Wellbeing Blueprint
  • Start here.
  • A message for those of us within systems
  • Principle 1
    • 1. Start with what matters to people: wellbeing
      • 1.1 Be public about our historical roots and commitment to equity and wellbeing.
        • 1.1.1 Make history and commitments available on the web; co-create a report card with the community.
        • 1.1.2 Engage staff to shift this history.
        • 1.1.3 Collect and use disaggregated data.
        • 1.1.4 Eliminate biased decision-making data sets.
          • 1.1.4 A Toolkit for Centering Racial Equity Throughout Data Integration
      • 1.2 Use restorative and transformative practices.
        • 1.2.1 Fund ongoing restorative and transformational work.
        • 1.2.2 Default to restorative and transformational practices.
        • 1.2.3 Recognize why people may avoid telling the truth to the system.
        • 1.2.4 Use person-centered language in policy and practice.
      • 1.3 Center power for community decisions in the community.
        • 1.3.1 Recognize and support people's right and ability to vote.
        • 1.3.2 Make informal community assets visible.
        • 1.3.3 Relentlessly seek diverse and inclusive engagement in planning processes.
        • 1.3.4 Change structures before adding programs.
        • 1.3.5 Contract with local experts for community services.
      • 1.4 Change structures that force unsustainable tradeoffs.
        • 1.4.1 Adjust existing and potential policies to address tradeoffs.
          • 1.4.1 Playbook and Tools: Policy-level Tradeoffs Analysis
        • 1.4.2 Pay for performance that optimizes wellbeing.
        • 1.4.3 Create policies with clear mechanisms for alternative responses.
          • 1.4.3 Example - St. Louis County Family Court
        • 1.4.4 Align staff policies to address tradeoffs.
      • 1.5 Structure procurements for wellbeing.
        • 1.5.1 Develop core procurement elements that use equity and wellbeing as a framework.
      • 1.6 Adjust benefits and expectations in recognition of the trauma we are all experiencing.
        • 1.6.1 Respond with the context of people's decisions and choices in mind.
        • 1.6.2 Encourage staff to use the information and resources they share with constituents.
        • 1.6.3 Examine emergency policies to ensure they don't replicate the harms they are meant to address.
  • Principle 2
    • 2. Push against harms being concentrated in communities already facing the greatest adversity.
      • 2.1 When deciding where to bring resources, start with the least capitalized communities.
        • 2.1.1 Start with what communities need to thrive, not just what individuals need.
        • 2.1.2 Leverages and supplement what's working in communities.
      • 2.2 Address bias in expectations.
        • 2.2.1 Remove criminal history as an automatically disqualifying event.
        • 2.2.2 Set aside funds to offer higher security deposits to landlords.
      • 2.3 Support and create space for the nascent businesses that come out of this crisis.
        • 2.3.1 Create inclusive innovation incubators.
        • 2.3.2 Adjust regulations that limit new business creation.
        • 2.3.3 Examine licensing requirements.
      • 2.4 Track workarounds and adjust policy to reduce the need for workarounds.
        • 2.4.1 Collect data on barriers and workarounds in Management Information Systems.
        • 2.4.2 Use data on barriers and workarounds to inform ongoing systemic transformation.
      • 2.5. Use the different access to people’s homes to help, not to surveil.
        • 2.5.1 Provide guidance to guard against implicit bias when "entering" people's homes remotely.
      • 2.6 Separate out sanctions from treatment and help, and adjust both.
        • 2.6 Example: St. Louis County Family Court
        • 2.6.1 Vacate or reduce sanctions.
        • 2.6.2 Allow people to make community restitution by supporting their families and neighbors.
        • 2.6.3 Adjust treatment expectations in consultation with the individual.
          • 2.6.3 Tool: Adjusting Case Plans In Response to the Pandemic
      • 2.7 Make access meaningful.
        • 2.7.1 Improve access to and use of tech to reduce barriers.
        • 2.7.2 Ensure that professional, credentialed translation and interpretation services are available.
          • Example: Found in Translation
          • 2.7.2 Example - Found in Translation
  • Principle 3
