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.

Report

Collective Caregiving: A Frame for Talking About What Kids and Families Need to Thrive

We all love our kids. We often love our neighbors', friends', and coworkers' kids. So why haven't we, in the U.S., built systems that support all of our kids? If we want to build demand for...

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

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Report

Framing Child Poverty by Telling a Development Story

To build support for ending child poverty, we need a powerful framing strategy. This Message Brief offers guidance from the Core Story of Early Development.

Toolkit

Talking About Early Childhood Development

This toolkit features a compendium of over a decade of research on how Americans think about early childhood, childcare, preschool, and development, and how to increase public support for policies...

Report

Refining the Core Story of Early Childhood Development: The Effects of Science and Health Frames

To translate the science of early childhood development, we need to draw on the science of communication. This report shares findings from a framing experiment.

Toolkit

Talking About Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention

Included in this toolkit are application materials, based on the research findings, that can help engage the public in understanding early child development as it applies to child abuse and...

Report

Determinism Leavened by Will Power: The Challenge of Closing the Gaps Between the Public and Expert Explanations of Gene-Environment Interaction

Epigenetics has important implications for health policy - but lay perceptions of genetics are out of step with current science. This study pinpoints the gaps.

Report

Child Mental Health: A Review of the Scientific Discourse

This report offers an extensive literature review as well as expert interviews to begin to document the story that experts wish to tell about child and family mental health.

Report

Framing Child Abuse and Neglect: Effects of Early Childhood Development Experimental Research

A report summarizing results from the latest iteration of FrameWorks experimental research focusing specifically on outcomes related to policies and programs associated with prevention and...

Report

How to Talk About Youth Development

This message brief distills research on public thinking about youth and summarizes key communications strategies.

Report

Telling the Science Story: An Exploration of Frame Effects on Public Understanding and Support For Early Child Development

This experimental study examines the impact of five key features of the Core Story of Early Childhood Development on public attitudes and policy preferences.

Report

Conveying a New Understanding of Interaction

This report lays out the thinking behind comparing interaction in early childhood to the process of "serve and return" in volleyball or tennis.

Frame Testing Recommendations

Talking Early Child Development and Exploring the Consequences of Frame Choices

This MessageMemo synthesizes recommendations for how to frame early childhood development.

Report

FrameWorks Research on Children’s Oral Health

A summary of the research on children’s oral health that informs the communications recommendations.