Kate launches study on children’s development
THE DUCHESS of Cambridge has admitted she would have welcomed extra support after giving birth to Prince George while she lived in rural North Wales.
Kate was speaking during a visit to an integrated children’s centre, in Cardiff, which offers support to parents.
Her visit to the Ely and Caerau Children’s Centre was part of the launch of her landmark national survey about the early years development of children, titled “five big questions on the under fives”.
Kate and Prince William lived in Anglesey for three years until 2015 while he worked as an RAF search and rescue pilot.
After hearing about the support parents receive from the centre, Kate said: “It’s nice to be back in Wales. I was chatting to some of the mums.
“I had just had George and William was still working with search and rescue, so we came up here when George was a tiny, tiny little baby, in the middle of Anglesey.
“It was so isolated, so cut off, I didn’t have my family around me, he was doing night shifts, so if only I’d had a centre like this at a certain time.”
Head of the centre Carolyn Asante told Kate: “That’s the thing, we all need it (support). It’s not about social status. When you’re a parent, you take home this little baby and I don’t know about you but I didn’t know which way was up or down.”
The Duchess finished her 24hour tour of the country with a visit to women’s prison HMP Send, in Surrey. She met people who are receiving and have received help in their rehabilitation from The Forward Trust.
Kate visited the prison in 2015 and was reacquainted with some of the women she met five years ago.
She said to a group who have since been released from custody: “It really shocked me when I came here last time how early the challenges were that you face. How early you could take it back.”
One inmate described their time in prison as one of the best things to have happened to them, crediting the support of The Forward Trust programmes.
On hearing that, the Duchess commented: “It’s so often I hear that, why does it have to get to that point before people receive the help and support?”
Benny Refson, trustee at The Forward Trust, called the Duchess’s interest in their work “huge”.