Goal

Wellbeing looks different for different people, depending upon their background, perspective, and experiences in life. Yet within the wellbeing sciences, many of the conceptualisations, models, and approaches to wellbeing are insensitive to the role that mental illness and struggle play for a significant portion of the population, making the concept of thriving inaccessible to those who experience significant challenges in life.
This participatory research project will first expand conceptualisations of wellbeing by drawing together personal narratives to discover a model of wellbeing that encapsulates a broad range of human experiences. Then, combining participants lived experiences with systematic review of existing academic research and practices from psychology, education, organisations, and healthcare, an engaging application (app) will be iteratively developed over time, which will allow a user to identify their own personal model of wellbeing, discover strategies and practices that can easily be applied in everyday life to more consistently experience wellbeing, and share their own successes and challenges with others, collectively supporting wellbeing.
Supporting the Foundation's strategy, the proposed project is centred on supporting human flourishing, making thriving accessible to a broader range of people. The two phases directly address the strategic stages of discovery and development.

Opportunity

We aim to advance theory, research, and practice within the wellbeing sciences by:
Extending existing paradigms of thriving to better incorporate the experiences and perspectives of people with varying degrees of mental health struggle.
Giving voice to participants' individual journeys through life.
Empowering people to define, choose, and take action on their own wellbeing.
Making academic research practical and accessible to wider audiences.
Helping participants to understand their wellbeing as part of a connected human social system, resulting in positive impacts on both individual and collective thriving.
Identifying and affecting underlying paradigms around mental health.

Roadblocks

To balance individual flexibility with finding enough commonalities to provide recommendations, a large number of people need to be included, purposely drawn from diverse backgrounds and experiences.
Individual voice is critical to the project, but if people are unwilling or not invited to participate, resulting algorithms will be biased.
Well tested interventions often are ineffective within real world applications, such that review of the literature might be unhelpful.
It is crucial that processes used, algorithms developed, and the resulting app is able to rapidly identify and manage participants at risk of harm to themselves or others.

Breakthroughs Needed

For many who have experienced mental health challenges, existing norms stigmas can make thriving, as typically conceptualised, inaccessible. Our team includes a film crew who are currently a documentary ("How to Thrive"), which features a broad range of thriving journeys. The documentary makes wellbeing more accessible through everyday human stories. The proposed project aligns with the documentary's impact campaign, creating mutual benefit and possibility for greater impact.
The participatory approach prioritises individual voice. We will draw particularly on the value of narrative, with the added value of film, to allow diverse perspectives to be heard and respected. Participatory research assumes that each participant brings their own expertise, which is valued and necessary for the success of the project. The app will be developed through rapid iteration with continual feedback from participants, identifying which interventions and activities work for whom, and where modifications are needed.
We will work closely with participants to monitor and identify discomfort and build checks into the system to make sure the model is working well. Our team will include mental health professionals, and any indicators of potential harm will subsequently be incorporated within the algorithms that are developed over time.

Key Indicators of Success

3 years:
Broad range of participants included the project, with thousands of personal stories collected and analysed.
Wellbeing framework that easily resonates with people from diverse backgrounds developed.
Systematic review of strategies for supporting wellbeing completed.
Database of activities for supporting wellbeing, based on the literature, participants' experiences, and trialling activities online developed.
Beta version of the app developed.
Year 5:
Full version of the app developed and well tested.
Clear protocols for identifying potential harm available and disseminated.
Growing use of, engagement with, and benefit from the app.
Plan for broader impact and subsequent scaling developed.

Additional Information

The research project will be headed up by Dr Margaret (Peggy) L Kern, an Associate Professor in Positive Psychology at Melbourne University's Graduate School of Education. Dr Kern's life's work has been to examine questions around who thrives in life and why, measuring and identifying the individual and social factors that impact life trajectories and building systems for wellbeing.
The team collaborating on this project includes Beyondedge; a film and interactive media production company. Beyondedge has expertise in digital development, eLearning, story and narrative development, concept and creative development and project management. Beyondedge has a track record of delivering similar projects for corporate and government clients.
Collaborating with this project is Duy Huynh and Andrew Kelly, film producers on a feature documentary, "How to Thrive" due for release in Q3 2021. The film documents the stories of 12 participants with mental health struggles who volunteer for a trial to learn how to thrive. The film's mission aligns with this project's objectives and indeed Templeton's vision of translating scientific research on human flourishing into practical tools. And with the film, will come an engaged, motivated and willing audience for this research project, with the tools developed on this project providing a tangible way for audiences to begin to put into practise the interventions the practical tools that will make a difference to the trajectory of their lives.
If this project receives funding, it would significantly raise the reach and impact of the 'How to Thrive' movement that will provide a platform for community groups, corporates, schools, mental health organisations, industry bodies and government decision-makers to begin a conversation about flourishing and to begin to interact with tools that will make a difference.
There's also a significant library of footage and case studies of participants' stories, interviews with the world's leading experts on flourishing and cinematically shot footage that deserves a home beyond the feature film.
Dr Margaret L Kern: http://www.peggykern.org/
How to Thrive Film: https://documentaryaustralia.com.au/project/how-to-thrive/