What we’ve learnt about changing the narrative on homes through framing

There is much we have learned on our journey so far to shift the narrative on homes. The progress is strong and the appetite from the sector has been encouraging.

How Talking about Homes began

The Talking about Homes project is a partnership between the Nationwide Foundation and JRF. We came together on imagining this project in 2020 because we were both experiencing the same problems – too often we were finding that conversations with the public about the importance of decent and affordable homes lost their way. They quickly became about money, house prices and buying and selling, leaving us far adrift from the stories we’d been trying to tell. With our housing sector peers telling us that this was a widely-felt experience, we tried to find a way to change the narrative on homes.

Talking about Homes began with us commissioning research from FrameWorks to identify and explore the mindsets held by the public, the ones that present challenges and issues when communicating about the importance of decent and affordable homes. Unsurprisingly, a public preoccupation with the wealth and profit-making aspect of the housing sector dominated these mindsets, leaving communicators grappling with how to effectively share their messages.

FrameWorks tested ways that framing could be used to shift mindsets, coming up with a set of evidence-led recommendations. Now the challenge was to begin shifting the narrative on decent and affordable homes, so that as a sector, there was more consistency in the framing of messages. We reason that the more consistently these framing strategies are used by expert voices, the more the public is exposed to the new narratives, and in turn this shifts public mindsets to more productive ways of thinking about decent and affordable homes.

Engaging with the sector

Mobilising the frames so they were being used by communicators began in early 2023. We wanted to empower and up-skill existing experts on homes, so they could tell better stories; this would lead to better public understanding of the problems, and support for solutions. Talking about Homes is a project seeking to provide infrastructure for narrative change. We are realistic and optimistic at the same time; whilst we do not expect our intervention to give widely visible transformation of public perceptions within 2 years, or even 4, we believe the frames can be adopted, normalised and used by many voices pushing for change. We seek to empower these voices with the skills and knowledge to continue changing the narrative into the future, well beyond the lifetime of the project, and for them to sustain their framing consistency as players within a wider collective endeavour.

Working in partnership with FrameWorks, the Talking about Homes outputs included publishing a toolkit and other practical framing guides, plus undertaking webinars and speaking opportunities, to encourage and enable organisations who talk about homes to use the evidence-based framing recommendations in their own communications. As well as giving people open access to the tools and resources, the Talking about Homes project has worked in depth with a handful of key influential voices that advocate for the availability of more decent and affordable homes. These organisations received tailored support and training on their campaigning and communication opportunities, as well as workshops and training sessions.

Using a learning partner

To hold ourselves to account, and because we wanted to make sure we were learning and modifying as went along, we have worked with a learning partner, DHA Communications. In 2025, we are at the midpoint in our mobilisation delivery, and DHA Communications has revealed our learning so far. This reflection picks up on some of those learnings, pointing to what we can know both about our own project, but also what it tells us more widely about this type of narrative change intervention.

Where and how we’re seeing framing

Firstly, we’ve seen framing used in communications in many places, and by many different organisations, including in key campaigning moments such as in Shelter’s election manifesto, entitled The Way Home: a manifesto to rebuild our broken housing system and in the Church of England’s Homes for All campaign narrative. Widely we’ve also seen the recommendation to use homes not housing being adopted, and the recommendation to talk about homes as ‘health, not wealth’ is frequently and confidently used, as is the explanatory metaphor to talk about a good home as a foundation for a good life. For example:

A decent, affordable home… is the foundation of our health, our happiness and our futures.

National Housing Federation, 2023

We also know that we need to do more to help consolidate framing skills that allow people to effectively explain a problem and solution. We also found some voices, such as religious leaders, are in a position to speak more boldly about values we hold as a society, and in doing so use these to frame an argument.

What helps, and hinders, framing?

As well as knowing whether framing recommendations are being applied and used effectively, we also wanted a better understanding of what helps and hinders organisations when framing. This is essential to the idea that framing is a long-term endeavour, needing consistent and continuous commitment.

Through interviews carried out by DHA Communications with organisations that participated in Talking about Homes we have a good idea of the barriers and enablers that help them use framing.

Firstly the size of organisation can make a difference. Smaller organisations can quickly train all their relevant staff and embed the consistency of how messages are delivered. For larger organisations, this can take more time to filter across, and framing is likely to be carried out well in some areas, but less so in others. Having internal champions can really help these larger campaigning organisations to embed framing.

