National Children’s Bureau 23/24 review

As NCB celebrated its 60th birthday, we continued to work towards our vision for every child to thrive. We have taken an evidence-informed approach, united people and organisations, and combined cutting-edge research with the voices of babies, children and young people to drive positive change in society.

This year was incredibly busy as we witnessed increasing levels of need due to the cost-of-living crisis and issues in public funding which still disproportionately target acute services rather than early-intervention and prevention which we know are proven to lead to better and more enduring outcomes.

We continued to advocate for our stakeholders through our policy and influencing programme. We joined forces with four other leading children’s charities (Action for Children, Barnardo’s, NSPCC, The Children’s Society) to launch the Children at the Table campaign ahead of the upcoming general election. The campaign published a policy report in November and had its public launch in Parliament in January, where children and young people talked about what mattered to them most to over 40 Parliamentarians. The campaign has gathered the support of 175+ sector organisations and 26,000 members of the public (and counting).

As co-chairs of the Children and Young People’s Health Policy Influencing Group, we undertook the first study of local NHS plans on addressing the needs of babies, children, and young people.

We also continued to carry out vital research to inform our work on issues such as children’s social care, youth justice, health, early years, and bereavement support among others, working in partnership with academic and sector experts.

Our programmes also had a significant impact in amplifying children’s voices and supporting outcomes including improved wellbeing, connection and collaboration.

• The Council for Disabled Children (CDC) brought together 110 disabled children and young people and children and young people with special educational needs (SEN) from across England for the sixth annual Youth Voice Matters conference; and CDC’s FLARE, a diverse group of disabled children and young people with SEN, was awarded the Children’s Achievement category at the 2023 Children and Young People Now Awards.- The Early Childhood Unit delivered evidence-informed best practice support and professional development for early years practitioners via 18 Stronger Practice Hubs nationally reaching over 7266 childcare settings across England through their extensive networks.

• The Anti-Bullying Alliance ran another successful Anti-Bullying Week in November, reaching 7.5 million children with 80% of schools taking part, and 296 schools were awarded with a United Against Bullying Award to support whole school approaches to preventing bullying.

• Our Social Care team launched a major new trauma-informed programme in partnership with LEAP Confronting Conflict offering training and support to help social work teams, working with young people in foster care, and their foster carers understand and use trauma-informed practices.

• We were proud to launch a new Children and Young People’s Advisory Board in December to shape the Government’s implementation of the children’s social care strategy ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’. This work will ensure that the voices of children and young people are taken into account, and crucially, hold politicians themselves to account. “I’ve been able to listen to lived experience and stories of other young people who have gone through similar circumstances. It’s helped me feel like I’m no longer alone.” – Children and Young People’s Social Care Advisory Board member

• After securing changes to the eligibility criteria for bereavement benefits last year, allowing unmarried cohabiting parents and carers to claim them, the Childhood Bereavement Network continued to campaign for awareness of the change, appearing regularly in the media to highlight the issue.

• In February, we welcomed Research in Practice into the NCB family. This new collaboration will enable us to deliver more impact in future years, developing practice and policy within social care, safeguarding, youth justice, special educational needs and disability (SEND) and health.

• And finally, in March we launched an exciting new 5-year strategy called Building Brighter Future which sets out our priorities and strengthens and extends the good work achieved under our last five-year strategy.

It is through the generous contributions from Childlife supporters that NCB is able to deliver its mission to build a better childhood for every child. A massive thank you to everyone who have given so generously.

Laurence is Head of Development at Childlife member charity, National Children’s Bureau.