The mission of the Social Health Institute is to expand access to training, curriculum development and implementation of the Listening with Curiosity Project (LCP): an empirically-proven intervention that addresses the global crisis of connection. The LCP teaches a framework that disrupts the hierarchy of humanness implicit in modern society, and trains participants in the method of transformative interviewing–a tool for fostering relational intelligence (RQ) skills and human connection.

We partner with schools and other youth-serving organizations to design training, programming, and create customized curricula using our LCP approach. Our evaluation research indicates that the LCP enhances social and emotional skills and wellbeing, academic and work engagement, and an increased sense of a common humanity.  

Our Method:

Transformative interviewing is a practice which encourages the interviewer to pose an open-ended question about the interviewee’s life, and then continue a line of questioning that focuses only on the interviewees’ responses. This probing allows the interviewer to understand how the interviewee makes meaning of memories, concepts, and sees the world. Ultimately, this allows the interviewer to see that person as they see themselves, and outside of a set of stereotypes. Using this approach, the LCP challenges assumptions and stereotypes, builds connection, improves mental health, and fosters a sense of a common humanity. 

Anchored in the pioneering developmental science of Dr. Niobe Way (NYU) and educational research of Dr. Joseph D. Nelson (Swarthmore), the LCP has been implemented in NYC public schools and universities around the world since 2016.