1. What Works Centre for Wellbeing Public Mental Health Summit 2015
Nancy Hey
Deputy Director (Development)
What Works Wellbeing
21/09/2018
@WhatWorksWB

2. www.whatworkswellbeing.org @WhatWorksWB
Copenhagen airport 
21/09/2018
@WhatWorksWB

3. What Works Centre for Wellbeing
Our purpose to understand what governments, communities, businesses and individuals can do to increase wellbeing What we do Collate → Synthesise → Translate
21/09/2018
@WhatWorksWB

4. R F Kennedy said it best in 1968!
Gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile
Robert Kennedy
University of Kansas, March 18, 1968
Why?
GDP doesn’t count things that are important: volunteering, civic participation, leisure time, democracy, control, freedom….
GDP counts things that are associated with decreases in wellbeing: Costs of commuting, divorce, crime, Reconstruction after natural disasters…..
GDP is silent on: Fairness, sustainability, risks... → Complementary measures of social progress needed
@WhatWorksWB

5. What is Wellbeing? Ask Google.....
21/09/2018
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UNCLASSIFIED

6. Wellbeing according to google
21/09/2018
@WhatWorksWB

7. www.whatworkswellbeing.org @WhatWorksWB
What is wellbeing?
What is wellbeing and what matters most to our wellbeing?
You said:
Wellbeing is about people. Quality of life and prosperity. Positive physical and mental health. Thriving, sustainable businesses and communities.
21/09/2018
@WhatWorksWB
UNCLASSIFIED

8. ONS Wellbeing Framework
Informed by national debate
→ measuring what people say matters to them
→41 measures/ 10 domains
→ Related frameworks for: Children and Young People
Wellbeing, put simply, is about ‘how we are doing’ as individuals, communities and as a nation and how sustainable this is for the future. We define wellbeing as having 10 broad dimensions which have been shown to matter most to people in the UK as identified through a national debate. The dimensions are: the natural environment, personal well-being, our relationships, health, what we do, where we live, personal finance, the economy, education and skills and governance. Personal wellbeing is a particularly important dimension which we define as how satisfied we are with our lives, our sense that what we do in life is worthwhile, our day to day emotional experiences (happiness and anxiety) and our wider mental wellbeing.
ONS Reflections on Measuring National Well-being July 2013
The work of the Centre builds on the National Debate from 2010 and the subsequent measurement by ONS.
21/09/2018
@WhatWorksWB

9. Personal wellbeing- overall
“Personal wellbeing” Domain
How satisfied are you with your life nowadays?
To what extent do you feel the things you do in your life are worthwhile?
How happy did you feel yesterday?
How anxious did you feel yesterday?
Subjective wellbeing questions are particularly interesting
Three perspectives are important
Evaluative – long term wellbeing
Experiential – happiness and anxiety
Eudiamonic – sense of meaning/ purpose
Evaluating ‘self’ disagrees with Experience self in many cases. E.g. Evaluating self might think having is a good thing – convenient, flexible etc. but experiencing self might feel pressure to work out of hours etc. Parenting is similar – higher ‘worthwhile’ but higher stress/ anxiety.
Need positive and negative experience because – absence of negative experience is not the same as presence of positive emotions. Also more sensitive to positive than negative experiences.
21/09/2018
@WhatWorksWB
UNCLASSIFIED

10. www.whatworkswellbeing.org @WhatWorksWB
Initial scepticism
21/09/2018
@WhatWorksWB
UNCLASSIFIED

11. www.whatworkswellbeing.org @WhatWorksWB
Maturing debate
21/09/2018
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12. www.whatworkswellbeing.org @WhatWorksWB
Often discussed now
21/09/2018
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13. Who’s interested in wellbeing?
21/09/2018
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14. www.whatworkswellbeing.org @WhatWorksWB
21/09/2018
@WhatWorksWB

15. www.whatworkswellbeing.org @WhatWorksWB
The What Works Centre for Wellbeing is part of the What Works Network and a member of the What Works Advisory Council.
In doing so it signs up to the agreed functions of the a WWC as agreed by the Network. The Centres are ‘evidence intermediaries’.
21/09/2018
@WhatWorksWB

16. www.whatworkswellbeing.org @WhatWorksWB
A What Works centre is an independent Centre that is a bridge between knowledge and action
FUNCTIONS
Undertake systematic assessment of relevant evidence and produce a sound, accurate, clear and actionable synthesis of the global evidence base which:
Assesses and ranks interventions on the basis of effectiveness and cost effectiveness
Shows applicability
Shows the relative cost of interventions
Shows the strength of evidence on an agreed scale
Put the needs and interests of users and stakeholders at the heart of shaping a workplan
Advise those commissioning and undertaking innovative interventions and research projects to ensure that their work can be evaluated effectively
Publish and disseminate findings in a format that can be understood, interpreted and acted upon
To help produce a common currency for comparing the effectiveness of interventions
Identify research and capability gaps and work with partners to fill them
Not about a strict evidence hierarchy – what’s appropriate to answer the question. Does still need to appreciate the role RCT play
21/09/2018
@WhatWorksWB

