Networks of Support

10/09/2026

Many of us have tried developing a skill on our own. Consider tennis. Anyone who has reached a high level of proficiency understands that it takes significant time, practice, and guidance. But practice alone is not enough. You may develop an excellent forehand while your backhand remains at a beginner level. Mastery of one skill does not automatically transfer to another or make you a proficient player.

Higher proficiency often comes through coaching or mentoring from someone who understands the learner's starting point, provides immediate feedback, corrects mistakes before they become habits, and ensures accountability.

This is facilitation. It transforms practice into competent practice. The same principle applies to individuals and systems. The goal is transferring skills, not simply information.

Competent practice supports progression from beginner to proficient and ultimately to mastery. Master trainers must work alongside developing facilitators in their own environments until they demonstrate proficiency and independence. Without sustained coaching and accountability, training principles erode.

Sustainable, high-fidelity implementation requires embedded support until practitioners demonstrate independent competence.

Current research confirms that a system's development level depends on the proficiency of those providing guidance. Beginner coaches develop beginner skills; proficient coaches support higher proficiency. Mastery requires mastery-level coaching.

Using mastery-level language does not ensure mastery-level skills.

Our responsibility extends beyond providing information. We must create conditions for people to apply it competently and responsibly. Proficiency is progress. It is not mastery. Exposure is not competence.

Completing training does not ensure readiness for real-world application. We invest heavily in programs, yet knowledge alone does not produce competent practice.

Facilitation bridges the gap between understanding and application. It creates opportunities to question, test ideas, analyze mistakes, and develop skills through feedback, coaching, and informal guidance. This is not a soft hand-off, but a high level of accountability to ensure skills transfer.

Knowledge → Facilitation → Competent Practice → Outcomes

Much critical learning occurs after training through peer collaboration, reflection, and targeted problem-solving. Without ongoing support, systems experience Voltage Drop—the gradual erosion of knowledge, skills, and fidelity as information moves through the system.

To prevent this, professional development must occur where the work happens. Grounded in Ecological Validity, skill development should be guided by demonstrated competence rather than arbitrary training schedules.

Competence isn't transferred. It is developed.

09/30/2026

Cultivating Contributors: Fostering Collective Intelligence Over Passive Dependency

The Research is clear: people who contribute to their social networks feel more connected to them.

Yet, in the traditional landscape of professional development, learning is frequently reduced to a linear transaction: the expert transmits information to a passive recipient. While formalized training and top-down expertise still play an essential role in introducing foundational competencies, this unidirectional framework inherently limits growth.

Robust professional networks demand a more dynamic architecture, one where expertise is not localized in a single authority but can circulate freely. In this open network, individuals bring diverse backgrounds of lived experiences, technical knowledge, pedagogical inquiries, and distinct strengths.

Knowledge→ Facilitation→ Contribution→ Competent Practice→ Outcomes

This reciprocity reshapes how institutions evaluate efficacy. The ultimate objective of an open network is not to create a cohort of ideological followers. Rather, the goal is to develop autonomous practitioners capable of independent judgment and fluent practice. Individuals who actively return their expertise to the community move that community from consumption to contribution.

At its best, traditional professional development starts with diagnosis. It identifies those who struggle, pinpoints systemic failures, and deploys targeted interventions. At its worst, this interaction reduces development to a transactional "find em and fix em" methodology.

An open network-based approach does not replace necessary developmental interventions, but it introduces a secondary, strengths-based lens.

It approaches development through three critical inquiries:
• What distinct strengths do individuals already possess?
• How can these strengths be leveraged to benefit the broader network?
• How do we systematically acknowledge and sustain the engagement of these strengths?

This paradigm shift has profound implications within educational institutions. While not everyone will engage in traditional formal training, everyone within a system is embedded in a web of daily interactions with peers, educators, families, and mentors.

By leveraging an open network model, academic institutions can transform these organic, everyday relationships into a healthy protective environment. By integrating formal training with an open network model, institutions can unlock a wide range of simultaneous gains.

Authored with Todd McGowan

09/24/2026

School Administrators often share that they receive more than 50 emails and numerous calls each week promoting products and programs.

Imagine what a conversation might look like if we could sit in a room with leading researchers to explore prevention and the impact of healthy social networks.

What if we created space for thoughtful dialogue, shared knowledge, and meaningful questions, with professionals in education, mental health, and research who have high levels of expertise in their environments guiding the conversation around system change?

