Child welfare workers or other professionals interested in measuring and assessing well-being can use these materials that focus on tools and instruments to measure and assess child, caregiver, and family well-being.
How to Measure Well-Being
VanderWeele (2021)
Psychology Today
Describes the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University, which is working to measure well-being using metrics around health, happiness, meaning, character, social relationships, and other approaches.
Measures of Community Well-Being: A Template
VanderWeele (2019)
International Journal of Community Well-Being, 2
Proposes a measure of community well-being that can be adapted for use in cities, neighborhoods, families, and other types of communities.
Measuring Well-Being Among School-Age Children: Seeking a Developmentally Appropriate Qualitative Approach (PDF - 3,942 KB)
Bellamy (2020)
Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research, 10
Presents a well-being approach that calls for the use of qualitative measures, such as personal interviews, in conjunction with quantitative measures to increase the reliability and accuracy of well-being studies with children.
The Structured Decision Making Model in Child Protection
Evident Change
Describes the use of the Structured Decision Making model in child welfare as an assessment tool to promote the safety and well-being of children.
Using Tools to Measure Well-Being in the Time of COVID-19
Institute for Healthcare Improvement (2020)
Explores why well-being is useful to measure even during times of crisis and examines tools that may be used to measure well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Well-Being Concepts
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Provides answers to frequently asked questions about the concept of well-being including how well-being is defined, how it is measured, and what things that are being done to examine and promote well-being.
Well-Being Dashboard
Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago
Explains a tool for measuring, assessing, and tracking child and family well-being at the individual and systems level.
Well-Being Indicator Tool for Youth (WIT-Y)
Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare
Presents a tool to gauge well-being for youth and young adults ages 15–21 with child welfare involvement. The tool includes an online assessment, a visual representation of an individual’s well-being indicators after the assessment, and a planning document for youth to use to improve in specific areas.
Well-Being Outcome Measures and Instruments
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Administration for Children & Families, Children's Bureau (2021)
Offers a list of screening and assessment instruments compiled by the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation to measure child and adolescent well-being and trauma.