Indicators of child and youth well-being are indispensable tools for improving the lives of children. In this book, the nation‘s leading development researchers review the recent progress made in the measurement, collection, dissemination, and use of indicators of child and youth well-being. In addition, they identify opportunities for future

This volume presents the results of the Flourishing Children Project. The study addressed gaps in the research on indicators of positive development of adolescents. Such indicators are essential for the balanced and scientifically sound study of adolescents. Yet measures of many aspects of flourishing are not available, and when they do exist, they are rarely measured in a developmentally appropriate manner for adolescents. In addition, they are often too long for program evaluations and surveys, have not been tested on diverse populations, nor carefully validated as predictors of positive outcomes. The Flourishing Children Project undertook the development of scales for adolescents ages 12-17 for 19 aspects of flourishing covering six domains: flourishing in school and work, personal flourishing, flourishing in relationships, relationship skills, helping others to flourish, and environmental stewardship. This volume describes the four-stage process of developing the scales, including: Reviewing the literature for extant measures for items to test and synthesizing the existing research into consensus definitions for each construct; conducting cognitive testing of items with adolescents and their parents; pilot testing the items; and conducting psychometric analyses.

In this new title, the nation's leading development researchers review the recent progress made in the measurement, collection, dissemination, and use of indicators of child and youth well-being.

The Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics develops priorities for collecting data on children and youth, improve the reporting and dissemination of information on the status of children to the policy community and the general public, and produce more complete data on children at the State and local levels. This report presents key indicators grouped in seven sections: family and social environment, economic circumstances, health care, physical environment and safety, behavior, education, and health. In addition, this year's report includes a new indicator on teen immunizations that will allow the tracking of newly recommended adolescent vaccines. Extensive charts, tables and graphs. A print on demand report.

Child well-being, which covers everything from family relationships to their material well-being, is now increasingly being talked about in policy and practice nationally and internationally. However, a lack of clarity remains about what the idea really means and how it can help children. This book brings together contributions from international experts in order to define child well-being and to further understand how it can improve children's lives. Issues covered include how the idea is being used in government policy and practice in the UK and USA, how children can contribute to the understanding of child well-being, recent advances in the exploration of indicators and measures of well-being, and the importance of context in making comparisons. A concluding chapter explores whether child well-being is a useful concept in understanding children's lives, whether it positively contributes to policy and practice, and the value of international comparisons. This edited collection is essential reading for all those involved in understanding children's lives and who have responsibility for improving them, including practitioners, policymakers, students and academics.

The Child and Youth Well-Being Index (CWI) is an evidence-based composite measure of trends over time in the quality of life of America¿s children and young people. It comprises several interrelated summary domains of annual time series of various social indicators of well-being. The project has updated its measures of trends in the well-being of children and youth in the U.S. over the 30-year period, 1975 to 2004, with projections for 2005. A number of findings and conclusions can be drawn from the updated measures. This report provides details about the CWI for all children. It discusses in detail the Educational Attainment Domain and highlights a number of social changes and public policies that may account for these changes. Graphs.