THE FLOURISHING WORLD PROGRAMME

The Flourishing World Programme recognises that change needs to occur at many levels. 

In addition to working at individual and collective levels with education and business organisations, we seek to influence public policy in several ways:

 
1. Membership of advocacy and policy-making organisations

• ​FWP Director, Felicia Huppert, is a Member of the Advisory Committee of Prevention United (Australia), which believes we should tackle the root causes of mental health problems so that we can prevent them from happening www.preventionunited.org.au

• She is also a Member of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance (WEAll), which puts human and ecological wellbeing at the heart of economic policy and budgets www.weall.org

• Felicia recently published a short article entitled, “Now more than ever Australia needs a wellbeing budget” www.thefifthestate.com.au/business/public-community/now-more-than-ever-australia-needs-a-wellbeing-budget

 
2. Collaborating with organisations that have a similar mandate 

The Flourishing World Programme has engaged with the Sydney University's Mental Wealth Initiative, which recognises that a nation's mental wealth (the total of human cognitive and emotional health and wellbeing) is the foundation for social and economic productivity, so aims to increase national prosperity by increasing mental wealth. 

www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2021/10/18/australia-needs-a-mental-wealth-lens-on-covid-recovery.html

 
3. Enhancing politicians' psychological resources

Felicia is a Member of the Australian Expert Group of the Mindfulness Initiative www.themindfulnessinitiative.org, which believes that the capacities of heart and mind can and should be central to public policy making, and offers mindfulness and compassion training to politicians and their staff in countries around the world. One of their goals is to help politicians make wiser decisions by looking at their beliefs, not just through their beliefs, thereby reducing polarisation and increasing cooperation. 

 
4. Evaluating wellbeing outcomes of policies and budget expenditure

A scientific approach is essential to the measurement and monitoring of wellbeing outcomes.

• Felicia was a Member of the Technical Advisory Group, UK Office for National Statistics ‘Measuring National Wellbeing’ which developed a set of subjective wellbeing measures that are currently used to evaluate changes in wellbeing, regional differences, and wellbeing inequalities.

• The Flourishing World Programme is in discussion with the Australian National Development Index (ANDI) team to develop wellbeing measures based on extensive consultation and surveys of large population samples, to establish what outcomes really matter to Australians.

 
Policy-oriented scholarly publications

• Huppert, F.A. & Ruggeri, K. (2018). Policy challenges: Well-being as a priority in public mental health.Chapter 15 in D. Bhugra, K. Bhul, S. Wong, S. Gillman (eds) Oxford Textbook of Public Mental Health. Oxford University Press, Oxford, p131-140.

• Huppert, F.A. (2014). The state of well-being science: concepts, measures, interventions and policies in F.A. Huppert & C.L. Cooper (Eds.) “Interventions and Policies to Enhance Well-being”. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, p1-49.