The Princess of Wales is promoting her new early childhood campaign which aims to “give generations of children the best start in life”.
Kate posted a video on Twitter today teasing the campaign launch, having first met with her team of advisors on the subject earlier this week.
The royals’ meeting came as Kensington Palace said Kate’s work is being accelerated through her Royal Foundation Center for Early Childhood to promote the importance of a child’s first five years.
Full details about the new campaign weren’t given, but Kate told consultants she was “excited” about the project and said a key area to explore is “developing the social and emotional skills necessary for later life.” are essential”.
Princess Kate posted a video on Twitter today teasing the launch of the campaign, having first met with her team of advisors on the matter earlier this week
“I’m really looking forward to next week, a lot is coming out,” Kate told the team. “Today I really just want to think about it and discuss what’s next. How can we keep this conversation going?
“This campaign is really trying to raise awareness of the importance of this issue. And it’s about what we can do together to keep the conversation going and what we do next.
Kate said it’s about what shapes us, what shapes our relationships and the emotional experience of childhood, and creating the “building blocks and scaffolding” for how we begin to understand ourselves and others.
“These are really complicated, big issues to look at,” she said. “But I think from the Center’s perspective, one of the most important key areas is how we develop the social and emotional skills that are essential for later life. How can we better control and regulate our emotions? How do we build better relationships?’
The Princess held talks with eight academics representing fields including neuroscience, psychology, perinatal psychiatry, early childhood services and policy development at Windsor Castle on Wednesday.
She said the team was dealing with “big questions, big issues” that were “complicated”.
Web has reached out to Kensington Palace for comment.
“I’m really looking forward to next week, a lot is coming out,” Kate told the team. She is pictured at Windsor Castle during her meeting with the Early Years Advisory Group on Wednesday
Princess Kate speaks at Windsor Castle with experts from academia, science and early childhood, including Professor Peter Fonagy, Professor Eamon McCrory, Dr. Alain Gregory, Dr. Trudi Seneviratne, Ed Vainker, Carey Oppenheim, Imran Hussain and Beverley Barnett-Jones on Wednesday
The center is based on research showing that the first five years of childhood fundamentally shape adulthood, with social challenges such as addiction, violence, family breakdown, homelessness and mental health having their roots in the earliest years of life.
dr Trudi Seneviratne, Advisory Board Member, Registrar at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, believes that “our experience in the earliest years lays the foundation for the rest of our lives”.
Noting that policymaking can be “quite fragmented,” she added, “Having a policy that brings together the importance of the early years and helps people get involved in their thinking is really, really important.
“That will help with service development. It helps with research. It will help with education. It will help the staff looking after little kids and everyone, really.”
dr Seneviratne continued: “We need the whole government to commit to this really ambitious long-term program that will actually continue regardless of government changes – that’s really, really important.
“We cannot have constant change, so policy needs to be embedded in education, in health care, in maternity care, in postnatal care, in all health and social care that supports families, and it needs to continue. It needs to grow and expand – that’s absolutely critical.
“I think we run into a lot of problems with opening and closing projects – it’s just not good enough for the child or the family.”
The consulting perinatal psychiatrist Dr. Alain Gregoire, the president and founder of the Maternal Mental Health Alliance, said that research has advanced enough in the early years that experts know there are things that can be done to change lives for the better.
He said: “It’s something that can touch society as a whole and each and every one of us. A very important message of the early years is that it is never too early – so we are speaking from the beginning of pregnancy, from conception onwards.
“We can transform people’s lives, health and happiness.
“But it’s never too late either. So by understanding the early years, we can better understand ourselves, those around us, and our communities.
“And we can do things that can help improve the quality of life for ourselves just through that understanding.”
The royals’ meeting came as Kensington Palace said Kate’s work is being accelerated through her Royal Foundation Center for Early Childhood to promote the importance of a child’s first five years
Kate (pictured during Wednesday’s meeting) said the team was dealing with “big questions, big issues” that were “complicated”.
The center is based on research showing that the first five years of childhood fundamentally shape adulthood, with social challenges such as addiction, violence, family breakdown, homelessness and mental health having their roots in the earliest years of life
Professor Peter Fonagy, the Head of the Department of Psychology and Linguistics at University College London, agreed to be on the Advisory Board because he believes the Center “will be the most influential and effective organization to represent the interests of parents for some time.” and children come to represent’.
Being a part of it could “benefit in small measure the well-being of generations and generations of this country and beyond,” he added.
Eamon McCrory, Professor of Developmental Neuroscience and Psychopathology at University College London, is interested in seeing how research, particularly in neuroscience, could bring about societal change and improve a child’s future physical, social and mental health.
He believes the center has “extraordinary potential to transform the way we understand and approach the first five years of life.”
Carey Oppenheim of the Nuffield Foundation said: “Laying the right foundations in early childhood is part of creating a more resilient, productive and just society for all of us” and “a child’s formative early years provide the crucial building blocks for theirs.” long-term development and well-being”.
Beverley Barnett-Jones, Associate Director at the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory, comes to the panel with more than 30 years of frontline social care experience for children.
Ms Barnett-Jones, whose work also includes serving as a child guardian with the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service, said: “Children who experience abuse and neglect are often brought into contact with a social worker – these are some of the most severe vulnerable children into our society.
“But with the right help at the right time, many of the problems that develop later in life could be alleviated or even prevented by earlier interventions in their lives.
“Working with and supporting the Royal Foundation will contribute to a non-stigmatized understanding of the life paths of these children and their families as it brings a societal focus to what the village that educates all our children well might look like.”
Also on the podium are Ed Vainker, co-founder of Reach Academy Feltham, a high-performing free school in a deprived area of west London that he started from scratch, and Imran Hussain, Director of Policy and Campaigns at Action for Children.