Case Study: Children & Young People's Health & Wellbeing Survey

In 2006, Foster and Brown Research worked in partnership with Gloucestershire County Council and the Health Community, to find out what children and young people between the ages of 8 and 16 really thought about a range of health-related issues using an Online Survey.

The aim of this study was to provide essential information for individual schools and for the County as a whole in order to address needs and target resources more effectively for the benefit of the young people in the County.

We worked very hard to make the survey look exciting and interesting - hence the frogs! - as well as consulting with many stakeholders to get the questions right.

The 2010 Online Pupil Survey results had nearly 19,000 responses from Children and Young People in Gloucestershire schools and took place between February and April 2010. 88% of Gloucestershire schools took part which this year includes for the first time sixth forms, as well as secondary schools, primary schools, the special schools and pupil referral service centres from across the county. The entire database which you can access here now contains data from over 50,000 individual surveys from 2006, 2008 and 2010. This data will provide important information to judge whether outcomes really are improving for children and young people in the future.

A resumé of who we are and what we are doing can be seen here

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Reaching Gloucestershire Schools

What makes the Gloucestershire survey unique is:

1. the huge number of respondents from over 85% of schools in the County (primary and secondary phases, including special schools and PRUs)
2. the online results facility (using Lodeseeker™) which allows schools to interrogate their own data and compare it the the rest of the County.

Schools are approached via the Gloucestershire Health & Wellbeing Team - all administration is carried out at County level, and we assist by providing username/passwords, reporting on progress by checking school logins throughout the survey period, talking to individual schools if there are any technical issues (there aren't many) and attending steering committee meetings.

It is possible to work either centrally, with a Local Authority, as in Gloucestershire, or individually with a single school. Contact us to discuss the posibilities.

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Every Child Matters

The survey questions are based on the 5 outcomes for Every Child Matters:

1. Be healthy
2. Stay safe
3. Enjoy and achieve
4. Make a positive contribution
5. Achieve economic well-being

Based on these 5 outcomes, the survey comprises 6 sections:

1. Healthy Eating
2. Physical Activity
3. Alcohol, Substances and Smoking
4. Citizenship/Student Participation/Finance
5. Safety
6. Relationships

There are 3 versions of the survey, one for Primary (or below YearGroup 7), one for Secondary (or above Year Group 7) and one for Young People in Year 12 (or Further Education equivalent) and above. There are also graphic-free versions for pupils with special needs.

The survey takes about 20 minutes to complete

The youngest Year Groups are very comfortable with the technology, although they do need more help with interpreting the questions, as you would expect, and the Health & Wellbeing Team have provided teacher packs in order to help prepare for the Survey.

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Using the results

The data has been used in many ways, including:

• Schools have used the data for their own self-evaluation, to identify future needs and support school improvement and in lessons as a valuable and engaging teaching aid.
• The data has helped to inform Gloucestershire’s county-wide partnership’s priorities, as outlined in the Children and Young people’s plan.
• Schools have been supported to address particular issues highlighted in the reports, such as healthy eating, alcohol awareness and emotional health.
• Schools are able to use the data to help them with filling in statutary information, such as the OFSTED SEF report.
• Resources have been targeted at areas of need such as domestic violence and anti-bullying.
• The data has helped the Healthy schools team and various other partners within the County Council and the joint Primary Health Care Trust to focus on improving integrated working across agencies.

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Accessing Results

We provide dynamic, hosted online reporting using our Lodeseeker™ technology which allows full interrogation of results as part of our reporting services. This gives many advantages, including:

• Schools have use of the data for their own self-evaluation, to identify future needs and support school improvement. The site can also be used in lessons as a valuable and engaging teaching aid.
• The data is available through a secure login and there are several access levels, depending on who is logging on. For example, schools can see their own results compared to the county total for their phase (as default - ie a secondary school will compare with the secondary schools in the county, a primary school with primary schools - although there is provision to compare all results if desired).
• The extensive filtering and tabulation facilities mean that individuals can research the data for themselves without having to go through a third party.
• The results are hosted by us via a licensing agreement - the data is yours, but we put it onto the internet for you - that means any technical problems or data requests come to us directly.

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Further information

Already we have addressed conferences and produced posters in collaboration with Gloucestershire PCT and LEA:

• Poster (pdf) presented at the LARIA conference, Royal Holloway College, London April 2010
• Poster (pdf) presented at the The Third European Conference on Sensory and Consumer Research : A Sense of Innovation University of Applied Sciences, Hamburg, Germany • 7-10 September 2008
• "Young Peoples Perception of School dinners" - Poster (pdf) at the British Food and Drink group meeting and Food Choices Conference - Birmingham, April 2006
• Paper:An e-survey approach to obtaining baseline information for "Every Child Matters" presented with Dr Ruth Wain (deputy direction for joint NHS Primary Health Care Trusts in Gloucestershire) for the Faculty of Public Health (Royal College of Physicians of the United Kingdom) in Glasgow June 2006.
• Paper presented (see abstract details (pdf)) at "A Sense of Diversity - Second European Conference on Sensory Consumer Science of Food and Beverages" in The Hague, 26 - 29 September 2006.

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