Reducing the "science-to-practice" gap has gained significant attention across multi-disciplinary settings, including school psychology and student wellbeing, trauma-informed practice, community and human services, and clinically focused health care. There has been increasing calls for complexity and contextualisation to be integrated within the implementation science literature. This includes the design and implementation of interventions spanning "systems" (whole-of-community capacity building initiatives), "programs" (e.g., evidence-based programs, clinical interventions) and "moment-to-moment" support or care. The latter includes responses and communication designed to deliver specific learning, growth or wellbeing outcomes, as personalised to an individual's presenting needs and context (e.g., trauma-informed practice). Collectively, this paper refers to these interventions as "wellbeing solutions". While the implementation science literature offers a range of theories, models and approaches to reduce the science-to-practice gap in wellbeing solution design and implementation, they do not operationalise interventions into the "moment", in a manner that honours both complexity and contextualisation. Furthermore, the literature's language and content is largely targeted towards scientific or professional audiences. This paper makes the argument that both best-practice science, and the frameworks that underpin their implementation, need to be "sticky", practical and visible for both scientific and non-scientific knowledge users. In response to these points, this paper introduces "intentional practice" as a common language, approach and set of methods, founded upon non-scientific language, to guide the design, adaptation and implementation of both simple and complex wellbeing solutions. It offers a bridge between scientists and knowledge users in the translation, refinement and contextualisation of interventions designed to deliver clinical, wellbeing, growth, therapeutic and behavioural outcomes. A definitional, contextual and applied overview of intentional practice is provided, including its purported application across educational, wellbeing, cross-cultural, clinical, therapeutic, programmatic and community capacity building contexts.

With mental illness remaining a significant burden of disease, there is an ongoing need for community-based health promotion, prevention, and responses (or “mental health promotion activities”). The health promotion, community development, and positive psychology literature identifies significant heterogeneity in the design and delivery of these activities. This variability spans: (1) individual vs. group outcomes, (2) psychological vs. sociological determinants of change, (3) promoting wellbeing vs. reducing mental health symptoms, and (4) the degree activities are contextualized vs. standardized in design and delivery. Mental health promotion activities do not easily accomplish this level of complexity within design and implementation. This has led to the emergence of the complexity-informed health promotion literature and the need for innovative tools, methods, and theories to drive this endeavor. This article directly responds to this call. It introduces “wellbeing-responsive community”: a vision and outcome hierarchy (or growth target) for intentionally delivered mental health promotion. The construct enables the design and implementation of interventions that intentionally respond to complexity and contextualization through the drivers of co-creation, intentionality, and local empowerment. It represents a community (support team, programme, agency, network, school, or region) that has the shared language, knowledge, methods, and skills to work together in shared intent. In other words, to integrate best-practice science with their local knowledge systems and existing strengths, and intentionally co-create and deliver contextualized wellbeing solutions at both the individual and community levels that span the “system” (e.g., whole-of-community) to the “moment” (e.g., intentional support and care). Co-creation, as applied through a transdisciplinary lens, is emerging as an evidence-based method to respond to complexity. This article describes the rationale and evidence underpinning the conceptualization of a wellbeing-responsive community through the integration of three key disciplines: (1) positive psychology, (2) ecological or systems approaches, and (3) intentional practice (implementation science). A definitional, contextual, and applied overview of the wellbeing-responsive community is provided, including a hierarchy of outcomes and associated definitions. Its purported application across education, mental health, community service, and organizational settings is discussed, including its potential role in making complexity-informed health promotion practical for all knowledge users.

Children and young people with backgrounds of trauma, and supported in residential programs (group care, residential treatment, wilderness therapy, and outdoor behavioral healthcare), require interventions underpinned by trauma-informed science. While there is much optimism that trauma-informed services are being integrated into residential care settings, there is evidence of a science to practice gap in how these components are implemented across real-world settings. The purpose of the paper is to introduce 'intentional practice' and growth-focused logic modeling (Life Buoyancy Model; LBM) as a possible method to strengthen the delivery of trauma-informed services at the program level. The paper provides an overview of the modeling and describes how the approach seeks to reduce the science to practice gap in the implementation of trauma-informed service delivery. To aid this process, five core intervention components are proposed to provide a more nuanced understanding of how trauma-informed practice can be implemented. Key considerations are offered for residential care program leaders and program developers to design, refine or review the delivery of locally contextualized program models.

