Parents, care givers, teachers, health professionals and young people’s charities alike are united in wanting the country’s children and young people to be happy. They want children and young people to have confidence in themselves, to feel satisfied with their lives, to be able to overcome the problems they face and to feel hopeful about their futures. They want children and young people to have high wellbeing.
But too many children and young people do not feel this way. The UK’s children and young people have the lowest wellbeing in Europe. 197,000 young people left secondary school with low levels of wellbeing in 2022. That’s the same as the total population of Milton Keynes.
This problem is getting worse, and while Covid has exacerbated it, children and young people’s wellbeing has been worsening for a decade. The number of children and young people in the UK who report having low wellbeing has increased from fewer than one in six in 2015 to one in four in 2022. And the pace of decline is significant. Children and young people’s wellbeing seems to be plummeting faster in the UK than in any other country that the OECD collects relevant data in, with the exception of Germany where wellbeing has a higher base to fall from.
The causes of the children’s wellbeing crisis are simply not sufficiently understood. Some things are known about the determinants of low wellbeing, for example that a good school culture, teachers who are interested in their pupil’s wellbeing, and families who communicate can all protect children and young people from low wellbeing and youth groups. Perceptions by children and young people that their families have low status, and children and young people’s exposure to bullying, limited exercise, loneliness and taking on paid work all increase the risk that children and young people will experience low wellbeing. But wellbeing is affected by so many issues, and with current evidence it is possible to explain just a fraction of the variation in wellbeing levels observed.
Better and more comprehensive data is urgently needed to understand the state of wellbeing among the UK’s children and young people, what is driving it and how to solve it.
Universal wellbeing measurement of children and young people is part of the solution to the children’s wellbeing crisis. Measuring the wellbeing of all children and young people regularly and in the right way would allow better decision-making and targeting of support by national policymakers, local authorities, health systems, schools, charities and mental health practitioners alike. It would create an understanding of the places, practices, policies and services which are making a difference and those areas where additional efforts are desperately needed. It would improve the evidence available to allow for assessment and evaluation of what is working and unearth what isn’t. Ultimately, it would support children and young people to live happier lives, with benefits now and long into the future.
The applications of universal wellbeing measurement of children and young people are therefore numerous. They are particularly pertinent when it comes to better understanding how to help disadvantaged groups. Universal wellbeing measurement would, for example, allow a greater understanding of the lives of the growing cohort of children with special educational needs. It would similarly much improve the information about what works in helping care experienced children and young people who can often have extra needs but be missed by data collection because of the size of their group. And the very act of rolling out universal wellbeing measurement would be an immensely powerful signal that the new government is taking children and young people’s views seriously.
This wealth of benefits is perhaps why there is broad support for universal wellbeing measurement from teachers, parents, children and young people’s organisations, and school-based mental health practitioners.
Scotland and Wales have already taken some steps towards this goal, but England is lagging behind. The UK government should therefore rapidly move to begin universal wellbeing measurement of children and young people in England.
The roadmap for doing so is set out in this report, backed by a broad coalition of charities, young people’s organisations and mental health experts. This includes the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition which has 330 members, the Schools Wellbeing Partnership which has nearly 50 member organisations, and the Children at the Table campaign which has 180.
These organisations are united in calling for the government to urgently take the first step of establishing a time-limited cross-sector working group to guide the rollout of universal wellbeing measurement. With expert guidance, the government can then begin to make crucial decisions on the details, such as the support needed for schools, the appropriate frequency for undertaking measurement, and the role of children and young people’s voices.
The saying goes that ‘what is measured, matters’. The happiness of the next generation matters immensely. A coalition of organisations that believe better measurement of children and young people’s wellbeing is essential are ready to support the government in doing so.