CHART Lab

About the YDI

What is the YDI?

The YDI was developed by the Capturing Health and Resilience Trajectories (CHART) Lab—an interdisciplinary team of researchers led by Dr. Hasina Samji—as a collaboration between the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University, the Human Early Learning Partnership at the University of British Columbia, and the BC Centre for Disease Control.

The YDI is an online, self-reported questionnaire that collects population-level youth development data, which may be broadly used to better understand the developmental trends, health, and well-being of adolescents in British Columbia (BC). The YDI is administered annually in schools across BC. Since piloting in 2020, the CHART Lab has worked to expand capacity to include more school districts; cumulatively, over 43,000 youth in BC have participated in the YDI to date. 

Extending the work of the Human Early Learning Partnership’s the Early Development Instrument (EDI) and Middle Years Development Instrument (MDI), the YDI continues development of a population-level linked dataset that tells the story of BC children’s well-being and how we can act to better support their thriving.

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What Kinds of Questions Do We Ask?

Social & emotional development

This dimension covers the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.

Social well-being

This dimension includes questions on the strength and number of meaningful relationships with peers, family, community members and community belonging.

Learning environment & Engagement

This dimension asks about participants’ feelings and experiences regarding their academic work and their school community.

physical and mental well-being

This dimension asks participants to describe habits and exposures which affect their physical and mental health, as well their experience with accessing health services.

NAVIGATING THE WORLD

This dimension encourages participants to discuss how they envision their future and their framework for engaging with their society and environment.

The YDI focuses on positive aspects of youth development. These asset-based concepts of well-being and mental health are important predictors of youth development and future adult health outcomes. Youth achieve positive developmental outcomes when they learn skills to negotiate adversity, establish healthy behaviours, and are surrounded by resources and structures that support their thriving in early and later life.

Findings from the YDI help tell the story of youth health and well-being in BC. Aggregate YDI results for school districts and communities are summarized through reports, graphics, and a publicly-available dashboard interface. Decision-makers, researchers, and people who work with youth can use these tools to create policies and interventions that improve youth well-being.

The YDI is strengths-based. This means the YDI questions focus on developmental assets like flourishing, social-emotional learning, and resilience which have been associated with better long-term health and well-being. YDI researchers aim to identify skills and competencies that can reduce the impact of adversity on youth and those that promote positive trajectories over the lifespan. 

The YDI is also a population-level research tool. YDI researchers link student responses to their answers on previous developmental surveys such as the Early Development Instrument and Middle Years Development Instrument, as well as to other health, education, and demographic datasets. These linkages illustrate how students’ answers on the YDI and other surveys change over time and which combination of assets measured on the YDI best predict positive physical and mental health outcomes into adulthood. 

Grades 10 to 12 students in participating school districts take the YDI once during the school year. One month before YDI delivery, parents and guardians of eligible students receive details about the project. Parents and guardians have the opportunity during this time to review consent materials and reach out to their school or the YDI research team with questions to decide if their child should complete the survey. Over this period, administrators and staff also have ample time to prepare to deliver the survey to their students. The YDI team works closely with participating schools to ensure that they have the resources they need to deliver the survey successfully.

On delivery day, students take approximately 45 minutes to complete the survey. While students are encouraged to participate, they are each free to opt-out without consequences at any point before, during, or after taking the survey. 

After delivery, student information and responses are stored in a secure research environment at UBC. In addition to being featured in school and community reports, results may be linked with other data to learn about the factors that influence children’s well-being, health, and school success across British Columbia.

The YDI builds on HELP-UBC’s ongoing work on the Early Development Instrument (EDI) and the Middle Years Development Instrument (MDI). The YDI team brings extensive expertise in youth development, population health measurement and monitoring, health promotion, interdisciplinary research collaboration, and partnership building.

In 2016, Dr. Hasina Samji, Dr. Naomi Dove (former member of the YDI Advisory), and a team of researchers led a series of focus groups with young adults which revealed that major challenges for people their age included mental illness, substance use, and worries about their future. These discussions inspired the creation of the YDI in collaboration with HELP-UBC to better understand these challenges, the assets and experiences which can help mitigate their impact, and to identify a cohort of young people who may be further followed in their transition from high school into emerging adulthood. The YDI research team works directly with a group of intersectoral community partners who provide ongoing feedback on research objectives, survey development, survey delivery, and project expansion. These include the YDI Youth Advisory Council, Provincial Policy & Practice Advisory Board, and research partners from across BC, Canada, and around the world.