Reframing Developmental Relationships
A set of tools organizations can use to reframe communications around developmental relationships and move toward becoming a relationship-rich organization.
Reframing Developmental Relationships is a set of tools that used together can help organizations continue their journey toward prioritizing and deepening the developmental relationships that all young people need to grow and thrive.
Virtually everyone in education and youth work agrees that relationships are vital. Yet as a society and in communities we continually underinvest in and even undermine developmental relationships — especially when it comes to young people from marginalized communities who most need and want them.
Relational Practice
Reframing Developmental Relationships
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Three Tools for Reframing Developmental Relationships
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This report is the result of a two-year study from FrameWorks Institute. It calls for “a profoundly different orientation toward relationships and—specifically—how our society should approach them collectively, through policies and programs.” It outlines seven tested recommendations for communicating developmental relationships in a way that moves the public beyond preconceptions of relationships toward new, broader understandings of—and investments in—the kinds of relationships young people need to thrive.
Download Report here
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This qualitative study looks at the communication challenges that emerge in the gap between researchers’ understanding of developmental relationships and public understandings of relationships in young people’s lives.
Download Report here
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This toolkit provides guidance for communicators on what points to emphasize and what to leave unsaid — for experts, advocates, and practitioners to make an effective case for investing in relationships.
Find the toolkit here
Related Resources for School and Youth Program Staff
Guide
How to Use the Activities and Approaches
A brief guide to facilitating and using the activities and approaches designed for classroom and group settings.
Activity
Marshmallow Towers
Activity where participants work together to construct a tower made of marshmallows and spaghetti and reflect on how they shared power in the experience.
Activity
Letter for Your Future Self
Activity where participants write a letter to their future self about what they can do in the present to work toward their goals.
Related Resources for School and Youth Organization Leaders
Relational Practice
Approaches to Expanding Possibilities
Ten approaches that can be integrated into program activities that build the Expand Possibilities element of the developmental relationships framework.
Video
Growing Relationship-Rich Organizations
A video showing Search Institute partners who make developmental relationships an explicit priority across their organization.
Activity
State of the Classroom
State of the Classroom activity