What We Do / Framing for Change – Learning Hub
Section 4: International Framing Reports
The following reports can help guide our work in Australia; however, it’s important to note that the research hasn’t been explicitly tested with Australian audiences.
LINK
Framing Adversity, Trauma, and Resilience (US)
This brief, developed by FrameWorks Institute to support the work of the Maryland State Commission on Trauma-Informed Care, offers guidance on how to effectively translate what is known about adversity, trauma, and resilience into efforts to strengthen related policies, programs, and public agencies. It is written for people who communicate publicly about these connected topics – a broad field that includes researchers, advocates, health care and mental health care providers, and practitioners working on issues like child abuse and neglect, family violence, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), early trauma and trauma-informed care, and toxic stress.
LINK
Framing Social Dominants of health (US)
Public health experts use the term ‘social determinants of health’ to refer to the idea that non-medical factors such as geography, income, and education have a significant effect on health. Here are some helpful things to keep in mind when you’re trying to explain why some demographic groups experience better or worse health outcomes than others.
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Framing Collective Caregiving (US)
If we want to build demand for communities, environments, and systems that allow each and every child to thrive, we will need a bigger and better narrative about what it means to care for kids. In this brief you will find an overview of a new framing strategy for building support for kids – focused on collective caregiving – along with three recommendations for putting the strategy into practice. Each recommendation includes specific tips and examples of what it looks like.
LINK
Framing Adolescent Development (US)
The Core Story of Adolescence is a set of connected ideas that are key to understanding adolescent development. It communicates evidence-based information from the Center for the Developing Adolescent, placing current scientific understanding of adolescent development in a narrative form and applying the framing recommendations to the story they collectively tell. It also extends this information to explicitly talk about structural inequities.
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Connections and Communities: Reframing How We Talk About Opportunity Youth
This toolkit shows ways to support ‘what surrounds us shapes us’ thinking. It helps audiences understand
that context, not just individual willpower or the inherent riskiness of youth, is what determines Opportunity Youth’s ability to thrive as they become adults. It widens the lens to explain the role communities, relationships, and access to supportive programs, policies, and systems play in fostering the wellbeing of Opportunity Youth.
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Framing With Data
When framed effectively, a compelling statistic can help people understand a topic more deeply. But too often, public health communicators use data in ways that fall flat or send messages we don’t intend. Here are a few framing guidelines to keep in mind when you are using numbers.
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Framing With Visuals
Photos, graphics, and videos are important framing opportunities. Use this resource as a guide for using visuals to advance positive messages. This guide was developed with particular attention to how we talk about mental health, but is useful for broader conversations about wellbeing.
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Reframing how we talk about children’s health and food (UK)
Where we live and what we earn shape the options available to us to be healthy, including our access to affordable, nutritious food. But people tend to think childhood health is about individual choices. This is why we need to tell a new story showing that what surrounds us, shapes us. A story that helps to build support for the wider changes that will enable all children to thrive and be healthy
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Talking about Poverty (UK)
How to Talk about Poverty in the United Kingdom, identified a tendency to deny poverty’s existence and to blame individuals for hardship they experience. Our research showed the importance of telling a new story – one centred on the reality and the root causes of poverty.
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Communicating About Building Blocks of Health (UK)
This guide shares five practical tips to have better discussions about health. These conversations can highlight inequalities, improve understanding of the wider factors that shape our health, and build support for change.
Using the toxic stress metaphor – US
How Toxic Stress Affects Us, and What We Can Do About It Transcript
We all want to give our children what they need to grow to their full potential and as parents we play an important role in their development.
But our parenting is affected by the supports and challenges in our lives including experiences that cause what’s known as toxic stress.
Stress is called toxic when it doesn’t let up and there aren’t supportive relationships to help us cope. That can make it hard to get through the day let alone be the best caregivers we can be. The overwhelming burden of toxic stress can affect the health and well-being of adults. It can also affect the development of children in ways that can last a lifetime. Stress that puts us in a constant state of fight-or-flight can make it feel like we’re always on edge or like it’s impossible to calm down. And these feelings can overload our ability to provide the supportive relationships that children need in order to thrive.
Think of toxic stress as heavy cargo. Just as a truck can only haul so much weight before it stops moving forward, challenging life circumstances like losing a job or not having a place to live can weigh us down. And just as a truck can breakdown if it carries too much for too long, we too can wear down from being overburdened without the support we need.
When toxic stress is related to things we can’t control like poverty, abuse, or racism it can feel especially heavy to take on. But experiencing toxic stress doesn’t have to determine who we are or how we act. And understanding how stress affects us can empower us to make change in our lives.
There are things we can do to buffer ourselves and our children against the effects of even the most intense stress.
Just as redistributing cargo from an overloaded truck can help it run again, supports and services – things like food pantries job training programs or even just talking with someone who cares – can help us focus on caring for ourselves and our children.
And just as regular maintenance is required to keep a truck running, reliable access to community services can help us manage the load during challenging times.
Reaching out to get support can be difficult but things that might seem very small like sitting and breathing deeply, playing I spy with your child, or even sharing a walk or a snuggle can make a difference over time. These small steps can build our resilience and our children’s by strengthening the skills and relationships that help us cope. And our communities can build resilience too by providing services and opportunities to help all families thrive.
Supports like these help build a strong foundation for developing brain architecture so the earlier we can provide them the better. But the brain is capable of change throughout life and it’s never too late for a tune-up.
Coping with, and healing from, toxic stress takes a lot of effort and support, but we all need the help of others in difficult times. And building resilience and strength in our families and communities is one of the most important investments we can make as a society.
In the end it will help all of us become the parents that we want to be.
FRAMING FOR CHANGE
What else we do
Why TQKP?
Too many Queensland children are still missing out because their families and communities are not being supported according to their needs.
Our Approach
Thriving Queensland Kids is connecting people and organisations to work together for children.
Systems Focus
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Year In Review
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You should know...
Explainer video: "What surrounds us shapes us"
This short explainer video introduces the Resilience Scale and ARACY’s The Nest framework as models to help understand how experiences and environments shape children’s health and development.
Partnerships charter
Our Charter clearly sets out the partnership’s shared goals, values and ways of working to improve systems for Queensland’s children. We invite you to review the Charter and join us if you support our shared vision for Queensland kids.
Report: Queensland Place-Based Rivermap
The Queensland Place-Based Rivermap proposes systemic actions to support our many place-based initiatives. Let’s work together to create local conditions that are good for families and kids.