We recognize our unique position as the only educators with access to university and Air Force researchers, as well as unlimited school staff and administration.

We believe it is our professional responsibility to share what we have learned that will reshape prevention approaches in our professional environments.

We believe we can gain a great deal from this kind of exchange.

The Power of an Open Network: Beyond Information Sharing

We live in an era of unprecedented access to information. Programs, resources, and expert insights are available with a single click. Yet access to information is different from access to one another—and this distinction lies at the heart of an open network.

An open network creates an interconnected ecosystem where professionals share insights, contribute lived experiences, ask questions, challenge assumptions, and integrate diverse perspectives.

Information alone rarely drives lasting change. Sustainable transformation is built through relationships, role modeling, deliberate practice, reflection, and mutual accountability.

This is especially important across prevention, mental health, and education. Healthy organizational cultures and supportive social networks strengthen emotional regulation and executive functioning, foster belonging, and provide guided support.

Lasting improvement rarely comes from layering on another packaged program or curriculum. It comes from strengthening the relationships and conditions that allow healthy environments to thrive. The challenge goes beyond making research available. It lies in translating complex evidence into practical, sustainable tools.

This is where a network’s power emerges: one member shares an idea, another adds practical context, a third connects it to research, while others ask questions or challenge assumptions. Through collaboration, collective thinking grows stronger.

True openness requires transparency about what works and what we have yet to discover. It means acknowledging limitations, safeguarding against unintended consequences, welcoming scrutiny, and changing practice when the data dictates.

This is not merely a preference; it is an ethical mandate.

Commercial products hold value, but when a product becomes the center, participation can shift from collaboration toward consumption. When the human network remains central, participants become contributors rather than consumers.

Our professional dialogue should reflect this philosophy:
Here is what we are learning. What are you seeing in your environment? What would you add, and where might our blind spots be?

Ultimately, the value of an open network is not defined by what any individual knows, but by what becomes possible when we have authentic, ongoing access to one another.

08/04/2026

08/04/2026

Shout-out and recognition to these amazing people who, in the past year, have put their time, energy, discipline, and dedication into becoming proficient/mastery-level facilitators.

Who, every day, have invested in their communities. Quietly and with expertise, are creating sustainable change.

What if lasting improvement depends less on what people learn and more on how they learn together?

For decades, learning has been built on a simple assumption:
If people receive the right knowledge and awareness, improvement will follow.

Knowledge informs.

Awareness reveals.

Neither, on their own, transforms systems.

Sustainable improvement happens when people are intentionally connected in ways that enable them to contribute and improve together.

Over time, with multiple opportunities to learn together. Approaches designed and built by and within the community (authentic, organic, grassroots, culturally relevant) yield higher transfer of beliefs and skills into daily life.

It requires four important shifts.

1. From Observation to Contribution
Create opportunities for everyone to contribute their experience, expertise, and perspective.
Collective expertise is greater than individual expertise.

2. From Knowledge Transfer to Transfer of Learning
Learning isn't measured by what people know.
It's measured by what they apply, adapt, share, and improve together over time.

3. From Compliance to Collective Accountability
Compliance asks, "Did you do it?"
Collective accountability asks, "How are we helping one another improve?"

4. From Delivering Content to Facilitating Capacity
The goal isn't simply to provide answers.
It's to create the conditions where people build the capacity to address today's challenges—and tomorrow's.

Here's what I've come to believe:
Knowledge informs thinking.
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Awareness changes perception.
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Facilitation changes interactions.
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Interactions strengthen relationships.
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Relationships influence behavior.
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Behavior shapes culture.
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Culture transforms systems.

Organizations don't change because individuals know more.

They change because the quality of interactions changes.
People don't transform systems.

The quality of their interactions does.

Facilitation is the intentional practice of improving those interactions.

Maybe professional learning doesn't need another program.

Maybe it needs a new theory of change.

Maybe we need to go further than knowledge and awareness.

08/03/2026

Research since 2020 on Prevention, specifically Network-Based approaches, clearly shows this is the conversation we need to have but are not having.

Program Evaluation: Looking Beyond Intended Outcomes

A 102-year-old veteran was once asked the secret to his longevity. He smiled and replied, "I smoke a cigarette and drink a shot of wh***ey every day."

It's a memorable story—but not a sound public health recommendation.

What works for one person should not automatically become a program for everyone else. Personal experience is valuable, but it is not the same as evidence.

