Kate’s right: Focus on every child

AFTER years spent ‘listening and learning’ about early childhood development, the Duchess of Cambridge has met with Health Secretary Sajid Javid to call for children’s mental health to be made a priority.

I’m so pleased she’s taken on this mantle. Studies have shown time and again that the early years can make all the difference to what happens in adulthood. While we think of addiction, homelessness and mental illness as being problems that afflict adults, more often than not they have their roots firmly in childhood. By focusing on this period in a person’s life, her idea is that we can prevent problems before they even begin.