    • 3. Build on, instead of undermining, social connections and social capital in communities.
      • 3.1 Remove obstacles to family members helping family members.
        • 3.1.1 Allow family members in public housing to take in family members in times of crisis.
        • 3.1.2 Keep families close.
        • 3.1.3 Expand models and approaches that reimburse family members for caregiving.
      • 3.2 Enable social networks.
        • 3.2.1 Make it possible for people to gather.
        • 3.2.2 Apply intergenerational and social-network oriented approaches in policy.
        • 3.2.3 Encourage multi-family economic strengthening and resiliency efforts.
      • 3.3 Enable expansion and leverage of community networks.
        • 3.3.1 Partner with community to support change driven by community.
        • 3.3.2 Reduce false divides between community-strengthening activities and services.
      • 3.4 Leverage community expertise in making bureaucracy work for people.
        • 3.4.1 Hire people who know how to navigate the system.
        • 3.4.2 Look for expertise first in communities most affected.
  • Principle 4
    • 4. Build financial security.
      • 4.1 Backstop loss.
        • 4.1.1 Provide specific, low-barrier help with the financial and human costs of COVID-19.
        • 4.1.2 Provide a COVID-19 benefit.
        • 4.1.3 Enact/extend a moratorium on evictions, foreclosures and utility shut-offs.
      • 4.2 Ensure access to basic nutritional and economic supports.
        • 4.2.1 Reduce friction points for people accessing benefits.
        • 4.2.2 Suspend benefit cutoffs for at least six months after the end of the public health emergency.
      • 4.3 Don't fund staffed anti-poverty programs when what's needed are direct payments.
        • 4.3.1 Relax restrictions on publicly issued flex funds.
        • 4.3.2 Expand child care.
      • 4.4 Address the wealth gap.
        • 4.4.1 Address the benefits cliff.
        • 4.4.2 Invest in baby bonds and children’s savings accounts.
  • Principle 5
    • 5. Span boundaries.
      • 5.1 Tap people’s humanity.
        • 5.1.1 Include arts and culture in community assessment, design and change processes.
        • 5.1.2 Build partnerships to increase access to careers in the arts and related industries.
          • 5.1.2 Example - Bridge Builder Arts
        • 5.1.3 Allow for joy and levity.
      • 5.2 Advocate.
        • 5.2.1 Conduct and be open to cross-system, cross-field advocacy.
        • 5.2.2 Redeploy frontline staff to serve as navigators and advocates.
        • 5.2.3 Reduce the divide between services and advocacy.
        • 5.2.4 Fund and allow for non-partisan, non-electoral advocacy as part of direct services.
      • 5.3 Expressly engage across sectors and with community leaders to make the transformation.
        • 5.3.1 Use funding across systems to address structural barriers.
        • 5.3.2 Convene multiple industries to workforce development funding.
  • Principle 6
    • 6. Set our default to sustaining transformation beyond the pandemic.
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  1. Principle 1
  2. 1. Start with what matters to people: wellbeing

1.4 Change structures that force unsustainable tradeoffs.

Too often, services and treatments focus on narrow or short-term progress but jeopardize a person’s or community’s essential wellbeing assets (e.g., connectedness and belonging, purpose and influence, safety and predictability, access to resources). If these tradeoffs are too great, the change itself is unsustainable. This has been well documented in economic terms as the “cliff effect;” the same dynamic is true for wellbeing overall. Thinking through the tradeoffs of change and listening seriously to them (versus imposing a “provider” or “system” expectation of what is sustainable) is essential to helping people take steps forward, but should not be primarily or solely limited to individual interactions and practices.

Want to learn a little more about the importance of tradeoffs? Check out this short video.

Crowdsourcing What's Possible:

The principles and recommendations in this Blueprint are already being acted on by systems, organizations, communities and people across the nation. Do you have an example to share with us? Please share it!

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Last updated 3 years ago

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