The term ‘wellbeing’ is ubiquitous, in newspapers, books, policy. Since 2008 Wales has benefited from a series of reports entitled the Children And Young People’s Wellbeing Monitor For Wales. As long ago as 2006 David Cameron said it was time all of us admitted ‘there’s more to life than money’ and focused ‘not just on GDP but on GWB – general wellbeing’.
So what is wellbeing? Educationalists, economists, health-service professionals and multinational corporations talk and ‘do’ children’s wellbeing, yet mean different things by it. Jenny Thomas calls wellbeing ‘intangible, difficult to define and even harder to measure’. Do the versions of wellbeing we hear and see on a daily basis mean the same thing? And if they do, who has decided what that thing is?
I am writing here about children’s wellbeing, drawing on experience of working in education in Wales and England. I hope to draw the reader’s gaze towards the forces of neoliberalism which are coming across the border and aiming to commodify a Welsh model of childhood wellbeing. This may seem insignificant to some but I believe that the culture, identity and values inherent to a Welsh model are in danger. Although this article refers to educational wellbeing and children, one could substitute adults in Wales into the story, and likewise wellbeing in health, housing or social care – the wellbeing agenda is not limited to schools though it plays out powerfully there…
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