To coincide with a Week of Action organised by the Department of Health and Public Health England aimed at supporting families to provide children with the best start in life, here at the What Works Centre for Wellbeing we’ve pulled together publications showing the latest picture of the wellbeing of children and young people in the UK and some pointers to resources for taking positive action.
Our Wellbeing Pioneers this week are the National Citizen Service programme, providing a great example of how tangible results in improving young people’s wellbeing can be achieved and Shift, an organisation designing an innovative biofeedback video game to help young people improve their own wellbeing.
Our pioneers are short case studies of real projects, real places, real people and their evaluations.
What does the latest picture show about children and young people’s wellbeing?
Exploring the Well-being of Children in the UK, 2014 presents the latest statistical picture of the wellbeing of children in the UK from the ONS Measuring National Wellbeing Programme (published October 2014).
The Good Childhood Report, 2014 is the most recent report from The Children’s Society looking at the wellbeing of children in the UK and highlighting areas for improvement.
5,660 Young People Can’t be Wrong. How Will YOU Help Us? summarises the results of Young Mind’s consultation with 5,600 young people (October 2013- May 2014) asking what the big issues were that made them feel under pressure, how these issues affect them and what needs to be done about them.
Where can I find out more about how to support children and young people’s wellbeing?
The Guidebook from the Early Intervention Foundation is an online, interactive resource for those commissioning and providing services for children and families. It gives details of which programmes have been shown to work most effectively for improving outcomes for children as well as information about what works best in putting them into practice.
The Children’s Society have produced a guide for parents on how to support their children’s wellbeing.
‘Talking Wellbeing’ is a toolkit developed by young people working with the National Children’s Bureau, Our Life and NHS Sefton, with help from Sefton Council and Sefton CVS. It shows how to run a five-step focus group for 14-19 year olds, exploring what wellbeing means to young people, what factors influence it and what they can do to improve their own wellbeing and that of their community.
We hope you like this short collation of evidence and resources. Its our first go at this type of post so your feedback is very welcome. Please do comment on this post below and tweet recommending other great resources for children and young people’s wellbeing that you’ve found useful and would like to share with others
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