This paper concludes a special feature of Sustainability Science that explores a broad range of social value theoretical traditions, such as religious studies, social psychology, indigenous knowledge, economics, sociology, and philosophy. We introduce the concepts of ‘lenses’ and ‘tensions’ to help navigate value diversity. First, we consider the notion of lenses: perspectives on value and valuation along diverse dimensions that describe what values focus on, how their sociality is envisioned, and what epistemic and procedural assumptions are made. We characterise fourteen of such dimensions. This provides a foundation for exploration of seven areas of tension, between: 1) the values of individuals vs collectives; 2) values as discrete and held vs embedded and constructed; 3) value as static or changeable; 4) valuation as positive or normative and transformative; 5) social vs relational values; 6) different rationalities and their relation to value integration; 7) degrees of acknowledgment of the role of power in navigating value conflicts. In doing so, we embrace the ‘mess’ of diversity, yet also provide a framework to organize this mess and support and encourage active transdisciplinary collaboration. We identify key research areas where such collaborations can be harnessed for sustainability transformation. Here it is crucial to understand how certain social value lenses are privileged over others and build capacity in decisionmaking for understanding and drawing on multiple value, epistemic and procedural lenses.

This paper concludes a special feature of Sustainability Science that explores a broad range of social value theoretical traditions, such as religious studies, social psychology, indigenous knowledge, economics, sociology, and philosophy. We introduce a novel transdisciplinary conceptual framework that revolves around concepts of ‘lenses’ and ‘tensions’ to help navigate value diversity. First, we consider the notion of lenses: perspectives on value and valuation along diverse dimensions that describe what values focus on, how their sociality is envisioned, and what epistemic and procedural assumptions are made. We characterise fourteen of such dimensions. This provides a foundation for exploration of seven areas of tension, between: (1) the values of individuals vs collectives; (2) values as discrete and held vs embedded and constructed; (3) value as static or changeable; (4) valuation as descriptive vs normative and transformative; (5) social vs relational values; (6) different rationalities and their relation to value integration; (7) degrees of acknowledgment of the role of power in navigating value conflicts. In doing so, we embrace the ‘mess’ of diversity, yet also provide a framework to organise this mess and support and encourage active transdisciplinary collaboration. We identify key research areas where such collaborations can be harnessed for sustainability transformation. Here it is crucial to understand how certain social value lenses are privileged over others and build capacity in decision-making for understanding and drawing on multiple value, epistemic and procedural lenses.

Despite the increasing interest in the intersections among values, well-being and environmental outcomes in sustainability science, few studies have considered these relationships by drawing on well-established theories and methods from positive psychology. The aim of this paper is to review three approaches conceptually related to positive psychology (self-determination theory, SDT; character strengths and virtues, CSV; acceptancy and commitment therapy, ACT) and compare these to sustainability approaches to well-being and values. First, we critically compare how values are understood, constructed and operationalised within the positive psychology and environmental values literatures. We offer a summary table to detail key concepts (and articles) which sustainability scientists may draw upon in their work against the dimensions of (1) elicitation process, (2) value provider (3) value concept and (4) value indicators. Second, we critically compare how the positive psychology and environmental values literature have considered the intersections between values and well-being. We identify the positive psychology pathways of 'value activation' and 'healthy-values' as alternative methods for sustainability scientists to consider. Third, we offer future options for the integration of positive psychology and environmental values literatures to deliver interventions which may lead to well-being and sustainability outcomes. We suggest that mindfulness could be applied as a method to clarify and activate values within a nature exposure context, which harnesses the qualities of both disciplines. To demonstrate integrative possibilities, a case example is offered which brings focus to well-being and sustainability outcomes, the intersection of value pathways, and intervention components drawn from both disciplines.

