We have lift off...The C Wellby and children's wellbeing
One small step for man, one giant* leap for child wellbeing analysis.
*OK maybe not giant, but significant.
With partners at LSE (Chris Krekel and Isaac Parkes) we’ve been discussing for a while how best to measure child wellbeing. And with the King’s Speech for the new Labour Government announcing a Children’s Wellbeing Bill this work is now extremely timely. So here we are, ready to launch.
Following work for Youth Sport Trust on the value of free physical education, and our work for Ofcom on evaluating the Online Safety Act; we have boldly gone where no person has gone before…
Our starter for ten: the C-WELLBY
There is no established, accepted way to attribute the WELLBY measure to children aged under ten. What this means is that the social value of policies and projects that impact children’s wellbeing are relatively unexplored. We want to try and fix this - to enable children’s wellbeing to become a priority in the analysis that decision makers rely on.
The C Wellby
A starter for 10 on how to use adult wellbeing value for children.
Discuss…
We’ve developed a ‘starter for ten’ way to create a children's relevant WELLBY. The working title, which has stuck, is the ‘C-WELLBY’. This is not about a new value for a WELLBY but about how to attribute the same value to children.
In our discussion paper, which can be found on the link below, we illustrate techniques to ‘map’ existing child wellbeing measures to WELLBYs, initiating a debate to improve the concept. Refinement is still needed, no perfect method will ever exist to value either child or adult welfare. Our goal is to find practical solutions that avoids the status quo where early childhood is overlooked in policy and social value and cost-benefit analysis .
Children’s wellbeing…we are GO.
The authors of the paper are Dr Allan Little (State of Life) and Isaac Parkes (LSE). In the words of one of Allan’s favourite bands, Public Service Broadcasting, for children’s wellbeing we are GO (worth a listen). Please have a read and get in touch with us if you’d like to discuss. We’re on hello@stateoflife.org (most days).