaths within the autism community through the use of collective organizational resources, and by establishing and monitoring objectives, guidelines, policies, and tools that will promote awareness, education, prevention and safety.

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

AWAARE will be responsible for:
Establishing a working plan to include action items and goals that will serve to reduce and prevent wandering-related incidents and deaths
Utilizing joint resources to execute action items and goals
Promoting awareness of autism-wandering prevention, safety, and missing persons alerts
Educating the autism community, medical community, educators, first responders, lawmakers, media, and general public about autism elopement and deaths associated with wandering
Establishing working relationships with health agencies and assisting in data collection efforts when necessary
Working to establish diagnostic coding and insurance coverage for tracking and other safety devices
Establishing recommendations for tracking technology
Establishing and/or disseminating wandering prevention information, safety tips and safety tools
Working on policy items associated with wandering prevention and response, including network communication alert systems
Working on obtaining federal grant funds for first-responder training and tracking technology that will help prevent wandering-related incidents and deaths
Promoting the collaboration’s mission