Helping Spirits Stay Strong: Footprints in Time: The Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children: Social and Emotional Wellbeing Research Report

The Centre for Indigenous Policy Research at POLIS: The Centre for Social Policy Research, the Australian National University was commissioned by the Commonwealth Department of Social Services to deliver a Research Report on the Social and Emotional Wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Youth using the Longitudinal Study on Indigenous Children (LSIC) data as recorded in Footprints in Time: The Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children.

The Research Report proposes and explores a novel approach to measuring social and emotional wellbeing in LSIC. Inspired by a holistic construct of social and emotional wellbeing outlined by First Nations scholar-led team Gee et al. (2014), we used an exploratory factor analysis and structural equation model to identify which LSIC variables align with domains of social and emotional wellbeing. Although the method requires further development for conclusive and longitudinal use, our findings demonstrate that a promising factor structure exists for a series of LSIC variables in Waves 11 and 12. When modelled collectively, these factors appear to express the interconnected and interrelated framework for social and emotional wellbeing outlined by Gee et al. (2014).