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Alberta Family Wellness Initiative

About Us

The Alberta Family Wellness Initiative

The Alberta Family Wellness Initiative (AFWI) was created by the Palix Foundation in 2007 to bridge the gap between the science of brain development, mental health, and addiction and what is currently done in policy and practice. In partnerships with the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, the Government of Alberta, Alberta Health Services, and Alberta post-secondary institutions, the AFWI has made considerable progress towards this goal. The AFWI Theory of Philanthropy highlights the major roles of the AWFI: knowledge entrepreneur, catalytic convenor, and partner for public systems[1].

 

Brain Story Certification Course

The AFWI launched the Brain Story Certification Course  in 2016. The Brain Story shares scientific learnings on brain development, epigenetics, mental health, and addiction with audiences of healthcare practitioners, policymakers, educators, children’s services providers, addictions counsellors, and all others interested in understanding brain science.

The Brain Story features presentations from leading experts accompanied by metaphors and visuals to convey complex scientific information in understandable language. The AFWI Developmental Evaluation identified that the primary benefits conferred by The Brain Story include increased empathy towards others and oneself based on individual histories and a common language about brain science that facilitates communication and collaboration[2]. 

 

The Resilience Scale

Resilience can be defined as the ability to respond positively in the face of adversity[3]. The Resilience Scale Metaphor depicts how positive and negative experiences interact to influence developmental and mental health outcomes, as well as the impact of core life skills on resilience[4]. The Resilience Scale explains why individual differences exist in our responses to adversity and how our resilience may change over time. 

Early learnings from the Resilience Scale indicate that it is an effective visual tool to facilitate communication between practitioners and their clients or patients and a means of measuring change in resilience over time. 

 

The Brain Story and Resilience Scale Framework

The AFWI has made significant advances towards our goal of embedding the Brain Story across systems to produce concrete changes in policy and practice. Using the Resilience Scale as a framework, we have established a tri-fold strategy that evaluates the needs of individuals, clarifies the role of organizations and service providers, and works towards systems integration. This strategy is introduced in the Resilience Scale Masterclass.

This strategy is introduced in the Resilience Scale Masterclass, currently being offered live, both in-person and virtually.

The 3-hour Resilience Scale Masterclass educates policy makers, practitioners, and the public about brain development and its impact on health, mental health, and overall well-being throughout the lifespan. Delivered in three parts, its purpose is to provide foundational knowledge and a common language accessible across disciplines. 

Three AFWI reports are now available that expand on each level of the strategy. Report 1 outlines the development, validation, and evaluation of the Resilience Scale Toolkit, a resource for service providers to practice using the Resilience Scale as a practical tool.

Report 2 presents the Resilience Scale as a tool for organizational change management by coding programs and services according to the Resilience Scale.

Report 3 provides a strategy for systems integration using the Resilience Scale, detailing the work in Lethbridge, Alberta as a case study.

 

Report 1: Using the Resilience Scale as a Tool for Individuals

The Resilience Scale Toolkit

Part 1 of the Resilience Scale Masterclass discusses how to use the Resilience Scale as a practical tool. To practice the use of the Resilience Scale as a tool, participants complete a training exercise called the Resilience Scale Toolkit. In this exercise, participants are asked to read one of three unique scenarios that describes the life of a hypothetical individual, use details from the scenario to construct that person’s Resilience Scale, and explain how each element they identified contributes to overall resilience. 

In partnership with the University of Oxford, the AFWI has analyzed the responses of 308 participants from nine Masterclasses and found that the Toolkit is effective at encouraging participants to apply the science of the Resilience Scale and is viewed by service providers as clear, useful, and applicable to their work.

 

report 2: Organizational Change Management Using the Resilience Scale

Quality Improvement Proof of Concept

The FOI, the research and development platform of the Harvard Center on the Developing Child, devised a coding template to catalog its portfolio of projects based on their context (i.e., where the project takes place) and primary design (i.e., whether the project aims to reduce sources of adversity, strengthen core life skills, or support responsive relationships). This template maps onto the Resilience Scale by coding projects according to the component of the Scale they target. 

The AFWI adapted the FOI template to code programs and services from across sectors to help service providers gain a clearer understanding of the work they are doing with the populations they serve. Our team visited 11 organizations in Alberta to learn about the programs and services they offer and apply the coding to each distinct offering. Feedback from the participating organizations indicated that this coding exercise: 

 

Case STudies

Organizations throughout Alberta employ the Brain Story and Resilience Scale at various stages of their work, both internally and directly in their interactions with the populations they serve. Report 2 shares case studies of four organizations, outlining how they use the knowledge, resources, and tools in their practice.

