10% of children worldwide live in households without a biological parent, and 5.4 million children live in residential care institutions. This study describes a participatory, child-informed process of developing a multidimensional measure of child subjective well-being tailored towards the priorities of children who have lived in residential care. Eight focus groups were held with n = 49 adolescents reunified with family after living in residential care in Kenya and Guatemala and six focus groups were held with n = 29 young adults who had lived in residential care during childhood. After analysis of the focus groups, and using the Orphans and Vulnerable Children Wellbeing Tool as a foundation, the resulting tool contained 43 survey questions. Member checking, translation, and cognitive interviewing were conducted. The survey was administered to N = 180 young people in Kenya and Guatemala who were reunified with family after living in residential care or at risk of entering residential care. Exploratory factor analysis indicated that the measure had three salient factors with good convergent validity and internal consistency: care and safety (12 items), basic needs (13 items), and leisure and freedom (7 items). This study contributes a new, psychometrically validated survey measure that can be used to assess the well-being of children connected to residential care, as well as a replicable model for creating contextualized quantitative measures via child participation that can inform policymaking on children’s care in low- and middle-income countries.

全球10%的儿童生活在没有亲生父母的家庭中，540万儿童生活在寄宿机构中。这项研究描述了一个参与式、儿童知情的过程，针对居住在寄宿机构的儿童的优先事项，制定儿童主观幸福感的多维衡量标准。在肯尼亚和危地马拉，对 49 名在寄宿护理机构生活后与家人团聚的青少年进行了 8 个焦点小组活动，对 29 名童年时期在寄宿护理机构生活过的年轻人进行了 6 个焦点小组活动。在对焦点小组进行分析后，并以孤儿和弱势儿童福祉工具为基础，生成的工具包含 43 个调查问题。进行了会员检查、翻译和认知访谈。该调查针对肯尼亚和危地马拉的N =  180 名年轻人，他们在居住在寄宿护理机构后或有进入寄宿护理机构的风险后与家人团聚。探索性因子分析表明，该测度具有三个具有良好收敛效度和内部一致性的显着因子：护理与安全（12项）、基本需求（13项）、闲暇与自由（7项）。这项研究提供了一种新的、经心理测量验证的调查措施，可用于评估与寄宿护理有关的儿童的福祉，以及通过儿童参与创建情境化定量措施的可复制模型，可为低收入国家儿童护理政策制定提供信息。 - 和中等收入国家。