Some of the organisations that we engaged with were prominent campaigners, however non-campaigners were also able to frame, and often picked up on the guidance via networks and membership groups. These networks were a successful route to reaching smaller organisations, such as housing associations.

I think the [network] and the [framing] toolkit and the kind of common combination of things available to the sector mean that [the sector is] probably more aligned than… it’s ever been.

Participant

The interviews also revealed that users of the frames feel they help them communicate better. There is some evidence of audiences responding positively to framed material. Framing gives these users confidence that they are addressing key issues of understanding and perception about homes and housing, and they feel that this is crucial in order to achieve real change. They have also benefited from seeing real examples of framed communications in the public domain; they recognise where other organisations and voices are using the framing, and it makes them feel part of a collective endeavour to change the narrative about homes and housing.

The interviews revealed that there is a shared view in the sector that perceptions of homes and housing held by policymakers, politicians and the public need to be addressed in order for policy and practical change to be achieved. This has been a motivation for many organisations to use the framing recommendations and engage with the Talking about Homes project. Many organisations believe that there is a growing public consensus that there is a housing crisis, but also that there is no common understanding of the reasons for it, or the potential and best solutions. Framing is seen as one of the tools for addressing this. Alongside that, they recognise that framing is a practice. They recognise that they need to work at framing, think about how to embed it within their organisations and refresh their practice.

What next to deepen the use of framing

The evaluation made the following recommendations for the next stage of Talking about Homes, which is set to deliver until 2027:

1. Keep training the key housing sector voices to advance and preserve the skills of those people who are already on their framing journeys. By offering bespoke support to key campaigns, this will allow good framing to support key messages and moments. For sustainability we will equip people who are keen to advocate for framing within their organisations with the skills they need to spread the practice internally.
2. Expand the mobilisation by adapting to emerging communications challenges. This has already included developing a guide to talk about supported housing, and another on how to build consensus locally for building new homes. We are also currently working with FrameWorks and Shelter to research and develop framing guidance on how to talk about homes and immigration.
3. Intervene where key opportunities arise in policy discourse to maximise the opportunity to spread and embed framing, such as around election periods. During the 2024 UK general election period, we found that campaigners were especially receptive to framing support both as they prepared their manifesto ‘asks’, and in the immediate post-election period as they engaged with the new Government. In the run up to the 2026 Senedd elections in Wales, we will support organisations in Wales to frame the case for more decent and affordable homes.
4. Seek to engage with, and tailor support for, particular clusters of the housing sector. Examples could be homelessness charities calling for more social homes as a systemic solution to homelessness, and housing associations seeking support locally for building more social homes. The evaluation revealed that there has been significant engagement at the lighter-touch level (such as attending events and accessing the resources online) from different parts of the housing sector in framing, and this suggests the existence of many other organisations and voices who may already be framing, or be interested in framing. We will therefore seek to target relevant stakeholder sub-sets to widen and deepen the reach of framing.

Sharing knowledge

We’d always intended the framing recommendations to be a shared resource, an accessible tool for the sector. One interesting aspect that came out of the DHA Communications evaluation is that the partnership between the Nationwide Foundation and JRF has been very important to the way in which the sector perceives the project. The co-funding has given the project a sense of credibility and robustness, a facilitative offer to the sector from 2 organisations that are seen as being supportive of the sector.

Conclusions

Talking about Homes has entered year 4 of 5 years of mobilisation. Our ambition is to leave the sector effectively skilled and also enthusiastic to continue framing. We want to ensure the resources are available as a legacy. Our mid-point evaluation has reassured us we are on track, and even that in some respects we have gone further than we might have expected. It has also highlighted areas we can capitalise on in the coming 2 years – opportunities that we can grasp, new framers who can be brought into our fold, as well as giving us the insights into what our existing framers need to be fully independent.

Despite an increasing number of narrative change projects on framing a range of issues, there is relatively little research in the UK on how they can be mobilised, and what results to expect in a given time frame. We hope our findings continue to fill this insight gap, aiding our own mobilisation, and those of future projects.

If you’d like to know more, please get in touch at natalie.tate@jrf.org.uk.