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Dear colleague-
May is Mental Health Month. Since 1949, child
health experts have been using this occasion to call attention to child mental
health - what promotes it, what derails it and with what consequences for
families and society.
FrameWorks
has much to offer child mental health communicators this year, thanks to our
partnership with the Harvard Center on the Developing Child and additional
support from the Endowment for Health.
Listen to the voices of ordinary people
in a new Flash presentation, Models of the Mind, as they struggle to understand
how mental health "happens."
Learn how framing affects people's understanding
of mental health and illness in a series of five new reports. Meet our newest Board Member, veteran
mental health leader Ron Manderscheid, who discusses how the field of practice
and communications is changing. Follow FrameWorks researchers in the U.S. and
Canada as we present these findings and new recommendations for reframing the
public discourse around child mental health.
Finally, help us spread the word - we are expanding our
FieldBuilding staff to be in more places and provide more help in adoption of
framing recommendations. Check out the last article for more information on our
newest position in the FieldBuilding division.
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New Reports on Child Mental Health
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 FrameWorks' newest research demonstrates how
communicators can best tell the scientific story of children's mental health
and encourage public thinking about policies that address this issue.
Video:
Models of the Mind is a 20-minute
multi-media presentation using the real voices of FrameWorks' research
informants to underscore the hurdles communicators face in engaging the public
on child mental health.
Research Reports:
Children's Mental Health and Conflicting Models of Mind in Mind lay out the core scientific story of children's mental health and
map the gaps between expert and public understanding of children's mental
health outcomes. Competing Frames of Mental Health and Mental Illness, a media analysis of child mental health
in the news, identifies the most common media frames and examines their likely
impact on public thinking. Two additional papers explore the effects of various
communications practices: Advancing Support for Child Mental Health Policies highlights frame
elements that demonstrated potential in survey experiments for moving the
public conversation about child mental health in more constructive and
policy-productive directions. Destiny or Destructive Environments examines group conversations of child mental
health issues, further substantiating successful frame elements, while issuing
a warning about how contexts can shape prevention-based messages.
Our research
shows that the American public has very limited ways of thinking about how
children experience mental health and how policies can promote mental health
and prevent mental health problems in children. Together, these reports also
highlight successful frame elements and communications tools that overlap with
FrameWorks' large body of work on early child development.
In
addition to its work in the U.S., FrameWorks is currently pursuing
cross-cultural comparisons of attitudes to child mental health and early child
development in Alberta, Canada. This work is sponsored by the
Alberta Family Wellness Initiative supported by Norlien Foundation. It
will be featured at a major conference on Early Brain and Biological
Development to be held this May in Banff.
Visit the Child Mental Health Research page.
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An Interview with FrameWorks
Board
Member, Ron Manderscheid
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 FrameWorks
welcomes Dr. Ron Manderscheid as the newest member of our Board of Directors. For
over three decades, he has been working to improve mental health and substance
abuse care from both inside and outside government. Currently the Executive
Director of the National Association of County Behavioral Health and
Developmental Disabilities Directors (NACBHDD), Manderscheid focuses on the
challenges facing county behavioral healthcare systems.
Earlier this month,
FrameWorks Senior Associate Jane Feinberg interviewed Manderscheid about his
career in the world of practice and the need for better communications about
mental health. Click here to read the interview.
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Framing Child Mental Health in the Field
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The 23rd Annual Children's Mental Health
Research and Policy Conference held in Tampa, FL this March was the site for
Senior Researcher Nat Kendall-Taylor's presentation on "How Americans Think About
Child Mental Health: A Cognitive Approach to Bridging the Science Policy Gap." Kendall-Taylor
presented recent FrameWorks' research from expert interviews, media content
analyses, peer discourse sessions and cognitive interviews exploring the
default patterns of understanding the public employs to make sense of child
mental health issues and how communications can more effectively translate the
expert understanding to create public support for issues in this domain.
The National Association of County Behavioral Health and Development Disability
Directors (NACBHDD) included a feature on FrameWorks' child mental health
research in its monthly publication to its members.
The Canadian Psychiatric Association's 60th Annual
Conference in Toronto will welcome FrameWorks as an invited speaker this
September. Cross-cultural research
from Canada and the United States on child mental health and addiction will be
the focus of our paper, as well as implications for communications.
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FrameWorks Looks to Expand FieldBuilding Staff
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FrameWorks is looking to expand our FieldBuilding
division. Our newest Senior Associate will focus on teaching social science
research to front-line advocates and will work to create curricula for applying
lessons to geographic and professional communities, with an emphasis on
communities of color.
Applicants must have excellent analytical,
interpersonal, written and oral communication skills and a high level of
comfort in presenting to broad and diverse audiences. Location in Boston is
preferred, but applicants in other locations will be considered. Applications
are due by May 3. For more information about the position of Senior Associate,
please click here.
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