Social Wellbeing

For school students, peers are the critical source of social connection 

According to Boston University, “social wellbeing is building and maintaining healthy relationships and having meaningful, authentic interactions with others”. VicHealth notes that “building and maintaining social connections with friends and family is essential for our health and wellbeing”.

FISO 2.0 indicates that social wellbeing relates to sociological perspectives (Pollard & Lee, 2003). It refers to interpersonal wellbeing and encompasses an individual’s perception of trust, empathy, peer relationships and mutual obligations (Fraillon, 2004). It also encompasses the extent to which individuals connect to others and experience positive relationships, including prosocial behaviours and empathy (NSW Government, 2015). It can also include an individual’s sense of belonging (OCDSB, 2015)."

SNA Toolbox’s social wellbeing metrics are a unique contribution to understanding student wellbeing. Through the use of Social Network Analysis (SNA), SNA Toolbox maps out peer-to-peer relationships and is able to provide individualised scores of students social wellbeing as well as year-level and school-level assessments of overall social wellbeing. 

SNA Toolbox shows the benefits students receive from their peers. Without knowing peer-to-peer social connections (i.e., without collecting social network data that is central to SNA Toolbox) it would not be possible to fully understand what value students receive from their relationships with others - including both positive (e.g., friendship) and negative (e.g., disrespect) relations. 

Australia's youth: Peer relationships and social networks indicates in pre-COVID times that 98% of 16-17 year olds in Australia reported they had at least 1 good friend (Longitudinal Study of Australian Children). Where do the students in your school sit?

This is what makes SNA Toolbox a unique approach to measuring and understanding social wellbeing. By viewing peer-to-peer relationships as a network, your school gets a complete view of the social wellbeing ecosystem of your students, and for the first time have some evidence-based metrics on the impact of peers on other students.