Our Mission:
A Way Forward reimagines and implements new ways of addressing challenging social problems.
We are in process of acquiring non-profit status.
We operate with a distinctive framework that to engages scholarship and theory in balance with an ongoing and iterative practice of discovery, growth that is unafraid to fa
What makes us different?
A Way Forward (AWF) has developed a community-based, psychoanalytically-informed intervention model to better cultivate and sustain meaningful change in clients, staff and organizations .
- This holistic approach directly integrates both theory and practice as applied to social problems and is better equipped to heal the wonder community and those who live, work and play within it.
- In contrast to many other agencies developing their programs and services in a vacuum, the AWF framework is predicated on community -wide engagement. This model allows for a wide-range of voices to foster and develop needs assessments, idea generation, program/service development, and effective evaluation tools. Each member of the community is respected and given the tools to participate. A framework which elevates and amplifies all voices is critical to developing an accurate understanding of a social problem and seeking innovative solutions.
- This approach allows AWF to consistently integrate the fight for economic and racial justice, as opposed to adding-it on as an “extra purpose.”
- Advocating for systems change, seeking justice and maximizing human potential happens on the ground, everyday, in all of our actions.
Why are current solutions not working effectively?
- Current solutions focus on the individual as the location of social problem problems, ignoring the role that policies, systems and institutions contribute.
- Burnout and trauma (both direct and secondary) are accepted by products of non-profit work –especially when working with people who are vulnerable and marginalized.
- Personal and systemic resistances are natural responses to growth and change. This kind of resistance will often discourage and deter people from trying to make lasting change.People feel hopelessness because the problem is so big and they feel so small.
- People have been trained not to join forces due to a capitalistic framework that teaches us that other enterprises are the competition. As a result, people miss out on the benefit and greater impact a group can provide.
What are basic tenets?
- Our model is better able to address pernicious and persistent social challenges by facilitating personal connections and improving the integration of the web of community systems into a network of partners for change.
- We are able to see previously invisible problems and more creative solutions when we look more deeply into the interstitial spaces between people and between institutions. This inevitable speaks to a process of understanding and an ongoing engagement with the interactive practice of change as opposed to a simple act or effort.
- With access to a just and equitable social container and relationship builder such as AWF, healing and growth are supported and people are able to flourish.