Positive psychology interventions (PPIs) and programs differ markedly in implementation quality. Lower quality implementation is associated with interventions that include multiple components (or PPIs), are delivered across multiple layers (individual, workgroup/classroom and organisation/school) or agency sites, and include cohorts with heterogeneous or complex needs (e.g., trauma). This paper collectively refers to these interventions as ‘complex PPI’s’ or ‘complex programs’. Drawing upon the implementation science literature, we argue that logic modelling represents a method to guide the design and implementation of ‘complex’ interventions. We describe a growth-focused logic model and implementation methodology (titled intentional practice) that operationalises positive psychology outcomes and processes to support program developers to achieve a balance between fidelity and adaptation. The Resilient Futures program, developed by the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) Wellbeing and Resilience Centre, is described as a case example of the approach. This program represents a large scale and multi-site implementation of a resilience and wellbeing skill-building program for 850 young people from disadvantaged backgrounds with heterogeneous needs. The case study describes how logic modelling and intentional practice consolidated early theory building work to operationalise the intervention at the program level, but also to support multi-site nuancing and translation of the program to individual sites and agency/youth needs. The article argues that logic modelling offers a flexible and evidence-based method for program designers, facilitators and researchers to design and implement complex PPI’s or programs. Key considerations for utilising logic models are offered.

Young people living with disadvantage are at elevated risk of a range of negative life outcomes, including social exclusion, impaired health and well-being, and low educational or vocational participation. In this context, the Resilient Futures program was conceptualized and developed as a strength-focused and positive psychology intervention whose design was underpinned by a broad interdisciplinary range of scientific evidence. The program utilizes an ecological framework that sought to target key proximal and distal factors associated with youth social exclusion, disengagement, and disadvantage. The target participant group was 850 disadvantaged young South Australians (aged 16 to 21) drawn from a number of educational, mental health, and youth justice agencies who were project partners in codesigning and supporting the implementation. The intervention was designed to build well-being and resilience skills through explicit (direct teaching) and implicit (mentoring, case management) teaching methods, supported by system-focused methods that build the capacity of service providers. This article describes the iterative development of the Resilient Futures program, including a significant early program reorientation toward the use of a nonprescriptive and flexible delivery method. This pivot was guided by the implementation science literature, and underpinned by an intentional practice model and approach that was operationalized at both the program design and service delivery layers of the program. We summarize key challenges in delivering a well-being and resilience program across multiple sites for a disadvantaged cohort, and the methods the project team developed to bring focus to implementation quality and rigor. Preliminary qualitative evidence supporting the effectiveness of the program is also provided.

This paper outlines a pilot study of the post-program psychological adjustment outcomes of adult staff facilitating an Australian-based wilderness adventure program for youth at risk. The descriptive and correlational survey study ( N = 62) examined the psychological adjustment processes staff underwent following program completion, and the factors that predicted adjustment. The study found that post-program psychological adjustment is neither an abnormal nor a drawn-out process, with the majority of staff reporting broadly positive experiences. A number of significant predictors of post-program psychological adjustment were identified, with perceived “program success” positively related to increased “reflective” and decreased “reactive” adjustment experiences. Level of physical challenge experienced by staff was also positively related to reflective adjustment outcomes. These findings are discussed in light of organisational responses and directions for future research.

Australian residential care programs are being increasingly challenged to respond to the therapeutic needs of the young people they service. Staff-client. relationships have been identified as an important factor mediating program outcomes. Owing to the paucity of guiding literature, this study sought to understand young men's perceptions of the nature, role and qualities of their relationships with youth workers. In-depth interviews were conducted with 9 young men, who averaged 15 years 9 months of age, residing in the South Australian residential care system. The collation and analysis of data was guided by grounded theory. The young men constructed their relationships with youth workers in globally positive descriptors, although the global properties of this theme are qualified on a number of levels. Distinct staff and client roles, respectively corresponding to 'provider' and 'consumer', were identified. A number of qualities associated with positive staff-client relationships were identified, with attachment theory guiding the interpretation of themes. Program, policy and research implications of the research are discussed.

It is widely accepted that young people residing in residential care transition to independence and adult responsibilities earlier than peers living within their family of origin. There has been a lack of literature examining the way young people in care construct this transition. In response, in-depth qualitative interviews, guided by grounded theory, were conducted with nine young men (M = 15.9 years) residing in an Australian residential care program. The construction of adult identity was aged dependent, and represented by the attainment of self- and other-responsibility and behavioural maturity. Rites or role transitions signifying adult identity were also explored. Program and policy implications are tabled.