Creating enabling environments: a strengths-based framework for transformative service initiatives

Transformative Service Initiatives (TSIs) face challenges that limit their effectiveness in addressing vulnerability. We investigate how implementing strengths-based approaches in TSIs through creating enabling environments can facilitate empowerment while addressing their unique challenges. Two complementary studies: a qualitative exploration (55 interviews, 2 focus groups) and Participatory Action Research (25 interviews, 1 focus group) across four refugee-serving TSIs, reveal three purposefully designed spaces through which TSIs create enabling environments: Appreciation spaces (intrapersonal empowerment), Integration spaces (interactional empowerment), and Mobilization spaces (behavioral empowerment). Our framework specifies implementation practices for creating these spaces and identifies three key attributes that distinguish strengths-based TSIs: person-environment bridging, progressive scaffolding, and iterative orchestration. Our study advances Transformative Service Research by conceptualizing strengths-based TSIs as initiatives that create enabling environments operating at both micro (individual empowerment) and macro (structural advocacy) levels. We provide actionable guidance for TSI providers on facilitating sustainable pathways from vulnerability through empowerment to well-being.