Canada has been the driver behind FrameWorks' early cross-cultural research and learning activities. 2012 saw no respite, as Albertans were stopped on busy street corners and in rural areas to offer their observations on resilience and the early roots of addiction. FrameWorks sent Research Director Nat Kendall-Taylor and President Susan Nall Bales to two related symposia in Banff sponsored by the Alberta Family Wellness Initiative where they presented new research. Canada has a strong tradition of knowledge translation with many practitioners organized around Alberta Innovates - Health Solutions. In October, Susan addressed their annual conference in Banff explaining how Strategic Frame Analysis™ can yield better outcomes than traditional translation methods.

Can ordinary Albertans be engaged in child development via metaphor? The latest Apple Magazine, distributed to thousands of parents, patients and practitioners, features down-to-earth explanations of Brain Architecture, Toxic Stress and Serve and Return. FrameWorks' fingerprints are also evident on a new trigger video made for the government of Alberta to explain the intersection of child development and a new Regional Collaborative Service Delivery Model. The video helps collaborating agencies think how they might work together to build better brain architecture and prevent exposure to toxic stress.

Can framing have an impact on policymaking? Don't take our word for it. Listen in as one Albertan policy maker explains the impacts of new ways of talking about early child development in the province. 

Further, beginning late 2012 and continuing through 2013, FrameWorks will take up issues related to community, education and youth working with United Way of Calgary.

Is there a way to resolve the pressing needs of child survival with a concern for child development?FrameWorks has been working with Harvard Center on the Developing Child's Global Children's Initiative and international NGOs to see how the frames that are used to communicate about children in troubled areas and situations can be expanded to include considerations about development. FrameWorks first interviewed leaders in the field of international development to understand the cultural models of child development they bring to their work. Following this initial descriptive research, FrameWorks has now received funding from the Harvard Center to move the project into its prescriptive reframing phase. Over the next year, FrameWorks researchers will be pursuing an innovative research program that includes the development and multi-method testing of metaphors and other reframing tools with members of the international development community.

Susan Bales has been named the inaugural Haruv lecturer for the Fifth Annual Greenville Family Symposium to be held in Greenville, SC in mid-April 2013. The Haruv Institute in Jerusalem is Israel's leading authority on child abuse and neglect. Susan will share FrameWorks' research and recommendations on child development and child mental health in a keynote address. The Symposium is also jointly sponsored by Ortho, the Clemson University Institute on Family and Neighborhood Life, the International Family Therapy Association and the International Society for Child Indicators.

The FrameWorks Institute is preparing to plant another pin on its rapidly expanding international research map with a project exploring cultural models of infant development and early mental health in South Africa. In collaboration with researchers from the Anna Freud Center in London, the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and the University of Pretoria in Pretoria, Research Director Nat Kendall-Taylor will lead the design and implementation of a qualitative study of South African cultural models of early child development and mental health.

By providing FrameWorks research another set of cross-cultural data about how people understand early child development and mental health, the project will strengthen the "cultural" in "cultural models" theory. Comparing these data to those gathered from parallel interviews in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and Brazil will allow FrameWorks researchers to explore culturally relative understandings of early child development and to begin to posit common patterns of thinking across cultures. In addition, this project will establish another pillar in the growing case for the universal utility and strength of FrameWorks' innovative Map the Gaps research method as an initial step in science translation and policy communication. Needless to say, the anthropologists on staff are quite excited about this one.

Following several visits to Australia by Senior Fellow Frank Gilliam to lay the groundwork for collaboration, FrameWorks' President Susan Nall Bales and Director of Research Nat Kendall-Taylor traveled to Melbourne in mid-July 2012 to present the scope and power of FrameWorks' approach to current and prospective collaborators - packing in ten presentations into a mere five days! Senior Researcher Eric Lindland joined them a week later to begin the first phase of research in concert with Nat - thirty cultural models interviews across three cities: Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.

One of FrameWorks' most exciting forays into framing outside of North America is a new project in Brazil. We recently began a three-year project in collaboration with the Global Children's Initiative of the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard and the Fundação Maria Cecilia Souto Vidigal, in São Paulo, to translate the science of early child development for Brazilians. On a recent trip, senior researcher Michael Baran identified Brazilian researchers who subsequently came to Washington, DC to learn research techniques associated with cultural models interviews (see below). This past September, Michael Baran and Susan Bales travelled to São Paulo where they addressed the Fundação's second International Early Child Development

Recognizing the need for the field of framing to acknowledge early adaptation, FrameWorks created an award in honor of Ann Lochner who passed away in February 2011. The Lochner, initiated this year, started what FrameWorks hopes will be a meaningful (and competitive) tradition of rewarding excellence in the field. An elegant engraved Tiffany crystal statuette is awarded along with a cash prize to the Lochner awardees. FrameWorks Institute is pleased to announce three recipients of the Ann Lochner Early Frame Adapters Award in 2012. Check out FrameWorks' website in early 2013 for Lochner nominations for this year.

Julia Sauma and Paula Siqueira are Brazilian cultural anthropologists recognized for their skillful incorporation of FrameWorks theory and methods into their research on early child development in Brazil. In February 2012, Julia and Paula traveled from Brazil to Washington, DC and then to Cambridge, MA to receive ten days of intense training in FrameWorks theory and methods. They took to our practice right away, learning all about our research practice as well as helping us strategize the complexities of applying our suite of methods to a different cultural and linguistic context.

Julia and Paula began by interviewing Brazilian scientists to construct the core story of early child development in Brazil and in June 2012 undertook cultural models interviews in five Brazilian cities. We couldn't be more pleased to present them with these Awards in recognition of the contributions they have made to spreading Strategic Frame Analysis across the globe.

