Social Climate as a Key Evaluative Lens

Social Climate, a concept pioneered by Professor Rudolf Moos (Stanford University), describes the prevailing atmosphere within any group setting—whether a school, workplace, hospital, care home, or therapeutic community—and the ways that atmosphere shapes individual behavior, well-being, and outcomes. By examining how people perceive inclusion, safety, support, and shared purpose in their everyday interactions, Social Climate helps us identify both strengths to build on and areas needing improvement. In practice, assessing Social Climate can:

• Enhance Engagement and Learning – In schools, a supportive, inclusive climate boosts student participation and achievement.

• Strengthen Therapeutic Outcomes – In treatment settings, trust and safety within the group accelerate recovery and personal growth.

• Improve Care Environments – In home-care or residential settings, a positive climate fosters respect, autonomy, and coordination among residents, family members, and staff.

To align a Social Climate assessment with our Theory of Change and care model, we’ve tailored Moos’s dimensions around five core principles:

1. Relationship-Centered Care

2. Sociocratic Governance

3. Multi-Stakeholder Ownership

4. Co-Production

5. Community well-being

Rather than treat these in isolation, our framework examines how they interact—and how power dynamics influence whether these values are genuinely lived.

Key Dimensions of Rudolf Moos' Social Climate and how it looks in our model and evaluation framework

Dimension	Key features	In our model	In our framework
Relationships	Support, involvement, group cohesion, belonging	Matched care, mutual consent, sharing power, working in teams, peer-support. Community connection.	💞 Well-being, Relationships & Belonging:
Personal Development	Growth, autonomy, skill-building	Flexible roles, Team "Hats", coaching, Care worker and Team autonomy, Care receivers as "team owners"	🌿 Growth
System Maintenance & Change	Clarity of purpose, Order, Structure, fairness, adaptability	Peer learning, Sociocratic governance, co-production, adaptive feedback loops.	🛠️ Systems Maintenance & Co-production

We’ve embedded these dimensions into our custom Social Climate Survey —a tool that allows teams, circles, and the co-op at large to track progress, surface emerging issues, and guide iterative improvements.

📊 Learn more. For full details on our Social Climate Framework and survey tool, click here.

References

Moos, R. H. (2003). Social contexts: Transcending their power and their fragility. American Journal of Community Psychology, 31(1-2), 1-13.

Moos, R. H. (2003). The Social Climate Scales: A User’s Guide. Menlo Park, CA: Mind Garden, Inc.