We recently spoke with Tyler Verda, Human Services Specialist at SCHSD, about its and CSAC’s experiences with reframing. SCHSD and CSAC first learned about reframing at a National Reframing Initiative presentation and training at the Washington State Community Action Partnership conference last year. Staff brought reframing back to their organization and gained agreement to start implementing it.
Both SCHSD and CSAC have applied reframing in their communications. The SCHSD mission incorporates the Building Well-Being Narrative by including the value of human potential and suggests the construction metaphor with “building community”: “The mission of Human Services is to help all persons meet their basic needs and develop their potential by providing timely, effective human services and building community.”
Additionally, framing has been helpful to CSAC in advocating for individuals with low incomes and raising awareness of the critical role human services play in allowing everyone to further reach their potential. SCHSD and CSAC also plan to use reframing in a Low Income Community Needs Assessment that will inform planning, program development, and funding.
SCHSD and CSAC have found the Building a New Narrative on Human Services Communications Toolkit especially helpful—sharing it with colleagues and community partners. In crafting the op-ed, Verda said CSAC found the FrameWorks Institute’s sample editorial particularly useful. He finds examples that the Reframing Network Newsletter features of other organization’s well-framed communications relevant too. Verda even posted the Human Potential and Construction Metaphor message cards at his desk. In general, “the reframing tools help the difficult task of messaging complicated human services programs in a way that the general public will appreciate,” Verda observes.