Our third Lochner awardee is Evelyn Wotherspoon, a Canadian clinical social worker who has built on her experience in FrameWorks' Alberta Study Circles to train lawyers and other expert witnesses to frame their expert testimony using  tested frame elements, from brain architecture to serve and return. Her workshop at the Association of Family & Conciliatory Courts' Annual Conference this past summer used the Core Story of Early Child Development to correct common misperceptions about infant development.  She has also infused her court testimony with reframed appeals on how to determine the best interests of young children in court applications.

But Evelyn's most poignant evidence of frame adaptation comes from her work with First Nations on the traumatic effects of residential schools on Aboriginal families.

"Last spring I was invited by the Head Start program coordinator in Laxgalts'ap, a tiny Aboriginal community in northern BC to talk about child development, a concept that was proving difficult to translate.  Everyone in the community came out to the presentation which was held in the local community center - grandmas, parents, kids, everybody.

I had recently participated in a FrameWorks Study Circle where I learned about strategic frame analysis and using visuals, tone and message to tell a memorable story. I was worried about how to present child development information to a community of people whose life experiences were so different from my own. I tried to put myself in their shoes and thought about what their world view and deeply held beliefs might be when it came to understanding child development. I knew that storytelling is a vital part of Canadian Aboriginal cultures and people from these communities have powerful and deeply held feelings about children, families, identity and cultural ties. I also knew that many Aboriginal families and communities were disrupted by a government policy that forcibly removed Aboriginal children from the families and placed them in residential schools, a policy that continued for most of the 20th century (the last residential school wasn't closed until the 1990's).

I decided the best way for me to share what I knew about child development was to share a story that was told to me by an Aboriginal woman. I began my talk with a photograph and the following story:

 "My mother was raised in a residential school and I have often wondered why our family escaped many of the problems that

plague so many people who shared that experience. I asked her about it and she said, you know I'm not really sure but I th

ink it might have been because my mom got a job at the school laundry so I got to see her every day. I never saw her for very long, just long enough for a quick hug and kiss. She would sneak me treats like apples from our yard. I think that is what kept me going."

Images of residential schools usually show kids without parents - not the wide angle lens I learned from FrameWorks.  So I used a 

picture that showed a residential school surrounded by teepees where parents kept vigil waiting for glimpses of their children. We had an animated discussion since everyone there was either a residential school survivor or the child of one. Then I told the core story of child development - what is it, how does it happen, 

how does it get derailed, and what can we do? I explained the concept of toxic stress and the power of deep emotional connections to buffer children from stress. I talked about the legacy of the residential schools and why this legacy is affecting Aboriginal parenting even today. You could hear a pin drop. People began to share their own stories."

Evelyn was able to use framing elements to distinguish between toxic and tolerable stress - a point also undertaken by FrameWorks President Susan Bales in her latest blog post.  She was able to explain the ongoing trauma experienced by Aboriginal families, as well as differential outcomes where families were able to literally stay in touch.

"Indian residential schools are the elephant in the room in any conversation about at risk children, stress, addictions and mental illness," says Evelyn.  "I have started using this story to good effect in my presentations across Calgary.  People are given the facts, but not the story.  They know about residential schools but they don't understand.  Telling the reframed story sparks real engagement and interest in understanding how children get derailed and how relationships hold the key to recovery."

FrameWorks staff is not only thinking internationally from nine-to-five. Senior Researcher and Linguist Michael Erard has been on a book tour, promoting his new book about languages, language learners, and the brain. Here he provides us with some insights into the nexus between his two day jobs.

What does any of this have to do with FrameWorks?

Not only was I working at FrameWorks during most of the time that I was working on Babel No More, but FrameWorks' approaches influenced my thinking about the topic and are threaded throughout the book. Here are three of the ways:

1. Adult learners of second languages, especially successful learners, draw heavily on higher-order cognitive skills such as executive function and working memory. I used our metaphor of the air traffic control system for your brain - which I had helped to design and test for Harvard's Center on the Developing Child - in order to explain executive function.


2. Two of the dominant cultural models that we continually encounter and confront in our work are individualism and willpower. These models let Americans tell stories about their successes in terms of their own hard work, discipline, and superior motivation - to the exclusion of other factors, like language learning aptitude, other cognitive skills, or the match between methods and cognitive style. In the book, I explain how successful second language learning depends on how environments and experiences shape brains, and how certain neurological make-ups respond to different experiences in different ways. This shadowed our work on gene-environment interactions for Harvard's Center on the Developing Child and the Alberta Family Wellness Initiative.


3. In general, stories about high achievers are either individualist (they have superior motivation!) or spiritualist (they're blessed! It's a miracle!). This might make for compelling sales copy on language learning software. But if your goal is to promote language learning in a society or community you won't get very far by simply creating more motivation or more motivated people. Of course motivation and patience are important to creating successful learning outcomes, but in the context of giving people resources and supports, not focusing the individual's enterprise.

I've been involved with language issues for quite a while, but even at the outset of writing the book, I didn't grasp quite how much the public discourse around foreign language learning in the United States needs reframing. For decades, foreign language learning advocates in education, government, and business have raised the hue and cry over Americans' dismal and declining interest in language learning. The biggest obstacle is the individualist mindset. If learning is seen to be an individual undertaking (not one done in a context of support), and if the benefits of language learning accrue mainly to the individual (the young man gets to woo the Italian supermodel, in that famous Rosetta Stone ad), then public support for language learning will be endangered from the outset. It's no surprise, then, that foreign language classes and requirements are the first to be cut in budgetary squeezes. This is something I look forward to working on in the future.

Babel No More was partly written with a Dobie Paisano fellowship from the Texas Institute of Letters and the University of Texas at Austin. It has won positive reviews from the New York Times, The Economist, The Atlantic, and The Times Literary Supplement, among many online and print publications.