Events and publications
Local Wellbeing Project publications
The State of Happiness: Can public policy shape people's wellbeing and resilience?
January 2010
The final Local Wellbeing Project report brings together three years of groundbreaking work based on in-depth pilots in the three partner local authority areas as well as other national and international developments in this field. The State of Happiness highlights that promoting wellbeing is no longer an airy aspiration and points to a future where public agencies will take it for granted that they should consider the potential impact of their actions on happiness and wellbeing. Download the executive summary here.
Taking the temperature of local communities: The wellbeing and resilience measure (WARM)
October 2010
WARM is a new tool that has been developed to make the most of existing data about localities, combining familiar statistics on such things as jobs and health with new ways of thinking about how happy and resilient communities are.
WARM focuses not just on community needs and vulnerabilities (such as crime or mental illness) but also on community assets (such as strong families and social supports).
December 2009
This discussion paper explores ways in which local government can use practical initiatives that support wellbeing as a way to encourage local residents to be more green. It is based on a review of activities in Hertfordshire, Manchester and South Tyneside- and discussions with a number of local government representatives and environmental sustainability experts.
Parenting and wellbeing: knitting families together
September 2009
This report argues that parenting support often fails because it ignores the wellbeing of parents themselves. Happy parents tend to be better parents. But the majority of government funded parenting support, both voluntary and compulsory, does not prioritise parents' mental health and wellbeing. Instead if focuses only on the technical skills of parenting, and tackling children's behaviour problems.
Opening the doors to apprenticeships
Part 2: Reflecting on ways forward
As the second of two linked publications, this report considers the practical next steps that need to be taken in order to better understand disadvantage and/or disengagement from Apprenticeships, to raise awareness, to create more effective pre-Apprenticeship routes, and to improve employer engagement.
Opening the doors to apprenticeships
Part 1: Setting the scene
Young people who are disadvantaged and disengaged from education and training have much to gain from the opportunities an Apprenticeship can bring. However, this new report highlights in detail the barriers experienced by this group of young people in accessing the Apprenticeship pathway.
Thinking about Apprenticeships: perceptions and expectations of young people, parents and employers
July 2009
This report explores the perceptions of Apprenticeships amongst young people, parents and employers in three Pathfinder authorities: Hertfordshire, Manchester and South Tyneside. The Apprenticeship Pathfinder Project, funded by the National Apprenticeship Service, is one of the strands of the Local Wellbeing Project.
Neighbourliness + empowerment = wellbeing: Is there a formula for happy communities?
June 2008
This report finds that neighbourhood and community empowerment has three effects which increase wellbeing: providing greater opportunities for residents to influence decisions affecting their neighbourhoods; facilitating regular contact between neighbours, and helping residents gain the confidence to exercise control over local circumstances
Local wellbeing: can we measure it?
September 2008
This report recommends a three-tiered approach for local authorities trying to measure wellbeing at the local level: universal (an overall, cross-cutting measure of people's experience of life); domain (measures of different dimensions of people's wellbeing, like health or community safety), and targeted - measures of some of the underlying factors affecting people's wellbeing, such as self-esteem.
Developed in collaboration with the new economics foundation and supported by the Audit Commission.
External evaluation reports
2000 year 7s took part in the UK Resilience Programme in 2007 and are being monitored for three years. The first and second year evaluation reports have now been completed. The evaluation is being carried out by LSE.
Read the first evaluation report (2009) here or click here to download a summary of the key findings.
Read the second interim report (June 2010) here or click here to download a summary of the key findings.
Events
Wellbeing and public policy: towards a better success
12 November at Macquarie Bank Ltd.
The Local Wellbeing Project's successful breakfast seminar, with keynote speaker Sir Gus O’Donnell, Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Home Civil Service was held on 12 November 2009. This event was attended by over 60 key stakeholders from a range of perspectives from local and central government, academia and the voluntary sector.
The aim of our seminar was to take stock of what works in national and local policies to promote wellbeing, in part drawing on the experience of local authorities in the Local Wellbeing Project.
The Local Wellbeing Conference September 2008
The Local Wellbeing Conference took place in London on 9 September 2008. Presentations from the event and the conference report, which draws together the key issues and lessons from the day,are now available to download.
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