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 latest science of brain development, mental health, and addiction and what is currently being 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.
Brain Story Certification Course
The AFWI launched the Brain Story Certification Course (i.e. The Brain Story) 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. As of November 2024, more than 150,000 individuals from over 100 countries had enrolled (80,000 in Alberta) in The Brain Story and over 46,000 had become certified. 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 (2020) 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. Participation in The Brain Story has prompted behavioral changes and mental model shifts at the individual, organizational, and system level.
The Resilience Scale
The AFWI recently developed the Resilience Scale Metaphor as a means of communicating the key messages of The Brain Story more effectively. Resilience can be defined as the ability to respond positively in the face of adversity.[1] The Metaphor depicts how our positive and negative experiences interact to influence developmental and mental health outcomes, with the fulcrum of the scale being shifted by the presence or absence of core life skills.[2] The American Academy of Pediatrics reports that fostering safe, stable, and nurturing relationships, and thereby enhancing relational health, is key to building resilience in children.[3] The Resilience Scale explains why individual differences exist in our responses to adversity. 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 for the betterment of individuals, families, and communities. The Resilience Scale has been central to this work. 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, 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. It provides foundational knowledge and a common language that are accessible across populations and disciplines. Part 1 of the training includes an overview of 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. Part 2 delves into how the Resilience Scale, in combination with the Harvard Center on the Developing Child’s Frontiers of Innovation (FOI), can be used to clarify the roles of organizations in contributing to resilience. Part 3 explores resilience at a system level by mapping the available services in a region according to how they align with the Resilience Scale.
Three AFWI reports are now available that expand on each level of the strategy. Report 1 discusses 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 and FOI, including four case studies from organizations that currently use the science of the Resilience Scale in their work. Report 3 provides a strategy for systems integration using the Resilience Scale, detailing the work in Lethbridge, Alberta as a case study.
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. Following Part 1, participants complete an activity that asks them to read a scenario that describes the life of a hypothetical individual, use details from the scenario to construct that person’s Resilience Scale, and explain why each red box, green box, and skill and ability they identified contributes to overall resilience. Three unique scenarios comprise the Resilience Scale Toolkit, a training exercise the AFWI has developed to provide an opportunity for service providers to practice using the Resilience Scale as a practical tool. 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. The Resilience Scale Toolkit will soon be available as a downloadable resource from the AFWI website.
Organizational Change Management Using the Resilience Scale
Quality Improvement as a 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 supported projects. The template codes projects based on their context (i.e., where the project takes place) and primary design principle (i.e., whether the project aims to reduce sources of adversity, support responsive relationships, or strengthen core life skills). This coding template maps perfectly onto the Resilience Scale, in that projects are coded according to the component of the Scale they are targeting. The AFWI has adapted the FOI coding 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. Using an adapted version of the FOI template, 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 was very positive; the coding exercise was viewed as useful to help match clients with appropriate services, improve communication between service providers, and foster systems alignment.
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 - CUPS; Fresh Start Recovery Centre; Children’s Cottage; and Alberta Health Services Child and Adolescent Addiction, Mental Health, and Psychiatry Program.
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 are standardizing a strategy that consists of two main facets 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. First is to focus on outreach and ensure that the Resilience Scale Masterclass is highly accessible to community members, with the ultimate goal of increasing the number of Brain Story Certification Course enrollments and overall competency to engage with the science. Second is to organize and facilitate Communities of Practice (CoPs) to bring together service providers and policy makers from across sectors who are working with similar populations. The overarching goal of the CoPs will be to improve service provision and outcomes for individuals, families, and the community. Each CoP will be tasked with defining their own specific goals, action items, and timelines. The AFWI will function as a facilitator to connect community members and provide the initial push 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 and is guiding the development of the strategy document which will serve as the template for other communities. Report 3 includes an overview of the unfolding of the strategy in Lethbridge since February 2022.
Next Steps
The Resilience Scale Framework lends itself to the development of a technology platform to help organizations and systems implement the strategy. First, we are working to create a Resilience Scale mobile application as well as 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 modified over time as they access services and shared easily between providers. At the organizational level, we are collaborating with Alberta 211 to embed the Resilience Scale coding template into the existing service directory, which will allow service providers to make referrals according to the area of a client’s Resilience Scale they wish to address. This referral network will indicate which organizations are Brain Story certified, so service providers can intentionally refer to organizations using best practices based in Brain Story science. Finally, to help visualize complete systems, we are trialling community mapping programs 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.
Video Resources
In June 2024, the AFWI released four new video resources that are now available to view and share. You are welcome to use these videos with your staff, clients/patients, and wider community as needed.
The Brain Story: Making the Economic Case - Dr. James Heckman, Nobel Laureate
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:
- Online training for physicians, approved for Continuing Medical Education (CME) credit by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada
- New module appended to the Brain Story Certification Course
- Stand-alone training for all interested individuals - access it through the course catalog of the Brain Story learning platform
[1] National Scientific Council on the Developing Child (2015). Supportive Relationships and Active Skill-Building Strengthen the Foundations of Resilience: Working Paper No. 13.
[2] Alberta Family Wellness Initiative (2021). Early Learnings About Uses for the Resilience Scale Metaphor in Practice.
[3] Garner, A., Yogman, M., & Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health, Section on Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, Council on Early Childhood (2021). Preventing childhood toxic stress: Partnering with families and communities to promote relational health. Pediatrics, 148(2), e2021052582