17. Needs and Interests
We want to do something that is useful. Our initial stakeholder research shows that what we’re planning to do is needed. Can you help us refine it?
They are trying to collect information about the soft skills and changes to use in success stories and case studies so they including this in their evaluation form before and after now. It is very difficult to capture the change you see in people. They see their job as improving the wellbeing of the person as a whole and some people still then chose not to work.
VCS in Birmingham
They have found that you can improve wellbeing through lots of different things for example they wanted to improve mental health and found that one of the best interventions to do this is employment so they focused on improving skills. It’s a bit like nailing jelly to the wall! One thing has to stand out as the thing that makes the difference
VCS in Wales

18. www.whatworkswellbeing.org @WhatWorksWB
Questions?
Who is the right audience for this What Works Centre? Who is missing?
What do you want from the centre? What great practice is out there already?
How can the Centre turn research findings into action that will be most useful for you in policy and practice?
What questions do you as decision makers have about Wellbeing evidence/practice? What should be the priorities?
if you haven’t already do pop by our stall and have a chat, test your subjective wellbeing and tell us how we can help!
21/09/2018
@WhatWorksWB

19. Look after your own wellbeing
What can I do?
Look after your own wellbeing
21/09/2018
@WhatWorksWB

20. Help grow the evidence base
What can I do?
Help grow the evidence base
Use it in practice
Share & connect
21/09/2018
@WhatWorksWB

21. -Natural experiments/ trials
Grow the evidence base
Wellbeing evidence
Harmonise
(ONS4 + WEMWBS)
-Evaluate (process, context, outcomes)
-Natural experiments/ trials
Follow up over time
We need to collect as much robust evidence as possible to grow the evidence base of ‘what works’.
To ensure comparability, it’s really important that we use the same measures of wellbeing. The ones we’re using for comparing the effects of interventions on personal wellbeing are based on the ONS Measuring National Wellbeing framework: we’re using the 4 ONS personal wellbeing questions and the Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS). The latter has both a short form (7 items) and a long form (14 items)- either are okay. So please add these measures to your evaluations! The ONS measures take no more than 90 seconds to ask in a face to face or telephone interview- but they will add huge value and contribute to the wider evidence base.
Build evaluation in from the outset of your planned interventions- really helpful to have both statistical evidence of whether the initiative has improved wellbeing or not and also qualitative evidence of the context in which it worked, how it was implemented, the mechanisms by which it worked. If possible, do RCTs with a control group or seize the day to do a natural experiment, comparing outcomes for a group that has had the intervention with one that hasn’t.
Follow up over time to see if the wellbeing outcomes last. Do people quickly adapt and revert back to a lower level of wellbeing or are any improvements sustained over time? At 6 months? 12 months?
21/09/2018
@WhatWorksWB

22. Use it in practice Better decisions for better lives?
Use wellbeing evidence
Apply wellbeing lens & tools
Better decisions for better lives?
Really important to get the wellbeing evidence used in practice.
There’s now a lot of wellbeing evidence available- either in the form of existing data from surveys, etc on which you could do secondary analysis or analysis which is already published and available to use (eg, from the Measuring National Wellbeing Programme, nef, the LSE, Cabinet Office, etc)
Think about the possible effects of policy ideas on wellbeing and explore those in designing and refining new ideas and existing policies and practices. The Cabinet Office have put together some helpful tools for doing this (link to policy wellbeing toolkit?).
All of this we hope will lead to better decisions for wellbeing- and by sharing our evidence and experiences, we’ll be able to build more robust info about what works, in which contexts and how.
21/09/2018
@WhatWorksWB

23. What Works Centre for Wellbeing
Share and connect
What Works Centre for Wellbeing
Pioneers
Tools & resources
Events
Forum
Evidence & Data
There are a range of ways in which the What Works Centre is trying to make opportunities for coming together and sharing lessons with one another and with the Centre.
Pioneers blog- highlighting exciting practices now- sometimes with follow up later to update with what the evidence shows. An opportunity to see what others are doing, share what you’re doing, be inspired.
Links to new evidence and data as it becomes available. As with the other WWCs, we also expect to create an online toolkit with the results of our evidence reviews.
Tools & resources: info about where to data with ONS4 & WEMWBS is available, info about how to use the measures in surveys, links to policy wellbeing toolkit (when finalised).
Events: for sharing, networking, learning (policy, practice, etc)– interested to know what would be most helpful.
Online forum: for building the wellbeing community- sharing with each other, also to be used to highlight opportunities for wb research and collaboration. 120 registered users and counting- please join us there!
If you’ve got a great policy issue in the areas of work and, please get in touch. We’re commissioning wellbeing public dialogues that will take place this spring and summer and we’d like to hear your ideas.
21/09/2018
@WhatWorksWB

24. What Works Centre for Wellbeing Public Mental Health Forum March 2015
Nancy Hey
Deputy Director (Development)
What Works Wellbeing
21/09/2018
@WhatWorksWB