Workshop leaders from around the world join us to share their experiences with HOPE
On June 3, I will deliver the opening keynote for our Fifth Annual HOPE Summit. This year’s theme, Shaping the Future: A Framework for Every Sector, celebrates the people and organizations that promote positive childhood experiences in their work with children and their families.
The Summit features a series of workshops led by professionals and organizations practicing the HOPE framework from all around the country. These workshops are grouped into five sector-specific tracks for attendees to follow, learn, and get hands-on experiences with HOPE from these experts.
We are excited to highlight our growing HOPE network at the Summit, and we welcome both first-time and returning attendees!
From research to practice: the origin and growth of HOPE
This is an extraordinarily exciting time for the HOPE National Resource Center. We are seeing the coming together of a movement driving a healthier and happier future for children, fueled by the hundreds of certified HOPE Facilitators and HOPE Champions, and the dozens of HOPE-Inspired and HOPE-Informed organizations incorporating the HOPE framework into their work.
There have been three distinct steps that have led to this moment:
- Studying the effects of positive childhood experiences.
- Developing the HOPE framework that helps translate the research data into practical tools.
- Incorporating the wisdom and experience of thousands of experienced professionals around the country and beyond.
Studying PCEs
Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences (HOPE) began with an idea: children’s brains respond to both adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and positive childhood experiences. PCEs promote optimal child development and lessen the effects of adversity. Along with our partners, we found evidence that PCEs contribute positively to child health and well-being. Through further research, we found evidence from hundreds of papers that expands this understanding.
Translating these data transform into a practical framework?
Charlyn Harper Brown and I looked at the published papers about effective child-oriented programs and developed the Four Building Blocks of HOPE from this review. We learned that effective programs provided one or more of these key PCEs for children:
- Stable, nurturing relationships
- Safe and equitable environments to live, learn, and play
- Engagement with family and communities
- Opportunities for emotional growth
Incorporating wisdom and experience
As the idea for HOPE began to take shape, we expanded our network of families and care providers. Their ideas and experiences contributed to the development of the HOPE framework. These contributions fueled a robust series of resources for HOPE implementation made in partnership with our new network of care providers, utilizing their work with children and families, and from their work with organizations that deliver care.
Creating HOPE during uncertain times
We live in a time of disruption that threatens children’s health and well-being. Many individuals and organizations are facing changes in rolled back policies, securing sources of funding, and losing key resources in their communities, all impacting their ability to promote PCEs for all children.
Even more upsetting, many families now live in fear. To respond to these challenges, the HOPE National Resource Center reiterates our deeply held belief of the inherent dignity of every human being and our commitment to reducing health disparities through the promotion and practice of prioritizing equity in all the work we do.
With this commitment, we have refreshed our resources for LGBTQ+ families, launched a renewed effort to translate our materials into Spanish, and are developing new materials that directly address how the HOPE framework can support immigrant families.
Even with this overwhelming uncertainty, there is still so much hope for the future. Since the last Summit, I have traveled to Tennessee, Kansas, Michigan, California, North Carolina, and Kentucky. Everywhere I have gone, I have been inspired by the many people who have dedicated their lives to working with children and families. They are leaders and providers, students and teachers, youth and adults. At this year’s Summit, we will hear these presenters share their success stories of new innovative programs, sector-specific challenges and solutions, and the difference that the HOPE framework has made for them.
Join us at the 2025 HOPE Summit
We have begun a transformation to providing care in which every family and every child are valued for their strengths and experiences, and providers come to work with attitudes of curiosity and learning. Come join us June 3-4, 2025, at this year’s Fifth Annual HOPE Summit – Shaping the Future: A Framework for Every Sector!
