How are our kids doing? Find your school district’s results.

In 2006, United Way British Columbia and a UBC research team led by Dr. Kim Schonert-Reichl had a novel thought: if we want to know how kids are doing, why not ask them directly? The Middle Years Development Instrument (MDI) was designed so that children themselves in Grade 4 and Grade 7 could fill out a daily diary of their activities and answer questions related to their well-being. The questions tied back to five areas of development linked to well-being, health and academic achievement:

• social and emotional development
• connectedness
• school experiences
• physical health and well-being
• and constructive use of time.

Fast forward to 2014 and over 24,000 children in BC have now been surveyed. Look at the MDI results from school districts across BC. At the Middle Childhood Learning Summit held in April at UBC Robson Square, people who work with children were asked to overlay a “child’s rights” perspective onto their work with 6 to 12 year olds. Rights include: being safe; being healthy; being heard; and being yourself. How can you apply child’s rights to interactions with the young people in your life? The Summit was presented by United Way British Columbia in partnership with Equitas and the Society for Children and Youth of BC and supported by UBC’s Human Early Learning Partnership.