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----- Original Message ----- *From:* Social Policy Research Unit - SPRU <mailto:[log in to unmask]> *To:* [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> *Sent:* Monday, January 26, 2009 10:33 AM *Subject:* First local index of child well-being + Comparison of policies designed to enhance child well-being *First local index of child well-being* Dear Colleagues, National initiatives to tackle child poverty and social exclusion have become increasingly concentrated at small area level. At the same time, mainstream services at local level are being scrutinised on the extent to which their services are being directed to children most in need. There is a great hunger for information about the status of children, so that local authorities and Children's Trusts can plan and evaluate their work. Jonathan Bradshaw and Ian Sinclair from SPRU, along with colleagues from York and the Social Disadvantage Research Centre at the University of Oxford, have produced the first index of child well-being at the level of Lower Layer Super Output Areas for England. The index will enable the policy and research community to identify which local areas are the highest priority for action to raise child well-being, and the extent to which services and initiatives are focussing on the well-being of children in those areas. The index uses mainly administrative data on children covering seven domains of well-being: * income * health * education * housing * environment * crime * children in need. Indicators are combined at "lower layer super output area" (LSOA) level. An overall index is created at both LSOA and local or unitary authority levels. The data and report are now available to download from: _http://php.york.ac.uk/inst/spru/pubs/social.php_ -------- Also newly available is a report from December 2007 on: *A Comparison of Policies Designed to Enhance Child Well-Being* UNICEF's Report Card 7 on Child Well-Being summarised indicators of child well-being in OECD countries. The UK came bottom of the league table on child well-being. We knew from previous research, not least previous Report Cards produced by UNICEF, that the UK was likely to do badly on child income poverty, children living in workless families, teenage pregnancy, and some health outcomes. But what was more disturbing was the UK performance on some of the dimensions concerned with relationships with family and friends, subjective well-being and risk behaviour. The questions raised were why is the UK doing badly in these domains and what can be done about it? UNICEF UK (UUK) decided to commission a short piece of work, designed to establish whether it was possible to learn from other countries' public policies that led to them performing better on these domains. This report is also available to download from: _http://php.york.ac.uk/inst/spru/pubs/social.php_ Best wishes, Rachel Pitman Information Officer Social Policy Research Unit University of York www.york.ac.uk/spru <http://www.york.ac.uk/spru> (01904) 321981 *SPRUlist News...* You can choose to be on a subject –specific SPRU list if you wish to. If one or more of the following groups covers the areas of research that you are interested in and you do not wish to receive alerts about research in the other area(s), then let us know and we will add your details to the list: (a) social security, employment and welfare/poverty issues (b) older people, disabled and chronically ill adults and their carers (c) disabled and chronically ill children and their families and child well-being (d) children in, or on the edge of, the care/youth justice systems Of course you can also join the main list and receive everything!