 

report 3: Creating Systems Integration with the Resilience scale

Strategy for Systems Integration

Embedding the Brain Story and Resilience Scale at the system level requires a shared competency and active engagement from community leaders. Therefore, we have standardized a strategy that consists of the following two components to help facilitate systems-level integration for any community or region interested in making a shift towards policies and practices that are based in Brain Story science. 

The goal of the CoPs will be to improve service provision and outcomes for individuals, families, and the community. Each CoP will define their own specific goals, action items, and timelines. The AFWI will facilitate initial connections and meetings to set in motion what is intended to be a community-driven initiative.

 

Lethbridge Case Study

The City of Lethbridge in southern Alberta, Canada, has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Palix Foundation and the University of Lethbridge with the intention to apply this strategy for system integration. Lethbridge is the pilot site for the strategy, guiding its development which will serve as the template for other communities. Report 3 includes an overview of the unfolding of this strategy in Lethbridge since February 2022.

 

Next Steps

The AFWI is working towards the development of easily accessible platforms to help organizations and systems implement the Brain Story and Resilience Scale Framework.

For Individuals – creating a standardized protocol for using the Resilience Scale as a tool in primary care, acute care and community settings. Integrate the Resilience Scale into current health systems platforms that will enable service providers to work with clients in creating a version of their Resilience Scale that can be (1) modified over time as they access services and (2) shared easily between providers. 

For Organizations – collaborate with organizations to embed the Resilience Scale coding template into an existing service directory to allow service providers to (1) make referrals according to the area of a client’s Resilience Scale they wish to address and (2) identify which organizations are Brain Story certified within their network, so service providers can intentionally refer to organizations using practices based in Brain Story science. 

For Systems – generate community maps that depict systems as a network of interconnected entities. These community maps, like the one created for Lethbridge, will help service providers understand their place in the larger system and their role in building resilience in the community. 

For more information and guidelines on how to start implementing this strategy,
reach us at contact@palixfoundation.org.

 

Video Resources

You are welcome to use these videos with your staff, clients/patients, and wider community as desired.

 

A Real-Life Application of the Resilience Scale A Real-Life Application of the Resilience Scale with RCMP Superintendent Mike McCauley

In this video, Superintendent Mike McCauley of the Alberta Royal Canadian Mounted Police shares his personal story through the lens of the Resilience Scale, a core concept of the Brain Story by the Alberta Family Wellness Initiative. He illustrates how positive supports in his life helped buffer the adversities he faced, strengthening his capacity for resilience throughout his life. Mike's story depicts how potential sources of toxic stress can be buffered to tolerable stress.

After watching the video, please complete this survey.

 

The Brain Story: Making the Economic Case - Dr. James Heckman, Nobel Laureate

Economist and Nobel Prize-winner, Dr. James Heckman, makes the economic case for investing in early childhood and adolescence, and proposes that applying the right resources to this period of life will lead to better economic and health outcomes.

 

Building Resilience - Brain Story Certification Graduate: Larissa Logozzo

Larissa Logozzo, Recovery Coach at Our Collective Journey, shares how the Brain Story and Resilience Scale gave her an understanding and hope about the resources she needed to tip her scale into a positive outcome for life.

 

Medicine Hat: Building Resilience for Individuals, Families, and Community

Medicine Hat community members share the importance of using the Brain Story and the Resilience Scale as a common knowledge base and a common language to better apply resources and practices that will improve outcomes for individuals, families and their community.

 

The Resilience Scale: Amplifying Indigenous Perspectives

Indigenous community members from around Alberta share how the Brain Story and Resilience Scale Framework has impacted their work and informed their practice, in both personal and professional ways. 

 

new training video

 

The Resilience Scale: A Tool for Change

Presented by Teresa Killam, MEd MD CCFP FCFP, this 90-min training video reviews the key metaphors of the Brain Story with a focus on how the Resilience Scale metaphor can be used as a practical tool to assess and monitor resilience in individuals. The training is available as three different applications:

 

 

 

[1] https://www.albertafamilywellness.org/who-we-are/theory-of-philanthropy 

[2] Alberta Family Wellness Initiative (2020). Commentary and AFWI Developmental Evaluation: Evaluation Report and Case Studies.

[3] National Scientific Council on the Developing Child (2015). Supportive Relationships and Active Skill-Building Strengthen the Foundations of Resilience: Working Paper No. 13.

[4] Alberta Family Wellness Initiative (2021). Early Learnings About Uses for the Resilience Scale Metaphor in Practice.