Three interconnected dimensions
We all know the difference it makes if we are greeted with a smile. We all know how good it feels if people really listen to what we are saying. We all know how working together with others can achieve things we could never have done on our own. This is the heart of relational wellbeing (RWB): we experience wellbeing in company with others, and how we treat each other makes all the difference.
Our research shows connection is central to relational wellbeing (relational), but that isn’t all. Wellbeing is also about how we are thinking and feeling (subjective). And about what we can be and do, which often depends on what we have (material).
The RELATIONAL Wellbeing Dimensions
Targeting wellbeing drivers
RWB goes beyond the experience of wellbeing to address the underlying conditions that promote healthy environments and happy lives. It targets three forms of underlying drivers of wellbeing to achieve systemic change.
- Personal drivers refer to differences between individuals.
For example, being in chronic pain tends to reduce wellbeing; having people who love and support you may help you keep going through difficult times. - Societal drivers refer to differences between groups.
They reflect how society is set up – including the economy, culture, technology and politics. For example, more equal communities are more likely to thrive. The same kinds of factors affect our organisations. We call these institutional drivers. - Environmental drivers refer to differences by place and the interdependence between living beings and the earth.
For example, children are less likely to flourish in neighbourhoods that are cramped or polluted, or where there is little access to outside space for play.
The RELATIONAL Wellbeing Drivers
In practice, personal, societal and institutional, and environmental drivers tend to interact. For example, political decisions (societal drivers) determine the style of housing (environmental drivers) that affects how people interact with their neighbours (personal drivers). Positive shifts in the drivers of wellbeing will help shape future contexts that will be more likely to advance or sustain, rather than undermine, wellbeing.
RWB sees change as powered by interaction, rather than by individual actors or factors.
Taking a relational approach to wellbeing
At the core of RWB is relational thinking. This emphasises flow, movement, and the interplay between diverse actors and factors that are usually separated into different domains or sectors or disciplines.
The RELATIONAL Approach
In programmes to promote wellbeing, this makes us alert to unintended consequences and potential spill-over effects beyond a particular intervention. It also raises awareness of synergies, tensions and trade-offs between outcomes for different aspects of life, different kinds of people, people and the planet, and present and future generations.
Relational working involves engaging co-operatively with the people who are subjects of the change sought and collaborating with other initiatives to build broader coalitions. It means that how we work matters: we aim to promote virtuous circles of impact, through interactions that foster dignity and respect and strengthen local capacity and/or resilience.
Approaching people as relational subjects involves adopting a person-centred approach, seeing people as subjects of their lives, not objects of our interventions. It means recognising how people are embedded in their contexts and understanding how relationships structure the opportunities they face and the decisions they make.
The RWB approach
Applying RWB involves using a relational approach to co-design and operationalise sustainable wellbeing strategies:
The RELATIONAL WELLBEING Approach
A successful programme will spark ongoing cycles of interaction between wellbeing outcomes and drivers, with the potential to generate systemic change.