from child welfare to children well being: the child indicators perspective

1. From Child Welfare to Children Well Being: the child indicators perspective University of Victoria September 10, 2009 Asher Ben-Arieh benarieh@cc.huji.ac.il

2. The presentation A brief history of the child indicators movement Recent changes and shifts in the field as well as its current status. What led to the rapid development and shifts: Changes in the demand for indicators; Methodological and measurement changes; and Normative and theoretical changes. Were are we going in the future

3. The child indicators movement The use of statistical data and indicators to study the well-being of children is not new. Pioneering �State of the Child� reports were published as early as the 1940s. The current field of child well-being indicators has its substantial origins in the �social indicators movement� of the 1960s. This movement believed that well measured and consistently collected social indicators could provide a way to monitor the condition of groups including children and families.

4. The child indicators movement The child indicators movement was based on these earlier efforts, and really sprung into life toward the last two decades of the 20th century. UNICEF published its State of the World's Children report since 1979. There have been various initiatives, such as the "European Childhood Project�. There have been many local initiatives.

5. The child indicators movement Indicators are used to: Describe the condition of children. Monitor or track child outcomes, or to set goals. There are notable gaps and inadequacies in existing child well-being indicators, there also are literally dozens of data series and indicators. The rapidly growing interest in children�s well-being indicators stems, in part, from a movement toward accountability-based public policy, and from the rapid changes in family life.

6. The Child Indicators Movement Beyond these general explanations, I would argue that the development of the child indicators movement be attributed to: New �demands�, especially in regard to the policy utility. New methodological advancements �New� normative and conceptual theories. This evolution of child well-being indicators has occurred virtually everywhere, although at varying paces. I would argue that the current status can be best understood in regard to 9 major shifts:

7. From Survival and Basic Needs to Development and Well-Being Much attention has been paid to children�s physical survival and basic needs, focusing often on threats to children�s survival, and the use of such indicators has spurred programs to save children�s lives. Infant and child mortality, school enrollment and dropout, immunizations, and childhood disease are all examples of indicators of basic needs. The field moved from efforts to determine minimums, as in saving a life, to those that focus on quality of life.

8. From Negative to Positive The absence of problems or failures does not necessarily indicate proper growth and success. Measures of risk factors or negative behaviors are not the same as measures that gauge protective factors or positive behaviors. Thus, the challenge became developing indicators that hold societies accountable for more than the safe warehousing of children and youth.

9. Incorporating children rights and beyond Although inspired and to some extent guided by the child rights movement, the child indicators movement looks beyond just monitoring of rights. Perhaps the most crucial difference is the standard used to measure children�s status. Children�s well-being is normally focused on what is desired, but rights monitoring addresses legally established minimums. Monitoring rights and monitoring well-being also share a focus on child-centered indicators, ones that can be measured at the level of the child. Such indicators draw attention to the actual situation of children.

10. From Well-Becoming to Well-Being In contrast to the immediacy of well-being, well-becoming describes a future focus (i.e., preparing children to be productive and happy adults). The conventional preoccupation with the next generation is a preoccupation of adults. Although not a necessarily harmful view, anyone interested in children and childhood should also be interested in the present as well as future childhood. Focusing on preparing children to become citizens suggests that they are not citizens during childhood. Both perspectives are legitimate and necessary. However, the emergence of the child-centered perspective, introduced new ideas and energy to the child indicators movement.

11. From Traditional to New Domains Studies have shown that the above three shifts are interrelated and are both the reason and the outcome of each other. Until recently when measuring the state of children, scholars concerned themselves with traditional domains, those which were defined either by profession or by a social service (i.e., education, health, foster care). Domains such as children�s life skills, children�s civic involvement and participation, and children�s culture.

12. From an adult to a child perspective When these changes were taken into account, efforts to study children�s well-being had to ask the following questions: What are children doing? What do children need? What do children have? What do children think and feel? To whom or what are children connected and related? What do children contribute? Answering such questions demanded a better picture of children as human beings in their present life including the positive aspects of their life. To better answer such questions, the field had to focus on children�s daily lives, which is something that children know the most about.

