Introducing Tufts HOPE Framework: Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences
In 2024, our desire at Cobb Collaborative is to shift to a community that is committed to resiliency by focusing on our collective strengths and building positive experiences. We plan to support this by implementing the HOPE framework into our work. What is the HOPE framework?
HOPE, Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences, is a framework that is grounded in science from Tufts Medical Center in Boston. Its main objective is to increase awareness and implementation of positive experiences during childhood. This is done by looking at four key building blocks that include opportunities to foster positive experiences. Those are:
Relationships within the family and with other children and adults shape children into who they become, what they believe and how they behave as adults.
How do we yield positive experiences for a child through relationships?
- be the supportive relationship
- connect coaches, mentors or peers to a child
- play and connect with children
- learn about healthy attachment characteristics
Safe, equitable and stable environments for living, playing, and learning at home and in school impact the way in which children move through society.
How can we promote access to safe, stable and equitable environments?
- make schools safe spaces by addressing bullying
- connect families to resources however needed
- ensure neighborhoods have safe places to play
Social and civic engagement bring a sense of belonging and connectedness, strengthening children’s security and resiliency.
What would help ensure access to social and civic engagement?
- ensure children have out of school activities and address disparities for children who may not
- volunteer in the community
- promote after-school activities
Emotional growth through playing and interacting with peers increases self-awareness, self-regulation and social cognition.
How can we support a child’s emotional growth?
- communicate openly about feelings
- create space for child-led play
- encourage social and emotional connection
Oppositely, adverse childhood experiences, ACEs, are the traumatic events or levels of dysfunction a child experiences in their life. Those experiences, such as violence in the home or unstable/uninvolved parents, can greatly threaten a child’s sense of safety, stability and their relationships with others. Because of these long-term implications, much of the community is on the journey to becoming trauma informed, which equips us to prevent and intervene in adverse childhood experiences. Click here to learn more about ACEs.
One of the more critical methods of prevention is building support and providing positive experiences in all aspects of a child’s life, in order to reduce the risk of ACEs. According to Tufts Medical Center, positive experiences can ease toxic stress and help children and youth grow into more resilient, healthier adults.
The HOPE framework shifts the narrative on how to best approach and support children and families. It aims to focus on advocating for positive experiences for children in the systems, communities and policies that serve them as a means to prevent adverse childhood experiences from occurring. To learn more about HOPE, visit their website.
Cobb Collaborative is excited to have this as the backbone in our programming spaces in 2024, to better ensure children and families are living in a community that supports them in all capacities. Cobb Collaborative has many opportunities to engage and support this framework through our trainings, workshops and resources. To find those opportunities and additional resources, visit our website.
Information used in this article is to be credited to Tufts Medical Center research on HOPE.