By Becci Fitzjohn, Digital Communications Officer
Channel 4 journalist and Young Minds ambassador Cathy Newman, chaired the event, drawing on her own experience as a parent, “I have two daughters. I have watched their generation struggle through the pandemic, battle unresponsive services, a lack of funding, and a world that cocooned itself. There is an urgent need to have this conversation tonight, and I am delighted to take part in it.”
Decline over a decade: Children’s wellbeing has been falling for 10 years, with one in four now reporting low wellbeing. In 2022, 197,000 young people left school with low wellbeing—the equivalent of the population of Milton Keynes.
When presenting our new research, Pro Bono Economics (PBE) CEO Matt Whittaker highlighted the urgent need for better data, to understand the root causes of this crisis to find and fund effective solutions. “The absence of regular, robust, national-level data on children’s wellbeing means there’s much we don’t know. That’s especially true when it comes to the experiences of smaller groups: LGBTQ+ young people, children in contact with the care system, those outside mainstream schooling. Ultimately, it means we’re allocating all-too limited resources with insufficient understanding of how to make a difference”, explained Matt.
Finding solutions: The panelists, Catherine Roche, Chief Executive of Place2Be, Matt Whittaker, CEO of PBE and Saqib Chaudhri, Principal atOasis Academy Shirley Park, discussed the role of treatment versus prevention. There was debate about the drivers behind the decline in mental health, and panellists were asked about the scale of change that is needed to ensure the reverse of these worrying trends that affect families, schools, and the economy.
Saqib spoke about the need for a community-led approach to supporting families and children, “A policy that empowers community orgs to be plugged into schools, and for schools and community organisations to share data, share projections, and struggles and difficulties around families and young people would be really empowering. And that’s absent from the conversation at the moment.”
Catherine echoed Saqib’s arguments in favour of more early intervention, and highlighted the importance of getting the funding in place to support that: “We need to invest in mental health services, and ensure we have the right capacity in primary schools.”
Call to action
PBE is calling on policymakers to commit to routinely measuring all children’s wellbeing. Backed by 26 of the UK’s leading charities, our roadmap sets out how universal measurement would work in practice.
As Matt concluded, “If we commit to measuring young people’s wellbeing, we are sending a clear message to the country that this is a priority.”
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