Communities are surrounded by programs, products, and initiatives promising better outcomes. Many may help individuals. Far fewer have demonstrated that they strengthen an entire system.

That is why program evaluation matters.

Evaluation has two responsibilities:
• Did the program achieve its intended outcomes?
• What unintended consequences emerged after implementation?

The second question is often overlooked.

One unintended consequence is Hidden Risk.

Traditional programs often depend on identifying people who show warning signs. Yet many individuals who struggle never ask for help, never meet screening criteria, and remain invisible until a crisis occurs. They are hidden—not because they are absent, but because our systems were not designed to see them.

A network-based approach addresses this differently. Rather than relying solely on identifying individuals, it strengthens relationships across the entire community. When connections become stronger, people experiencing hidden risk become more connected instead of more isolated.

A second unintended consequence is Pruning.

When we repeatedly invite the same students or staff into leadership groups, mentoring opportunities, advisory councils, or wellness initiatives, we may unintentionally strengthen those who are already well connected while leaving others on the margins.

The hidden remain hidden, and vulnerable members gradually become disconnected.

Every intervention changes a community in ways both intended and unintended.

Perhaps the most important questions we can ask are:
Who benefited? Who did not?

Communities become stronger not by implementing more programs, but by building relationship networks that make fewer people invisible.

07/31/2026

Todd McGowan and I asked Dr. J., who recently received the title of “Professor Emeritus” from her university and has 53 years in education and expertise in evidence-based pedagogical and student engagement practices, to review our White Paper.

She generously provided feedback—and wrote a summary of our work that was simply too good not to share.
The White Paper, “Belonging by Design: A School-Based Approach to Mental Health" can be found on Tim’s LinkedIn page.
www.linkedin.com/in/tim-mcgowan-54588814a
Or you can dm us for a copy.

Dr. J.

We're not failing because we care too little. We're failing because we keep solving the wrong problem.

Our students are not failing.

We are failing them when we continue investing in fragmented, one-size-fits-all interventions while overlooking the systems that shape their daily experiences.

We fail them when we focus on deficits instead of strengths, isolation instead of connection, and symptoms instead of root causes.

Schools are more than places of instruction. They are ecosystems of human relationships. Yet too often, our response to growing social and emotional challenges is to add another program rather than strengthen the network that surrounds every student.

What if we shifted our focus?

Instead of asking, "How do we fix individual students?" we asked, "How do we build school communities where students are less likely to struggle in the first place?"

Research continues to remind us that relationships matter. Connection matters. Belonging matters.

Students shouldn't simply receive support—they should help create it. When young people have meaningful opportunities to lead, contribute, and shape their school culture, trust becomes the outcome of collaboration, not the prerequisite.

This requires moving beyond isolated interventions toward evidence-informed, whole-system approaches that strengthen relationships, build social networks, and develop adaptive leadership across the entire school community.

Good intentions are important.

Evidence is essential.

And lasting change happens when schools intentionally cultivate connection—not as an add-on, but as part of how they operate every day.

The question isn't, "What's wrong with our students?"

The better question is:
What are our systems doing—or failing to do—to help every student feel connected, valued, and able to thrive?

That's where transformation begins.

07/30/2026

Preparing for Change

Sustainable school improvement rarely begins with a new program.

It begins by creating the conditions that allow effective implementation.

Think of a basketball team. Players can master individual skills, but unless they learn to communicate, solve problems together, and function as a team, success remains limited. Schools are no different.

Too often, schools accumulate initiatives—trainings, webinars, toolkits, and programs—that compete for attention. The result is predictable: confusion, diminished buy-in, and implementation fatigue.

Schools are interconnected social systems. New practices spread through relationships, not simply through professional development. They take root when trusted colleagues and respected leaders model, reinforce, and support them.
The same conditions that strengthen learning also strengthen well-being.

When students feel safe, known, valued, and connected, they engage more deeply, persist through challenges, and seek help when needed. Strong school culture is not separate from academic success—it helps create it.

A network-based approach shifts improvement from individual effort to collective responsibility. Educators learn together, solve problems together, and build shared accountability.
Implementation must be adapted to local context without weakening the framework’s core mechanisms. Students differ in experience and readiness.

Collaboration, inclusion, emotional regulation, and self-reflection therefore require explicit instruction, structured practice, modeling, and ongoing reinforcement.

A network-based approach turns improvement into collective work. Educators learn together, solve problems collaboratively, reinforce shared expectations, and accept mutual accountability. Individual and organizational success become mutually reinforcing.

