I took the social wellness survey over at Social Circles Canada and here is what it told me at the end ... some interesting stats, albeit, unreferenced:


Thank you!

Instant Gratification! Here are the answers to the four key questions that will tell you what the impact your degree of social wellness is having on your other health dimensions. The first three questions tell you how your social health is now and the fourth tells you if it is improving or on the decline.

How many close, personal friends do you have?
Research has shown that people with less than four close, personal friends do not get all the benefits available. Interestingly, there is little gain shown by having more than four. North America wide, the average person now has just two close, personal friends. 50% of the population have only one or none. The impact of social isolation on an individuals physical health has been estimated to be equal to that of smoking....

How often do you spend time with a close, personal friend?
Spending time less than once per week with a close personal friend means you are not fully enjoying all the health benefits available to you. Note that it does not have to be the same friend.

How many NEW close, personal friends have you made in the past twelve months?
It is an unfortunate fact of life that no matter what your age, over time all social circles suffer from attrition. Our friends move to another city, get married or divorced, or pass away. If you are not making new friends, your social circle slowly diminishes. Since this happens very slowly, few people are aware it is happening. If you have not made at least one new close, personal friend in the past year, your social wellness is on the decline.

How often do you engage in social activities NOT related to work or career?
Up to its peak during the early 1960's, the average person belonged to at least one or two civic groups, Now the average person belongs to none. Joining one organized group that meets regularly will cut the probability of an individual dying in the next year in half. Joining two groups cuts it to one quarter.

Social Wellness is important to us as individuals and as members of our communities because it effects our individual physical and mental health and thus the overall health of our neighborhoods. On both levels it effects our financial health and our ability to effect change or to effectively deal with challenges. The social health of its citizens is important to governments because health costs are one of its largest expenses. A socially healthy citizenry is a key ingredient of democracy and will be essential in our ability to deal effectively with the challenges of the next decades.

By myself I can do nothing. We need each other—because we each have different gifts. You have gifts which I don’t have, I have gifts which you don’t have. So together we can do something beautiful.

- Jean Vanier, Unpublished conversation with students,June 2007

Retrieved from the Serious Games blog...

A Welsh university has launched an innovative new range of online learning materials including free interactive games that help people explore topics such as disability, age diversity, racial equality and homelessness.

The 'Addressing Barriers: Enhancing Services' series of Equality and Diversity toolkits, which incorporate expert video tutorials alongside interactive 'Bytesize Basics' serious games, have been developed by the Institute of Digital Learning at the University of Wales, Newport to help further understanding of the many barriers people face in education and the workplace.

“These innovative open source etraining resources, which are free to all users take a fresh approach to equality and diversity guidance in order to engage today's workforce in staff development training,” said Matt Chilcott , Learning Technologies Development Manager at the Institute of Digital Learning.

The innovative new toolkits were welcomed by Peter Scott, Manager of the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) Regional Support Centre Wales, who commented: “The Equality and Diversity etraining resources serve as exemplars of the latest innovations in learning technologies to engage the modern day workforce in staff development training. The use of the Serious Games approach is particularly welcome.”

For further information and to access the free resources visit the website hosted by the Institute of Digital Learning at http://equal.newport.ac.uk.

I found this interesting piece over at Social Circles Canada:

Many people, particularly those in the business world, can have hundreds if not thousands of acquaintances, associates and allies but few if any close, personal friends. Its easy to let yourself believe that because you are “socializing” at meetings, events and throughout your day that therefore you have lots of friends.

The key is whether or not you can answer yes to the following questions in regards to any of them:

Will they lend you money?
Will they help you move?
Will they look after your things while you are away?
Will they chip in and help in any way if you fall ill?

The field of science that deals with the negative health impacts of social isolation is called “social epidemiology”. The above questions are commonly used to determine if a person is socially isolated or not....

In the field of political science, a somewhat less quantitative approach than social epidemiology, they refer to two kinds of relationships – Bridging and Bonding. Bridging relationships are those that connect you with a social circle other than your own. These kinds of relationships help you get ahead. Bonding relationships are those within your own social circle. They help you get by.

There are several kinds of social relationships (platonic as opposed to romantic):

Acquaintances – you are recognized and acknowledged by some people
Associates – you have something to offer each other
Allies – you share similar interests or feelings with some people
Friends – you have a trust bond with another person

Of all the types of non-romantic relationships you can have, the only kind that produce the mental and physical health benefits is friendship. This is because human beings are, in zoological terms, social animals. Social animals, or pack animals, like wolves, lions and whales, depend on the group to acquire food and protect themselves – the two key elements of survival.

Humans, like all primates, are pack animals. In our case it is our close, personal friends, that constitute our sense of community and belonging and make us feel safe. Our physiological systems respond to this vital information and our mental and physical health improves if we feel we have some friends.

Acquaintances, associates and allies, which constitute the majority of bridging relationships, produce no such benefits.

Both types of relationships provide benefits no matter what age a person is however it is important to note that as one gets older, the bonding type of relationships are increasingly important. "Getting ahead" becomes less important while "getting by" becomes more important. The shift is from a focus on building financial capital to building social capital.

If you have any doubt about your own situation, ask yourself the above questions in regards to the people in your life. If four or more of them qualify as friends, and you see at least one of them on a weekly basis (it does not have to be the same one), your mental and physical health will reflect this in a positive way. If not, I suggest it might be time to move your focus on building bonding relationships.

Short article relating belonging to class size... from ALT: The Education Union:

04 September 2007
A Conservative policy group has indicated it believes schools should be broken down into smaller units, among other things.

Baroness Perry, the co-chair of the public services improvement policy group, told the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 that she felt smaller schools would benefit children.

'It's a sense of belonging I think more than anything else which children lack in very large schools. They feel that nobody knows them and if you're not known then you can get away with anything,' she said.

Baroness Perry added that when pupils feel as if they are part of a smaller community they develop a sense of belonging where one's actions matter.

Claiming that experiments with smaller schools in the US had been successful, Baroness Perry suggested British schools follow a similar scheme, as according to her, the development of larger schools is 'at the root' of the growth in bad behaviour in the school environment.

Meanwhile, the new term sees the introduction of a new scheme - Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning - designed to promote civility among school pupils.