Promoting healthy development and wellbeing

Abstract

A number of important questions emerge when developing policy to improve the wellbeing of children. Two critical questions are what is it about individuals, families, communities and institutions (e.g., schools) that can adversely affect an individual's life and their wellbeing, and what measures can be implemented early in life to promote healthy development that enhances wellbeing. To being to answer the first question, it is necessary to examine the key theories that explain differences in human developmental trajectories. The theories propose that the risk of poor wellbeing exists within the individual as well as within the environment in which they live. Further, how the individual interacts with their environment is implicitly affected by a number of systems. including the family system, school and community systems, and the broader economic and political systems.