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Dear colleague,
In this edition of The Framer's Almanac, we explore FrameWorks' growing practice in translating complex scientific issues and phenomena in ways that engage and educate the public. Each of these recent events draws on extensive research conducted by FrameWorks and uses that research to explain evidence-based communications strategies for closing the gap between expert and lay knowledge. The result, we believe, is a better approach to communicating science.
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Science Storytelling
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 How do you prepare science interpreters to explain the complex process of climate change and its impacts on oceans? Five US and one Canadian aquarium met this Spring with a FrameWorks team (Susan Bales, Lynn Davey and Jane Feinberg) in Boston at the New England Aquarium to launch the Ocean Change Education Aquarium Network (OCEAN) Project. Over two days, the collaborative of aquariums learned basic principles of framing and applied these to interpretive exercises about changes in ocean habitats (coral reefs), ocean processes (acidification) and ocean life (sea turtles). Working with climate scientist Steve Katonah, FrameWorks drew from its work on how people think about climate change and oceans to help interpreters navigate the difficult traps in both issues. Interpreters will share ideas and develop new training modules based on an on-going interactive curriculum.
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Capturing the Science Story
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 What does science have to tell us about child and family mental health? What is the status of our knowledge and what are the implications of that knowledge for policy and program? Before FrameWorks can set about translating the science story for the public and policymakers, a core story must be identified that sets out what scientists believe constitutes sound science and is foundational to further understanding. To get that story, FrameWorks keynoted Healthy Children: A Summit on Children's Mental Health held in conjunction with the 2009 meeting of the Society for Research on Child Development (SRCD). This by invitation working meeting brought together more than 40 experts on child and family mental health believe are the most important principles to inform public thinking. FrameWorks' researchers Tiffany Manuel and Nat Kendall-Taylor joined Susan Bales in Denver. Part of FrameWorks' multi-year investigation, the meeting expands on themes captured in the early research on child and family mental health. To read about this research, please click here.
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Spreading the Science
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 How can advocates use the science of early child development to advance better programs and policies? The New England Study Circle on Early Child Development, funded by the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, kicked off its six month long curriculum in Portsmouth, NH in late April. More than 40 advocates from Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Rhode Island learned from Lynn Davey, Susan Bales and Kate Vaughan how framing research has informed the work of the Harvard Center on the Developing Child. Advocates identified materials from their own organizations that they want to frame better, using the tools and techniques of Strategic Frame Analysis™.
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Framing Study Circles Support Better Practice
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FrameWorks has also recently launched a Framing Health Care Study Circle in Texas (sponsored by Catholic Health Association). In this engagement, leaders will come together for six months of intensive and interactive work on reframing health care, based on FrameWorks' extensive research on the issue. To read more about this research, click here.
Study Circles offer advocacy groups a unique opportunity to explore FrameWorks' theory of framing in the context of a chosen topic, from early child development to health care reform. In our estimation, they represent the best way to have long-term impacts on communications practice. For more on FrameWorks' Study Circles, click here.
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Happy Spring!
Sincerely,
FrameWorks Institute
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