United Way, along with dozens of partners, has developed a set of measures that the community can use to assess how its children, the families that support them and the community that surrounds them, are doing. This enables us to track our progress and determine what levers are the most effective in ensuring “all the children are well.”
The Child Well-Being Index measures are:
Putting our community’s children on the path to fulfilling their potential requires us to work together toward a single, shared agenda. We need a collective vision, unified measures of achievement, strategies for how to attain success and a way to evaluate progress.
For every measure of child well-being, there are a multitude of factors that influence outcomes and a series of actions that can allow progress. When we consider all of the potential solutions that help us move the needle – evidence-based strategies, innovative programs, policies, volunteerism, etc., they fall into three categories:
Strategies that prevent problems from occurring in the first place. These activities and programs strengthen core skills, sustain what’s working and increase overall family stability.
Strategies that help children and families heal, rebuild and create new opportunities.
Strategies that address community-wide issues to ensure that each child, regardless of zip code, has a fair shot at growing up in a healthy, nurturing community.