13. The changing geographical focus Recent years have shown a growing interest in focusing on communities and neighborhoods as the context of children�s well-being, and the need to focus policies and programs in these areas. There has been an accompanying increase of interest in the level at which data on children�s well-being should be collected, and in the necessity for such data in planning, policymaking, and evaluation. In virtually all countries, this has led to efforts to produce indicators and data on children�s well-being at these �new� levels. Local and regional reports on children�s well-being are multiplying.

14. Becoming policy oriented There is an evident shift toward an emphasis on policy-oriented indicators. Recent years have seen significant progress in the use of indicators by practitioners and policymakers. Indeed the field moved from a conceptual discussion of potential uses, to the implementation of actual efforts in practice. With considerable agreement on the uses of indicators, and some case examples of actual use, the child indicators movement became ready to address the question of what difference indicators make in advancing child well-being.

15. Toward a Composite Index of Child Well-Being Although expanding data on children provides policymakers and the media important information, this increasing supply of information has also led to calls for a single summary number to capture the circumstances of children. Such a composite index would facilitate easier assessment of progress or decline. Moreover, it might be easier to hold policymakers accountable if a single number were used.

16. Why did it happen? I would argue that this rapid development is a consequence of three major sources: a �new� demand for policy oriented indicators; changes in the technical and methodological ability to produce indicators; and new normative and theoretical advancements. I will now turn to discuss these policy impetuses, methodological, and theoretical sources of change.

17. The �New� Demand for Policy Oriented Indicators In recent years, the call for more policy-oriented research and policy oriented indicators, such indicators that would have a bigger impact on policy and would capture the attention of policy makers, become much clearer. This �demand� for policy oriented indicators contributed to the development and advancement of child indicators movement. In that regard, some indicators and measurements have clearly led to new policies and programs for children and some have not. It is also evident that the same indicator, when used in certain contexts, has led to desired outcomes while in others, it did not. The effort to develop better policy-oriented indicators led to a thorough examination of existing indicators and to better data collection, including across new domains of life.

18. New Methodological and Technical developments Just as the new demand for policy oriented indicators created the context in which the child indicators movement flourished, three methodological perspectives contributed to its rapid evolution during the last 30 years: the call for using the child as the unit of observation; the emerging importance of subjective perspectives; and the expanded use of administrative data and the growing variety of data sources.

19. �New� Normative and Theoretical Approaches Theories and normative approaches to children welfare abound. Many have contributed to this effort and many more continue to work in this field. Yet, I single out three such approaches that not only influenced the child welfare field at large, but had a particular contribution to the emergence and rapid development of the child indicators movement, these includes: the ecological theories of child development; the normative concept of children�s rights; and the new sociology of childhood as a stage in and of itself.

20. Future Perspectives The field is maturing and getting more organized. What started in the last decades of the 20th century with several international and national projects (see for example, http://multinational-indicators.chapinhall.org; Qvortrup 1992; Hauser et al. 1997; Ben-Arieh et al. 2001), had developed by 2006 into the International Society for Child Indicators (ISCI) (www.childindicators.org) and the launch of the Child Indicators Research journal. These accomplishments and advances will no doubt continue apace.

21. ISCI - Rational A society of researchers, data users, child advocates, and policymakers. Established in 2006 and has more then 150 paying members to-date. publish a e-newsletter (2-4 times a year) Publish with Springer a peer reviewed journal and a book series For more details and for joining WWW.CHILDINDICATORS.ORG

22. CIR Cutting edge peer reviewed journal published by Springer. 4 issues per year. Impressive editorial board Real global approach Check www.springer.com/12187

23. CWRI � book series To be launched in Nov. 09 with the first volume published. 3-5 titles per year Springer publishing house Rare opportunity to advance knowledge in children well being

25. Please send me questions or suggestions Asher Ben-Arieh, PhD Editor in Chief, Child Indicators Research www.springer.com/12187 Co-Chair, International Society for Child Indicators (ISCI) www.childindicators.org Head, Joseph J. Schwartz M.A. Program Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Tel: ++972-2-5882236 Fax: ++972-2-5881308 E-mail: benarieh@cc.huji.ac.il