Child and Adolescent Development

FrameWorks has the world’s largest body of framing research on children and adolescents. It is used around the world to create change.

This research provides an overarching framing strategy to effectively communicate about a wide range of issues that affect children and young people.

Certain assumptions about children, youth, and families come up again and again.

To communicate effectively, advocates need to be able to navigate these dominant beliefs.

The tested frames come from research on six continents and have pushed policy in progressive directions at local, state, national, and international levels. Join this global narrative shift effort by exploring these resources.

Featured Work

Toolkit

Reframing Adolescence and Adolescent Development

This toolkit is a resource for communicators who want to change the narrative about adolescence and adolescent development.

From 10 to 25

What happens from ages 10 to 25? Find out as you take on the role of a young person, explore new parts of life, encounter challenges, and get the support you need.

Report

Talking About Racism in Child and Family Advocacy

As the field seeks to lead a more public conversation about the impacts of racism on children and families—and about how racism structures the systems that children and families interact...

All work

Showing 157 – 168 of 198

Report

Moving North: Translating Child Mental Health Values and Models to Canada

This paper presents the results of a survey conducted in Alberta that demonstrates the impact of values on policy support related to children's issues.

Report

Between Cowboys and Barn Raisers: The Challenges of Explaining Child Mental Health and Development in Alberta

This research demonstrates the power of dominant and unproductive understandings of early childhood development and child mental health among Albertans.

Report

More to Genes Than That: Designing Metaphors to Explain Epigenetics

This report presents "Signature Effect" as an explanatory metaphor that helps people reason about the scientific concept of epigenetics.

Report

Air Traffic Control for Your Brain: Translating the Science of Executive Function Using a Simplifying Model

This report presents "Air Traffic Control" as an explanatory metaphor that helps people reason about the concept of executive function.

Article

Framing in the field: A case study

Framing in the field: A case study CHILD AND YOUTH POLICY ADVOCATES are constantly called on to craft messages to support better policies for children and their families locally and nationally....

Report

“Kids Must Have Mental Health … But They Can’t, Can They?”: How Albertans Think About Child Mental Health

This report compares the cultural patterns of understanding that Americans and Albertans apply in making sense of the issue of child mental health.

Report

Experiences Get Carried Forward: How Albertans Think About Early Child Development

This report examines the challenges of communicating the science of early childhood development in the Albertan cultural context.

Report

Destiny or Destructive Environments: How Peer Discourse Sessions Toggle Between Child Mental Health and Illness

This report shares insights from 8 peer discourse sessions - small group discussions - that focused on child mental health.

Report

Framing Education Reform

This report summarizes findings about how Americans think about the education system, and offers key strategies for talking about education reform.

Report

From the Mouths of Babes: How the Media Frames the Issue of Child Oral Health

This report examines more than a year‘s worth of news coverage on this issue (from August 2008 to November 2009) from more than a dozen newspapers nationwide. The findings from this work serve...

Report

Every Picture Tells A Story: An Examination of Racialized Visuals and their Frame Effects

Is there a difference between images that explicitly depict Black children and visuals that more subtly cue the issue of race?

Report

Advancing Support for Child Mental Health Policies: Early Results from Strategic Frame Analysis™ Experimental Research

This report reviews the effects of frame elements (values, child development principles and explanatory metaphors) on child mental health policy preferences.