Well-being: the next revolution in children's services?

The concept of 'well-being' is entering into the policy debate on the back of recent research on 'happiness' - self-assessed evaluations of quality of life. It stands for a reassertion of relationships and feelings as central to positive evaluations and against the competitive and consumerist ethos of market individualism. Although the findings of research on well-being among adults need to be adapted to suit children's situations and perceptions, work on this is in progress. This article presents some of the issues for measuring children's well-being and for comparing measurements between countries. It also considers the implications for children's services of an approach that re-values the relational elements in human service work, and argues that coherence between services is as important as the outcomes of interventions with individuals and families.