Our Approach
AFF Missions SCIO is a prevention-focused charity working to reduce avoidable harm by acting earlier and more fairly.
Our work focuses on conditions and systems — not individual blame.
Who We Are
AFF Missions SCIO is a prevention-focused charity working to reduce avoidable harm by acting earlier and more fairly.
We focus on the conditions and systems that shape wellbeing, access, and dignity in everyday life. Rather than responding only once harm has escalated, we work to reduce the pressures, barriers, and design failures that make harm more likely in the first place.
Our work is rooted in public-health prevention principles and inequality reduction approaches, adapted for contemporary social, economic, and digital contexts.
Our Prevention Approach
Prevention works best when it is intentional, early, and embedded into how society functions.
Upstream Action
Addressing conditions before harm occurs
Upstream work addresses the conditions that shape wellbeing before harm occurs.
This includes social, cultural, economic, and digital environments that influence stress, stigma, exclusion, and disconnection. By reshaping narratives, challenging harmful norms, and addressing structural pressures, upstream action reduces the likelihood that harm becomes normalised or embedded over time.
Midstream Action
Improving how systems operate in practice
Midstream work focuses on how systems operate and are experienced in practice.
This includes the points where people interact with services, institutions, and everyday systems. Midstream action improves access, fairness, and responsiveness, reducing friction, exclusion, and escalation into crisis.
Together, upstream and midstream action ensure prevention is embedded early, equitably, and sustainably — not added on after harm has already occurred.
Why We Focus on Systems, not Individuals
Many forms of harm are framed as personal failure, lack of resilience, or poor individual choices.
AFF Missions SCIO takes a different view.
We recognise that stress, exclusion, and harm are often produced by systemic pressures, unequal design, and constrained environments, rather than individual behaviour alone. When responsibility is placed solely on individuals, stigma increases and root causes remain unaddressed.
Our approach focuses on shared responsibility, placing appropriate accountability on systems, institutions, and conditions — while protecting dignity and avoiding blame-based narratives.
How Our Initiatives Fit Together
Our initiatives form a coherent prevention ecosystem, each with a distinct role.
• Upstream initiatives address the conditions and narratives that shape wellbeing and fairness.
• Midstream initiatives improve how systems are accessed and experienced, particularly where the risk of harm or exclusion is higher.
Each initiative operates independently, but all align to the same prevention model and principles. This ensures clarity of purpose, avoids duplication, and allows learning to transfer across areas of work.
Community settings are where prevention is experienced and sustained, but community is not treated as a separate action domain. Trust, participation, and connection emerge as outcomes of effective upstream and midstream work.
Evidence and Frameworks
Our work is informed by established public-health and inequality reduction frameworks, including:
• Public health prevention models
• Inequality and social determinants approaches
• Health equity and wellbeing frameworks
We draw on this evidence to ensure our work is preventative rather than reactive, system-focused rather than individualising, and proportionate, ethical, and accountable.
Frameworks guide our thinking, but are adapted carefully to real-world social, economic, and digital environments.
Accountability and Outcomes
AFF Missions SCIO is committed to accountability.
Each initiative has a clear prevention purpose, defined outcomes, and indicators that track change over time.
We prioritise learning, transparency, and responsible use of evidence. Outcomes are used to improve practice, inform partners, and ensure our work remains aligned with our charitable purpose.
Prevention is complex, but clarity, integrity, and accountability are non-negotiable.