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Measuring Child Well-Being

The development of a national set of child well-being indicators was identified as a key action under the National Children’s Strategy, published in 2000. The research took place over a one-year period and many different stakeholders were involved, including children themselves. Results were published in 2005 in the Report on the Development of a National Set of Child Well-Being Indicators (Hanafin and Brooks, 2005).

A multi-stage incremental approach was taken to the development of the indicator set, with four main components:

a background review of indicators sets in use elsewhere and the compilation of an inventory of key indicators, domains and indicator selection criteria;
a feasibility study of the availability of national statistics to construct the indicators identified in the previous step;
a study on Children’s Understandings of Well-Being; and
a consensus process referred to as a Delphi technique, where participants on ‘a panel of expertise’ agreed indicators for use in the Irish context.

The national set of child well-being indicators allows:

the assessment and description of the condition of children growing up in Ireland;
the identification of children who are at risk and who require preventative services, and of children who have avoided risk, and whose experience can provide positive evidence of what works;
the monitoring of child outcomes over time and the implementation of policies, services and/or programmes that seek to improve children's lives;
the setting of goals and the planning of more effective services, programmes and policies that will address the specific needs of different groups of children;
the evaluation of the success or failure of policies and whether resource investments in selected programmes, services and initiatives are making a real difference to the lives of children in Ireland.

You can now download The Report on the Development of a National Set of Child Well-Being Indicators and three supporting documents, and the State of the Nation's Children Report 2006 and 2008.