Before launching the next initiative, schools should prepare for sustainable change by asking:

• What problem are we trying to solve?
• What actions are required?
• What support will ensure successful implementation?

Sustainable culture is built through repeated shared experiences—not isolated events or one-time programs.

Leadership matters because leaders create the conditions where people can participate, collaborate, and succeed together.

Sustainable improvement isn't about doing more.
It's about creating the conditions that allow the right work to take root and endure.

What conditions have made the biggest difference in your school or organization?

07/30/2026

Co-authored with Todd McGowan, Mental Health/Social, Emotional, Behavioral Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) Coordinator, Department of Teaching, Learning and Equity, Duluth, MN, Public School District - ISD 709

A Networks of Support Framework for Schools

This series introduces a practical framework for strengthening relationships, building belonging, and improving well-being across schools and communities. At its foundation is a validated approach we describe as Networks of Support Prevention—a systems framework informed by prevention science, implementation science, and network science.

What Is a Network-Based Framework?

A Network-Based Framework strengthens the relationships, shared norms, and everyday connections that protect an entire community. Rather than relying solely on individuals to seek help or be identified as at risk, it creates an environment where people are more connected, supported, and prepared to respond to one another.

Consider a basketball team that practices only individual skills but never trains together. Coaches may address individual weaknesses and assign drills, but few would expect the team to perform well unless players also learn to communicate, solve problems, and function as a team. Individual talent matters, but success ultimately depends on how well the team works together.

Su***de prevention has traditionally focused on the individual through therapy, medication, crisis response, targeted interventions, and self-help. These services are essential and save lives, but they cannot reach everyone who needs protection. Many people who die by su***de have not received mental health care in the months before their death, while others show few recognizable warning signs or do not meet traditional screening criteria (Wyman, 2020,2022)

A Networks of Support Framework complements—not replaces—individual services. Instead of asking only Who needs help? it also asks, How do we create a community where everyone is more connected, supported, and resilient?

This perspective draws on principles of social learning and network enhancement. Awareness alone rarely produces lasting behavior change. Trainings, presentations, webinars, videos, and toolkits can increase knowledge and establish a common language, but durable skills develop through observation, repeated practice, reflection, feedback, and everyday interaction.
As healthy behaviors spread through social connections, they become shared expectations rather than individual responsibilities. People reinforce one another's actions, respected members model healthy norms, and those who struggle gain support through stronger relationships.

A Network-Based Framework therefore strengthens protection at two levels: individuals and the relationships that surround them. Support becomes distributed across the community rather than concentrated in a few professionals or formal services, creating a stronger and more resilient system for everyone.

Why Schools Need a Different Approach

Schools today face initiative fatigue, program overload, and staff burnout. The problem is rarely a lack of commitment. Instead, it is the recurring belief that one more program can solve complex organizational challenges.

As initiatives accumulate, confusion, skepticism, diminished buy-in, and implementation fatigue become predictable. Schools often receive brief trainings, webinars, toolkits, and commercially developed programs that are difficult to integrate into daily practice and have limited evidence of sustained impact.
Far less attention has been devoted to strengthening the social networks that already shape school life. Research and implementation experience consistently show that lasting improvement depends less on adding programs than on strengthening relationships, organizational structures, facilitation, and implementation processes. Our work has repeatedly reinforced this lesson.

The same conditions that promote learning also foster resilience and well-being. When students feel safe, valued, known, and connected, they engage more fully, take appropriate academic risks, persist through challenges, and seek help when needed. Clear expectations, meaningful work, collaboration, and reflection strengthen both academic achievement and belonging.
These are not competing priorities. Healthy school environments improve learning while strengthening emotional well-being. Educators working within strong professional networks also report greater collaboration, collective efficacy, and commitment. Plan for both. Achieve both.

Network-based approaches are especially valuable because they reach students who may never access formal mental health services but remain connected to peers and trusted adults. They strengthen school connectedness, trusted relationships, problem-solving, help-seeking, and awareness of available resources.

Schools are not problems to be solved. They are living ecosystems of relationships among students, staff, families, and communities. Lasting improvement occurs when the people doing the work help create the solution and when effective practices become embedded in daily interactions rather than added as separate initiatives.

The central lesson is simple: sustainable prevention begins not by adding more programs, but by strengthening the relationships, networks, and collective capacity already present within the school community.

