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Belonging Framework

Last updated 7/17/2026
Our Belonging framework identifies seven core domains that were developed out of our Fortifying Futures (FF) project. FF learnings found that experiencing a majority of them is necessary to foster true youth wellbeing.
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  • Basic needs: Efforts that help satisfy life essentials like food, home and transportation, help reduce existential stresses and demonstrate to youth that they are valued.
  • Wellbeing: Accessible, culturally-affirming, infrastructure and ecosystem that promotes wellbeing, especially behavioral wellbeing, helps people traverse many experiences and allows them to better know themselves.
  • Building Skills: Expand learning through community-based education and skill-sharing relationships to help young people discover, develop and celebrate their talents and interests, while staying true to youth’s needs, voice and their inherent brilliance. In doing so, we show youth the community’s investment in them.
  • Intergenerational Connection: Regular interactions and learning across generations builds a sense of care with certainty that “all youth are our youth” and helps youth and adults feel accountable to one another.
  • Space: The co-development of spaces – both virtual and physical – thanks to strategic placement, aesthetic components, resources and messages, where youth feel fully understood and celebrated.
  • Safeness: Built and natural environments that engender a true sense of safeness – without promulgating false narratives about unsafety – allow youth to attend to their growth, take risks and know that the community cares about them.
  • Promoting Identity: The intentional celebration of youth’s identity, journeys, voice and culture in community helps them feel seen and appreciated.