When Flourishing Misses the Point
Robin LaBarbera • July 9, 2025
By a Program Evaluator working in Topeka, Kansas.
When I first encountered the Harvard Flourishing Study, I felt both admiration and frustration. I admired its ambition and scope. At last, researchers were attempting to measure more than economic status, health outcomes, or exposure to adversity. The study sought to define what it means to flourish as a human being—to move beyond survival toward a fuller vision of well-being. It outlined seven domains: emotional wellbeing, physical and mental health, safety, relationships, financial stability, substance use, and personal growth. These were clearly defined and theoretically grounded. The study represents a significant contribution to our understanding of human flourishing, and I continue to respect its contribution to the field.
Then I tried to use their survey in a high-poverty neighborhood of Topeka, Kansas.
I was working with a community chaplain ministry, trying to understand whether the neighbors we walked alongside were experiencing any kind of well-being. We wanted to know what mattered to them, what helped or hurt, what they thought a good life looked like. I believed the Harvard model could guide us. So, we piloted the survey, adding a section of questions about their participation in the ministry.
The results were disappointing.
Neighbors grew tired midway through. “What does this even mean?” someone asked, waving a page with words like self-actualization and life satisfaction. The questions were long, seemingly repetitive, and filled with assumptions. Most of all, they didn’t sound like the people we were talking to every day.
Many neighbors disengaged halfway through. One person, holding up a page, asked, “What does this even mean?” The survey included terms like self-actualization and life satisfaction, and the questions often felt repetitive or irrelevant. More than anything, the language did not reflect the community’s everyday vocabulary or lived experience. I began to sense that the trust the chaplain team had carefully built over time was at risk. The process of reading each unfamiliar question out loud created visible discomfort. Respondents grew confused, fatigued, and at times frustrated.
I brought the survey to Mary, the lead Community Chaplain. She has lived and served in this neighborhood for most of her ministry life. Her presence commands respect—not because she demands it, but because she understands the people she serves. We sat down together and reviewed the survey line by line. “Nobody talks like this,” she said. “Not here.”
Together, we began revising. We reworded questions, eliminated jargon, and shortened the instrument considerably. Mary proposed that we ask about tangible realities: whether someone feels safe at night, whether they have someone to call when they are in pain, whether they are able to pay their bills or get enough to eat. We removed assumptions about banking access and stable housing. Instead of abstract prompts like “How often do you worry about meeting normal monthly expenses?” we offered clearer, more grounded questions: “Do you have monthly bills?” and “Are you able to pay them?”
We also changed the response format. The original “rate yourself from 0 to 10” scale felt overly clinical and abstract. We replaced it with practical response categories such as “No, I do not,” “I’d like help finding housing,” “I am taking steps toward stable housing,” and “Yes, I do.” These changes allowed for more nuanced, context-appropriate responses—answers that made sense in the rhythm and vocabulary of the community.
Most researchers do not have a Mary. They rely on instruments and analytics rather than local expertise. Surveys are often designed from a distance, administered quickly, and then withdrawn without any meaningful community participation. As a result, subtle cues—like body language, hesitation, or fatigue—are overlooked. Without community input, questions can unintentionally alienate or harm the very people we hope to learn from.
As the Urban Institute notes, “Engaging the community in informal conversations can help researchers understand the cultural norms and priorities within the community. These informal conversations are not only pertinent to establishing context but also essential to building trust and making community members more comfortable and more likely to share valuable insights” (Urban Institute, p. 3). More researchers should consider who they are trying to reach and how those individuals might experience the survey process.
Mary and her core team of trusted neighbors will soon pilot the revised version. It is shorter, clearer, and designed with their input. While it may not align with Harvard’s psychometric rigor, I believe it will yield more meaningful and accurate responses. It reflects the reality of the community we are studying, not just the theories of those who study from afar.
Measuring flourishing is not simply about identifying domains or creating a reliable tool. It requires asking questions in a way that respects the dignity and lived experience of the people responding. That cannot be done from a distance. It requires proximity—sitting on porches, walking alleyways, sharing meals, and, most importantly, listening.
Only then can we begin to ask the right questions.
Faith-based education does more than teach — it builds brotherhood. New research reveals how community drives transformation in prison.
Can data reveal human flourishing after prison? Five rounds of reentry evaluation at House of Mercy say yes.
When we think about prison education, we tend to ask one question: Does it reduce recidivism? It's a reasonable question, but it may be the wrong one. My recently published study in the Journal of Global Education and Research asked a different question: Does participating in a seminary-level theological education program actually change how people flourish while they're still incarcerated and after they come home? The answer, across 266 participants in six facilities and four states, was yes. Participants in The Urban Ministry Institute (TUMI) prison program showed higher scores on established well-being measures, healthier thinking patterns, stronger coping skills, and more positive relationships than comparison groups. And those gains didn't evaporate at the gate. Program graduates in reentry carried the markers of flourishing into post-release life. What flourishing actually looks like Flourishing isn't a soft concept. Drawing on Diener's Flourishing Scale, a validated instrument used in positive psychology research, the study measured constructs such as purpose, engagement, meaning, and positive relationships. These aren't warm feelings. They're measurable conditions that predict sustained behavior change. What the data showed was this: when incarcerated men and women are given access to rigorous academic study grounded in community and accountability, something shifts. Not just in what they know, but in who they are becoming. The research identified five mechanisms driving that transformation: deep educational engagement, authentic peer community, relational accountability, future-oriented purpose, and restorative action through mentorship. Each reinforces the others. Together, they create the conditions for the kind of change that lasts. Why this matters beyond the research Policymakers, funders, and program designers consistently reach for recidivism as their primary metric. But recidivism tells us something quite narrow — whether someone returned to prison within a given window. It tells us almost nothing about whether a person is living well, contributing to their community, or building a meaningful life. If we want justice systems that actually produce human flourishing, we need to measure what flourishing looks like. And we need to fund and design programs that create the conditions for it. Faith-based theological education in prison, when done with rigor and relational integrity, does that. The full peer-reviewed article, "Religious Higher Education in Prison in the United States: The Importance of Well-Being," is published in the Journal of Global Education and Research (Vol. 10, Issue 2, 2026). Read it here.
We rarely discuss people serving life sentences who've genuinely transformed. Karen Brown's 40-year journey shows why we should.
What does dignity look like for our unhoused neighbors? Sometimes it is a shower, sometimes it is a mailbox, sometimes it is simply being seen.
This is why prison education isn’t just a moral argument—it’s a practical one. It reduces future crime. It lowers costs. It strengthens communities. And it saves lives, sometimes in the most unexpected places.
This research contributes to a growing body of evidence showing the value of high-quality educational programs in correctional settings—not only for reducing recidivism but for fostering human flourishing.
Mary Flin’s example challenges me to rethink what it means to serve, to listen, and to love my own neighbors. Her life is a living answer to the question: What if every neighborhood had a chaplain?
The evidence is clear: faith-based educational programs like The Urban Ministry Institute offer far more than theological training—they cultivate well-being, leadership, and resilience among incarcerated individuals.
Drawing on research, theory, and firsthand accounts, this chapter interrogates what it truly means to flourish in the least likely of places.
