Wellbeing and Young People
Led by:
Dr Julie Newton, Cerys Ponting and Dave Breen (Techniquest)
Project Description
There is growing academic and policy interest in the concept of wellbeing and measures to explore it. In particular, there is recognition of the need to explore what wellbeing means for different social groups and the implications of this for wellbeing measurement; specifically amongst children and young people.
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) committed governments across the world to develop appropriate indicators to monitor improvements in child wellbeing. It also states that “the primary consideration in all actions concerning children must be in their best interest and their views must be taken into account”. Within the UK, the work of the Children's Society, new economics foundation and the Social Policy Research Institute at the University of York have considerably advanced understanding in this area. Yet, there remains agreement that substantially more work is required to capture the voices of young people in discussions about what wellbeing means to them; which aspects of wellbeing are important; and their views on how wellbeing should be measured. It has been noted that there is a specific need for this engagement to feed directly into wellbeing indicator development for young people and children.
This project seeks to address this gap by focusing on wellbeing amongst 129 young people (16-19 year olds). The project reports on data emerging from the trials of Wellbeing Contemporary Science Debates (CSD) developed by Techniquest in collaboration with BRASS. The trials took place in March, 2011 in six schools and colleges in Wales (Torfaen, Caerphilly, Bridgend and Rhondda Cynon Taf). The development of the trials and their delivery in the convergence areas of Wales was co-funded by Welsh Assembly Government-led European Social Fund project Reach the Heights and the Office of National Statistics (ONS) as part of its broader remit to stimulate a national debate on wellbeing and develop wellbeing measures.
The aims of the trials were to:
• Facilitate young people’s engagement with the topic and elicit their views on wellbeing, including their ideas for its measurement, through an interactive workshop and associated support resources for teachers
• Offer the workshop to schools in the convergence areas of Wales through Techniquest’s Reach the Heights scheme from 1 April 2011, subject to further funding
• Prepare a report for the ONS providing preliminary data on the views of young people in Wales on wellbeing.
For more information on the data collection and analysis, contact Julie Newton and Cerys Ponting (BRASS).
For more information on the project delivery, contact Dave Breen at Techniquest.
