The PowerPoint slides used at the What Works Wellbeing Stakeholder Engagement Workshops held in Leeds on 10 September 2015

1. Workshop on using wellbeing
evidence in policy-making
What Works Wellbeing Community Evidence
Programme - 10th September 2015
Yorkshire – Commissioners, Practitioners, Third
Sector and Academics

2. • Set up in October 2014
• Government-funded initiative dedicated to
understanding what national and local
governments, along with voluntary and business
partners, can do to increase wellbeing.
• Purpose is to get robust, structured and practical
evidence of what works to those areas and
organisations that can use it to best effect
Aims to be: Evidence based, Open,
Collaborative, Realistic, Practical and
Iterative

3. THE HUB
Work and
Learning
Cross cutting
wellbeing
capabilities
Communities
Culture
and Sport
Funders:
• Economic and Social Research Council
• Public Health England
• DCMS |Arts Council England |Historic England |Heritage Lottery Fund
• Department for Communities and
Local Government
• Department for Business Innovation
and Skills
• Department for Health
• Department for Work and Pensions
• Arts and Humanities Research
Council
• Food Standards Agency
• Cabinet Office
• Local Government Association
• Big Lottery Fund
• Office for National Statistics Chair: Paul Litchfield, BT
Patron: Lord Gus O’Donnell

4. Living
environment
Social
networks
Governance
Community Wellbeing Evidence
Programme

5. What Works Centre Policy area
National Institute for Health and Care
Excellence (NICE)
Health and social care
Sutton Trust/Educational Endowment
Foundation
Educational achievement
College of Policing What Works Centre for
Crime Reduction
Crime reduction
Early Intervention Foundation Early intervention
What Works Centre for Local Economic
Growth(hosted by LSE, Arup, Centre for
Cities)
Local economic growth
Centre for Ageing Better Improved quality of life for older people
What Works Centre for Wellbeing Wellbeing
The What Works Network uses
evidence to make better decisions
to improve public services.
• £200 billion
• 7 independent centres

6. Structure of programme
Stakeholder
engagement
Work plan
New survey data
analysis
Four key questions
for systematic
review
Capacity building
and training for
using wellbeing
Ongoingdisseminationand
interaction

7. Stakeholder engagement
Workshops
Interviews
Questionnaire
Community sounding boards
Online discussion?

8. Mostly, we’re talking about personal wellbeing:
• Feeling good and functioning well
In the survey completed by What Works Wellbeing
stakeholders, the most popular definition was:
“….functioning well in life, for example having a strong sense of
meaning and feeling connected to other people.”
In the evidence base, we will be using data on
subjective wellbeing, including questions about
satisfaction with life, and positive and negative
emotions.
What do we mean
by ‘wellbeing’?

9. Our evidence programme is interested in
community factors (e.g. built environment, social
networks, or decision-making processes) that
influence personal wellbeing.
But we are also interested in what determines
community wellbeing. We will be proposing
definitions of community wellbeing later in our
programme. The most popular definition amongst
stakeholders so far appears to be:
“strong networks of relationships and support between
people in a community, both in close relationships and
friendships, and between neighbours and acquaintances.”
What do we mean
by ‘wellbeing’?

10. • Identify topic areas you are interested in
• Identify types of information you would find
useful
• Build links between different groups,
including academics, policy makers, and
practitioners
• Learn from you about relevant evidence
• Find out how you would like us to work
with/for you
• Find out about the challenges you face in
using wellbeing evidence
Aims

11. These are just meant to give a flavour, they are by no
means exhaustive:
• What are the factors that make a particular kind of
community project successful?
• What are the most important factors that determine
wellbeing or community outcomes within a particular
policy area?
• What policies have improved wellbeing or community
outcomes within particular policy area?
• What are the positive side-effects of increasing
wellbeing or community outcomes in a particular
domain?
The kinds of questions
we might ask in review…

12. Workshop on using wellbeing
evidence in policy-making
What Works Wellbeing Community Evidence
Programme - 10th September 2015
Yorkshire – Commissioners, Practitioners, Third
Sector and Academics

13. Session One: What ingredients in communities
are important for wellbeing?

14. Session Two: Identifying everyday
challenges and opportunities for wellbeing in
communities
• What is your work fundamentally ‘for’?
• In 10 years, how will you know if you are
achieving that?
• What are the key principles/approaches that are
key to your work being successful?
• What are the challenges you face?

15. Session Three: Identifying different ways to
use wellbeing evidence
• How might wellbeing, a focus on wellbeing, wellbeing
data, or effective wellbeing interventions, address
challenge X?
• What kind of evidence related to wellbeing might
stakeholders need to overcome/address challenge X?
• Who does this evidence need to convince?
• What barriers prevent you from using wellbeing
evidence to meet these challenges?

16. Thank you for coming