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WAYS TO WELL-BEING FOR CHILDREN
Larissa Pople, Saamah Abdallah, Gwyther Rees and Gill Main
Introduction
Since 2005, The Childrenās Society has been engaged with the University of York in research to explore childrenās self-reported well-being and the factors that are associated with it. The work forms one of the most extensive national programmes of research on this topic in the world involving developing frameworks of well-being that take full account of childrenās own concepts of what it means (The Childrenās Society, 2006). This chapter presents the findings of this research with a comprehensive and detailed analysis of childrenās responses to questions about their subjective well-being based on nationally representative surveys (Rees et al., 2010; The Childrenās Society, 2017).
Over a similar timeframe, the New Economics Foundation (NEF) reviewed the evidence on determinants of well-being (as part of the Foresight Project, Aked et al., 2008) to produce messages about what individuals might do to improve their own well-being. NEFās programme of research is extensive, including evidence from neuroscience, cross-sectional surveys and longitudinal studies. The Five Ways to Well-being framework that was produced ā Connect, Be Active, Take Notice, Keep Learning and Give ā is now used in a wide range of contexts ā and serves as a simple heuristic, echoing the five-a-day message around fruit and vegetable consumption.
ā¢ Connect ā build social relationships, spend time with family and friends.
ā¢ Be Active ā engage in regular physical activity.
ā¢ Take Notice ā be mentally present focus on awareness and appreciation.
ā¢ Keep Learning ā maintain curiosity about the world, try new things.
ā¢ Give ā make a positive contribution to the lives of others.
(Aked et al., 2008)
Nonetheless, most of the evidence for NEFās Five Ways to Well-being relates to adults. Thus, The Childrenās Society and NEF saw a need to explore well-being-promoting activities that are pertinent to childrenās lives. There was a shared desire, on the one hand, to give children the opportunity to reflect on activities that they could do to improve their well-being, while on the other hand, to test out the specific relevance of the Five Ways framework.
The research took a mixed methods approach, comprising a combination of open, inductive enquiry through qualitative research that explored childrenās perspectives on activities that might enhance their feelings of well-being, as well as a deductive questioning through a survey that asked children about specific activities relating to NEFās Five Ways to Well-being. The methodology used and reported here emphasises the importance of a child-centric approach, giving children a voice to address wide-ranging aspects of childrenās well-being, the world of the child, their experiences and expectations,
The focus groups
In order to place childrenās voices centre stage, we start by discussing the factors that children themselves cited, unprompted, as being important for their well-being. Some of these themes fit neatly with NEFās Five Ways, while others are substantively different. We then report on childrenās responses to probing questions that were asked about the Five Ways to Well-being, and specifically the aspects of this framework that were not discussed unprompted.
This qualitative strand of the research involved 11 guided focus group discussions carried out in May/June 2013 in 6 schools in England. Each focus group comprised between six and eight children of the same age, including a range of ethnicities to reflect the ethnic profiles of the schools involved. Participantsā ages ranged from 8 to 15 years. In these focus groups, we started by asking children open questions about the activities that they do ā or could do ā to contribute to making life good for them. Key probing questions included what it is about a certain activity that is good, and what might help or hinder engagement in the activities in question. After this open discussion, we introduced the Five Ways to Well-being, specifically those activities that had not been raised by participants themselves. So children had the opportunity to mention the Five Ways to Well-being unprompted, and were then led into a discussion about them.
Connect
In all of the focus groups, children asserted that being with family and friends is fundamental to a good life. Some focused on the benefits of spending time with loved ones, while for others āconnectingā was part and parcel of another activity ā such as playing or going on holiday.
āI like to have people with me whatever IāĆŗm doing.ā
āItās like a treat when you get to see [wider family] cos you donāt see them all the time.ā
One of the aspects of relationships that children valued most was the support that they received:
However, children also highlighted their role in giving as well as receiving support, illustrating the overlap that exists between different Ways to Well-being, in this case, Connect and Give:
Friends were cherished for many reasons: for their qualities as good friends, for the activities that could be enjoyed together, and for the company that they provide:
Be Active
Another strand of responses about what makes life good for children related to physical activity. This involved both organised activities, such as playing football within a club setting, as well as informal activities such as riding a bicycle in the local neighbourhood. When probed on what they enjoyed about physical activity, children often made reference to the social aspects of sports and exercise:
However the well-being benefits were also felt to be important in and of themselves:
As well as associating physical activity with feeling good, some children also associated it with functioning well. One girl derived a sense of vitality from exercise:
Learning
Somewhat surprisingly, learning emerged unprompted in the focus group discussions as something that could engender well-being. While for some, learning was associated mainly with school, for others it encompassed learning outside of school.
