Why children must come first in New Year – Mark Russell

Life is simply too hard for too many children and there are so many ways The Children’s Society wants to make an impact. We are determined to put children’s happiness and well-being at the top of the agenda to ensure all children, no matter what their background or circumstances, have a good childhood and the best possible start in life.

In January the Government will be publishing a much-awaited white paper on levelling- up, which will set out its plans to address regional inequalities and improve opportunities for people in all parts of the country.

We want the government to seize this moment and set out how it aims to improve not just transport, infrastructure and economic productivity, but also how it will level up hope and opportunity for children and young people in 2022 – because we know there is no area of policy where the levelling up agenda is more pressing.

This might include guaranteeing necessities like food in the form of free school meals if they’re from a low-income family or have no recourse to public funds (NRPF) or clothing, such as school uniform. We also want to make sure children have access to a social security system that works, and access to legal rights.

The pandemic has taken children out of school and isolated them at home for months on end. As the Omicron variant becomes dominant in the UK and many schools start to close, we’re very concerned about children’s mental health and safety.

We’re not opposed to school closures if this is deemed to be a necessary public health measure, but it is vital that we protect children who are most vulnerable and at greatest risk without the support network and visibility that being in school provides.

We must keep a line of sight to children and young people, especially the most vulnerable.

We also know that lockdowns throughout the pandemic didn’t keep children out of the reach of those seeking to exploit children. Predators used different tactics and still groomed and exploited young people to carry drugs, sometimes making them go miles away from home, in very dangerous and frightening situation.

Yet, if arrested, these children still might get a criminal record. In 2022 we want to see much more early intervention with children so that we can spot the signs of exploitation and we also want to make sure children are treated as victims of crime, not as criminals themselves.

The Nationality and Borders Bill will be going through the House of Lords in early January. This is a brutal piece of legislation that dismantles the UK’s long, proud history of compassion and care for refugees and will have a huge impact on vulnerable children.

Our teams are working hard with peers to try to amend this Bill so we can hopefully minimise the impact on unaccompanied children.

In 2022 our work with child refugees and asylum seekers will continue, making sure these children who may have been separated or in families have a system that works to protect them, that they have access to basics, that they’re safe and happy and secure.

We want to make sure that children living in poverty or in low-income households are supported through a sustained commitment to Covid hardship funding and local welfare assistance, and also for the eligibility for free school meals to be extended to families with no recourse to public funds.

With the pandemic still very much a key issue at the start of 2022, we want to ensure children in these families where their parents don’t have the option to not work get more support and have hot food to eat if that’s in school or in food packages if schools shut.

2021 was a fantastic year for our school uniform campaign, making uniform affordable with a new law. Now we want to make sure the guidance published from the new legislation is implemented in the best way and we will be consulting with parents, students and schools to make sure this happens.

Finally, we want to see children’s mental health and well-being taken more seriously in 2022 and we are calling on the Government to invest in a network of hubs across the country, which would provide early support for young people’s mental health when their problems first emerge.

Our teams will work tirelessly to fight for hope for young people. We have a real opportunity in 2022 to make a huge difference to so many children’s lives, to level-up and lay the foundations for good childhoods. Let’s hope this year children get a much better deal – they seriously deserve it.

Mark Russell is chief executive of the Children’s Society. He tweets via @markrusselluk

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