Applying the PERMA Framework to Young Volunteers in Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

In this paper, we apply the PERMA framework (Seligman, Flourish, Simon & Schuster, 2011) to the experiences of 63 young people who have volunteered in Ōtautahi Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand, at some point across the decade 2010–20. We seek to (1) explore the suitability of PERMA to young volunteers’ experiences of well-being, and (2) map out the relationships between the PERMA domains when the framework is applied. Our findings suggest that PERMA constitutes a suitable framework for considering the well-being of young volunteers in Aotearoa New Zealand, but also underscore the importance of context-specific conceptualisations of well-being. Our analysis reveals strong relationships between the PERMA domains, particularly emphasising the centrality of meaning to the well-being of young volunteers. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings for advancing our understanding of and how to best support the well-being of young volunteers.