Wellbeing and the ecology of children’s lives Flashcards
Well-being
is about feeling good and functioning well and comprises an individual’s experience of their life and a comparison with social norms and values.
Wellbeing exists in two dimensions:
Subjective well-being asks people directly how they think and feel about their own well-being, and includes aspects such as life satisfaction, positive emotions, and whether their life is meaningful.
Objective well-being is based on assumptions about basic human needs and rights, including aspects such as adequate food, physical health, education, safety etc. Objective wellbeing can be measured through self-report (e.g., asking people whether they have a specific health condition), or through more objective measures (e.g., mortality rates and life expectancy).
Department of Health, 2014
Despite the development of more holistic assessment frameworks and policy initiatives that are designed to improve children’s wellbeing
both practice experience and research indicate that child welfare agencies and workers continue to focus most of their attention on internal family issues, and so fail to incorporate adequately the anti-poverty approaches (Gill and Jack, 2008).
Impact of poverty
Individual level
The causes of poverty are sometimes seen as the failings of individuals. This is a simplistic view which fails to consider the complexities of poverty revealed by the ecological perspective.
Developing ecological practice
Practitioners may be influenced by these ways of thinking unless they think critically using tools such as the ecological perspective.
Impact of poverty
Family level
The culture of consumerism, with its associated branding, advertising, and role modelling, exerts a powerful influence on families to acquire the necessary products.
Developing ecological practice
There is scope for practitioners to engage in discussions with families, drawing on the relevance of issues such as community and forms of disadvantage, as well as working with their individual situations.
consumerism
The practice associated with capitalist social and political systems of consuming goods and services. It has ‘become a term carrying a derogatory connotation for those critical of this political and social system and its ideology of rapacious material acquisition’ (Littler, J. Oxford Bibliographies.http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199766567/obo-9780199766567-0036.xml)
Impact of poverty
Community level
Different groups of people within the same community appear to experience more or less poverty than others.
For example, specific black and minority ethnic groups are disproportionately affected by poverty. Children who experience poverty often worry about bullying from peers and ‘fitting in’ at school and other community contexts.
Developing ecological practice
Sometimes practitioners can co-ordinate and combine their interventions. They can also bring families who have similar experiences together for peer support at the community level
Impact of poverty
Society level
Poverty has been taken up politically at the national level to be addressed through services and policies targeting individuals, families and communities.
Some theories (e.g. Wilkinson and Pickett, 2009) emphasise that greater levels of inequality (between rich and poor) in a country impact negatively on all families and communities.
Developing ecological practice
Some practitioners use an ecological perspective when thinking about child poverty to see the links between their roles and broader efforts to tackle it.
There may be a case for practitioners to engage with politicians, funders, agencies and the media (Gill and Jack, 2007).
