Building Well-Being
Among us, we have some spectacular "collateral," great arguments and clever catch phrases to describe what we do, but do they work?
You may have participated in sessions on "reframing human services" presented by the National Human Services Assembly (NHSA) and/or the Frameworks Institute. The study that led to these learning sessions asked, "do they work" and, further, "what
would work"...to effectively communicate the value and impact of human services. Solid, multi-disciplinary research provided answers to these questions.
The research found that some of our language does not work, including "human services" and the ever-popular "safety net" (we get these terms but the public does not). It found, however, that "building well-being across the life span" turns out to include language and concepts that people understand and appreciate. They get that "it takes a village" to help each of us thrive and enable us to overcome adversity when life challenges confront us.
Nice words, nice to do, right? No, necessary. Human services are so poorly understood in our society that it will take a movement to ensure that "building well-being" receives its due, that it is understood as a fundamental part of our national purpose. There's a
toolkit that makes understanding and adopting the new frame eminently doable. Will your organization continue the gut-instinct, popular-wisdom method of presenting our narrative or join the movement? Many are doing the latter.
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