Work with us
Get involved

Narrative. Systems.
Design.

Where story becomes science.

HBAM is building the science, data, and design infrastructure for a healing-centered economy — where stories don’t just inspire change, they shape it.

what we do

(Re)Designing Systems
Through Story

Healing By Any Means (HBAM) is a systems transformation and social design lab pioneering the Science of Story — a new way of understanding how narrative shapes behavior, institutions, and the futures we build.

Through Narrative Systems Design™, we help communities, creatives, and institutions see what stories do, not just what they say and redesign the systems that no longer serve us.

how we do it

An Emerging Field
and A New Science

What if story itself followed laws?

Our work explores that frontier: a science of meaning, culture, and human systems.
A framework for how stories move, take shape, and reorganize our world.

This research powers HBAM’s initiatives, translating story into tools, datasets, and design practices that make invisible systems visible and transformable.

Our Initiatives


We start with story and end with change.

HEALIT™

Quantifying and transforming educational trauma through narrative data and healing literacies.

Discover how we heal

StoryBank™

A new public-interest platform using story to illuminate system-level insights, reveal patterns, and shape better futures in real time. 

Explore what's possible

LitGrid™

Mapping the creative infrastructure of a healing-centered economy, including LitCanon and the Healing Literary Futures Network (HLFN). 

Reclaim reading as healing

Dream Big. Heal Bigger.

Narrative Systems Design™ is how we change what stories do, not just what they say. Whether you’re a lived expert, creative, policymaker, or institution, there’s a place for you in shaping futures rooted in healing, equity, and imagination. 

Work with us

Healing By Any Means (HBAM) is a systems transformation and social design lab pioneering the Science of Story. Through Narrative Systems Design™, our work builds the foundations for the world’s first healing-centered economy..

Across our ecosystem of initiatives — from public-interest tech to StoryBank™ to community-based design — we empower people and institutions to imagine and build what comes next.

Navigate

About
Contact

© 2025 Healing By Any Means, LLC. All rights reserved. Terms | Privacy Policy

Narrative. Systems. Design. 

Pin It on Pinterest

The Healing Literacy Framework

In 2019, Keith F. Miller, Jr., observed something remarkable while running creative writing after school programs in Savannah, GA: Students from all backgrounds didn’t just step outside their comfort zones—they learned, led, and thrived with unmistakable joy. Despite this, Keith heard from students and families that school, even for the high-achievers, was a place they survived, not thrived. This led Keith, through his studies in Educational Psychology, to explore why young people felt empowered to learn, lead, and heal in some spaces but not in others.

Through a qualitative research study involving interviews with high schoolers, fellow teaching artists over a year, in addition to examining creative works from youth journals and performances, Keith found that when young people engage in arts-based healing practices with trusted others (peers and adults), they don’t just cope with their struggles—they transform them, becoming vibrant leaders in the process.

Drawing inspiration from the process of rainbow formation—reflection, refraction, and dispersion—and building off of groundbreaking research from scholars like David Kirkland, Gholdy Muhammad, Bettina Love, Bianca Baldridge, and Shawn Ginwright, Keith developed the Healing Literacy Framework, illustrating how arts-based, community programs are vital in supporting young people as they overcome educational trauma, and, in doing so, can result in transformative partnerships in school and beyond that prove healing is possible for everyone.

Enter, HEALIT

In 2019, Keith F. Miller, Jr., observed something remarkable while running creative writing after school programs in Savannah, GA: Students from all backgrounds didn’t just step outside their comfort zones—they learned, led, and thrived with unmistakable joy. Despite this, Keith heard from students and families that school, even for the high-achievers, was a place they survived, not thrived. This led Keith, through his studies in Educational Psychology, to explore why young people felt empowered to learn, lead, and heal in some spaces but not in others.

Through a qualitative research study involving interviews with high schoolers, fellow teaching artists over a year, in addition to examining creative works from youth journals and performances, Keith found that when young people engage in arts-based healing practices with trusted others (peers and adults), they don’t just cope with their struggles—they transform them, becoming vibrant leaders in the process.

Drawing inspiration from the process of rainbow formation—reflection, refraction, and dispersion—and building off of groundbreaking research from scholars like David Kirkland, Gholdy Muhammad, Bettina Love, Bianca Baldridge, and Shawn Ginwright, Keith developed the Healing Literacy Framework, illustrating how arts-based, community programs are vital in supporting young people as they overcome educational trauma, and, in doing so, can result in transformative partnerships in school and beyond that prove healing is possible for everyone.