Guhn – MDI social support data

Well there are numerous key findings that have come out of the MDI. I think the main contribution of the MDI is to literally put on the map the importance of social relationships for the well-being of children. And it’s confirming other research, but for the MDI what we do is we collect data from an entire population. So we don’t do a sample, we ask every child within the jurisdictions. For example, in Vancouver we go to all three or four thousand children in a given class – in a given cohort – and then that allows us to map results by neighbourhood. And so we can look at variability by neighbourhood and what we really are seeing is that the moment children report fewer social strong peer relationships or support by adults, you see that’s also reflected in their well-being. So we see neighbourhood by neighbourhood variability and how well the kids are doing and one of the strongest predictors, how well they are feeling supported by adults in their environments and how strongly they feel connected to peers.  

So we knew those things in principle from research but showing that there’s large variability between social contexts is quite eye-opening for parents, for professionals, for administrators, for service providers, for policy decision makers, because they think how can it be that in one neighbourhood the children are feeling well and they’re well connected, in another neighbourhood they’re not connected and they’re not feeling well. Even though we’re all living within the same city, within the same country with generally speaking the same rights but apparently not the same resources and access to resources for everyone. We have also shown in some of the research, and of course it validates other research, that children who do have high levels of peer support and high levels of social support on average are doing also better academically. It’s not always the case, I’m not saying that there are never exceptions but generally speaking if you provide meaningful, stimulating experience in the social environment that has – certainly has an effect also on their motivations, their learning and their long term achievement yes.