What is Child Well-being?: Does It Matter How We Measure It?

This slide presentation begins by explaining key components of child well-being, including: physical health, development, and safety; psychological and emotional development; social development and behavior; and cognitive development and educational achievement. Information is then provided on inputs that impact child well-being outcomes and reasons social workers need to focus on the positive inputs. Reasons include: the Declaration of Independence that focuses on the right of men to the pursuit of happiness, good science, fully describes children and youth, can be measured well, and to improve public perceptions, kids' perceptions, and community perceptions. The relationship of social competence and generosity to well-being is explained and reasons why rigorous, accurate measures of child well-being are needed are discussed. Strategies for building the knowledge base on child well-being and National Survey of Children's Health (NSCH) index domains are identified. Final slides share findings from the NSCH on child well-being in the different domains by State.