07/28/2026

Excited and proud to share an update on the Air Force research project and future expansion.

Over the past year, in collaboration with university researchers and hundreds of professional educators, Todd and I wrote this six-part series to share relevant, current, and validated research to guide educational systems in Prevention.

Purpose
This series is designed to help facilitators move participants beyond awareness toward implementation.

The objective is not simply to understand Networks of Support Prevention, but to begin applying its principles within schools, organizations, and communities. Every section encourages discussion, reflection, planning, and collaborative problem solving.

Part 1
From Research to Practice

One of the greatest challenges in prevention is translating research into everyday practice. For more than a decade, Tim has helped bridge that gap through his work with the Wingman Guardian Connect (WGC) research project as a lead trainer and consultant with the University of Rochester and SafeSide Prevention. Working alongside Drs. Wyman and Pisani and Mr. Yates has provided a unique opportunity to contribute to research that is producing measurable improvements in prevention and resilience.

After 13 years of development, implementation, and validation, WGC was selected as the U.S. Air Force's prevention and resilience program and is now being implemented worldwide, with an additional military branch preparing for adoption.
The research has demonstrated meaningful improvements in prevention and mental health outcomes, yet much of this evidence remains unfamiliar outside academic and professional circles. Unless someone regularly follows journals such as JAMA, Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, or Social Science & Medicine, or works directly with the research team, these findings are rarely seen.

Additional studies and resources are available through the Networks of Support website.

Developed with Department of Defense support, WGC addresses two longstanding gaps in military resilience training: strengthening relationship networks early in an airman's career and teaching practical skills that support long-term resilience. These goals are increasingly important as loneliness and social disconnection continue to affect many young adults entering military service.

WGC also reflects a different philosophy of prevention. One-size-fits-all training can easily become a compliance exercise with limited engagement or lasting impact. Instead, WGC combines research-validated content with facilitated group learning, deliberate practice, and rigorous quality assurance. As the largest workforce prevention study conducted to date, it demonstrates how research-validated programs can be implemented at scale while maintaining scientific integrity.
A randomized controlled trial involving approximately 1,500 Air Force personnel found reductions in su***de risk and depressive symptoms, along with improvements in occupational performance, cohesion, morale, relationships, and help-seeking behaviors (JAMA, 2020). Because of these findings, the National Institute of Mental Health continues to support research examining how implementation fidelity can be maintained as the program expands.

Implementation fidelity means delivering a program as designed while preserving the elements responsible for its effectiveness. Even well-intentioned changes in content or facilitation can weaken outcomes. WGC therefore emphasizes not only what works, but also how effective practices are taught, reinforced, evaluated, and sustained.

Two factors have been central to the program's success: highly skilled trainers and a rigorous quality-assurance process. Participants do not simply receive information. They learn through modeling, guided discussion, peer interaction, reflection, feedback, and repeated practice within their existing social networks.

Why a Network-Based Framework Matters

A Network-Based Framework offers four important advantages.
Validated Results – A randomized controlled trial led by Dr. Peter Wyman demonstrated significant reductions in su***de risk and depressive symptoms while improving occupational performance, cohesion, morale, relationships, and acceptance of help-seeking behaviors (JAMA, 2020).

Scientific Fidelity – Few prevention programs have demonstrated both strong theoretical foundations and measurable effectiveness. Investing in approaches that have not been adequately evaluated risks wasting resources and may produce unintended consequences.

Reaching the Vulnerable – Network-based approaches help identify and support individuals whose risk often remains hidden and who may be overlooked by traditional screening methods. Rather than becoming more isolated, these individuals become better connected to supportive peers—a critical advantage, since many people who die by su***de have not received mental health care in the months preceding their death.

Universal Application – Rather than focusing solely on diagnosis and treatment, WGC strengthens protective factors across entire communities by building healthy relationships, positive group norms, and shared responsibility. The model has already been adapted for law enforcement, faith communities, and educational settings.

Current work with colleagues in education is translating the principles of the Networks of Support Framework into practical resources for schools. The goal is not simply to share research, but to make evidence understandable, usable, and sustainable in everyday practice.

Research has value only when it improves practice. The chapters that follow build on these findings by exploring how network-based prevention can strengthen schools, organizations, and communities while remaining both evidence-informed and practical.

Co-authored with Todd McGowan, Mental Health/Social, Emotional, Behavioral Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) Coordinator, Department of Teaching, Learning and Equity, Duluth, MN, Public School District - ISD 709