EVENTS

Youth is the new leadership! Join four Next-Gen Leaders as they hold space to redefine broken systems and rethink what it means to be a leader in modern-day America. Sanah Jivani, Founder of Love Your Natural Self Foundation, Alex Davis, Student and Political Activist, Marika Reese, Founder of Ubuntu, and Alia Quinby, Student Activist, have something to say, will you listen?

Stay tuned for a recording of this webinar coming soon.

Inequity thrives on the silence. Workers — especially women and BIPoC workers — are consistently at a disadvantage in advocating for equitable pay when employers treat wages as confidential information. Learn more about Wellbeing Blueprint signer Megan Driscoll’s journey to get the Wage Transparency Act onto the political agenda.

All of us take mental shortcuts. It’s how we make sense of the world and survive as humans. But what if these shortcuts reinforce inequities and actually do harm?

Understanding mental models and shifting them is essential for durable and transformative change. Join the Full Frame Initiative for a three-hour interactive workshop to begin to understand the mental models that undergird our communities, organizations, systems, or fields and ways we can begin to shift these so everyone has a fair shot at wellbeing.

911 is the gateway to ambulances and emergency medical care, fire and rescue, and police. For too many of us, 911 is a gateway to greater trauma, not resolution. And while policing is very much in the headlines, steering more calls to healthcare providers isn’t the answer. Communities harmed by policing are also harmed by institutional healthcare.

There are other ways to respond. Watch the video to learn what a wellbeing-oriented emergency response system could look like.

Frontline staff navigate a multitude of complex client cases that can oftentimes quickly, if not intentionally mitigated, lead to burnout and staff turnover. Lotus Yu and Madge Haynes from the Full Frame Initiative presented on the question, “What are the processes that would allow staff to access and foster wellbeing?” and provided tools to examine structures and policies that can better support staff wellbeing and mitigate burnout.

As adaptive leaders who are reimagining their work to help individuals and communities recover from COVID-19 and the economic fallout, understanding and addressing tradeoffs is key to making change last and to building a more equitable society. Ever wonder why change and progress don’t seem to stick for some people? Too often, systems, services and programs focus on narrow or short-term progress but jeopardize a person’s or community’s essential wellbeing assets. If tradeoffs are too great, the change itself is unsustainable. This isn’t about an individual’s willpower. Thinking through the tradeoffs of change and listening seriously to people is essential to helping them take steps forward. Identifying how policies and structures undermine progress and force unsustainable tradeoffs for people is essential to move us toward a country where everyone has a fair shot at wellbeing.

The arts are an oracle, a mirror and a shaman. They tell us about the past, the present, and the future. They disrupt and heal. Tapped for good and for ill, the arts offer meaning, galvanize change and transform hearts and minds. They’re an economic engine. No wonder cutting arts funding, limiting access to the arts and deeming them “extra” or “only for some” are levers for oppression. Yet art is created, fiercely, everywhere. The arts are core to being human. They are a pathway to wellbeing for all people and communities and our country. This is why the Wellbeing Blueprint is specifically inclusive of the arts and understands the importance of artists and arts groups in moments of transition, uncertainty, pain and change. Join us to experience how justice pioneers are creating a new future through the arts. This event is proudly co-sponsored by Bridgebuilder Cinematic Arts, the Full Frame Initiative, King Boston and Theater of War Productions.

“Nothing about us without us” has long been a rallying call of communities struggling for transformative change. But how good are we at truly centering community in our efforts? Three leaders driving change in their communities and systems joined us for a roundtable discussion on what it means to center community in ways that recognize, respect and authentically engage people, knowledge, and power. Panelists shared what this looks like when done well and the common mistakes systems and organizations make when trying to engage community.

While the civil legal system touches the lives of every person in the US and cuts across multiple systems, it operates in its own siloed “cylinder of excellence.” This system also has an outsized impact on wellbeing as access to meaningful civil legal support helps people prevent eviction, fight job discrimination, secure custody of their children, and get health care. Sandra Ambrozy, Nonresident Fellow at the Urban Institute, joined us for a discussion about how the Blueprint is providing a platform to transform and connect the civil legal system with other systems to advance a justice (vs. legal) system and accelerate wellbeing.

To meet this moment, we need equitable, transformative change across the boundaries of sectors and fields. To take action, we need to disrupt the biases baked into our traditional responses and focus our attention on wellbeing and equity. But is equitable change possible without a deep understanding of what drives us? Is it possible to increase wellbeing without reckoning with the historical inequities of our systems? Panelists, Fred Brown of The Forbes Funds, Dr. Karilyn Crockett of the City of Boston and Katya Fels Smyth of the Full Frame Initiative explored the connection between equity and wellbeing.