Kate takes centre stage
‘My ambition is to provide lasting change for generations to come’
THE Duchess of Cambridge today launches a landmark survey on early childhood which she hopes will trigger “lasting change for generations to come”.
Expressing hopes the poll would “spark the biggest-ever conversation on early childhood”, the Duchess said she hoped to prevent children facing mental health battles in later life, by helping them before they turn five.
The project represents the culmination of eight years of work by the Duchess, as she stressed a child’s early years were “fundamentally the most important” and played a crucial role in the developing brain.
“They help us avoid adversity, or certainly build resilience to adversity, in later life and prevent challenges with mental health later down the line,” she said.
“The early years are more crucial for future health and happiness than any other moment in our lifetime.”
The Duchess, 38, has been quietly working on the subject since her marriage, dedicating the vast majority of her public and private engagements to early years provision.
She believes that many of the hardest social challenges facing society can often be traced back to experiences in early childhood and has successfully made it her niche, viewing it as a lifelong project with which she can make a tangible difference.
While the Duke and Duchess of Sus- sex embarked on their new lives in Canada, the Duchess signalled that it was back to business as usual with a 24-hour tour of the country.
The mother-of-three will visit London, Cardiff and Surrey to raise awareness of the poll, Five Big Questions on the Under Fives, thought to be the larg- est of its kind in the UK. The survey will be conducted by Ipsos MORI on behalf of The Royal Foundation. It will be online for a month and is designed to recognise that “everyone has a role” in building the foundations of childhood that have a lifelong effect.
The results will be revealed in March and will determine the Duchess’s next steps. The Duchess said: “There’s so much pressure on parents to feel the responsibility is just down to them but actually it’s important to work together as a community. I want to hear the key issues affecting our families and communities so I can focus my work on where it is needed most.”
The whistle-stop tour began with a visit to Minibrum, an interactive, childsized mini-city at Thinktank, Birmingham’s science museum, where the Duchess was greeted by eight-year-old Poppy Jordan, the town’s “mini mayor”.
Children from Henley Montessori School and St Paul’s Nursery in Balsall Heath showed their royal visitor around, starting at the workshop, before popping into the launderette, a shop, a café and a mini-museum.
There was a minor calamity in the café when the door of a cupboard underneath a sink came off its hinges, prompting laughter. “I think we’ve broken the café,” she laughed.
In May 2018, the Duchess convened a steering group to focus on how to help families tackle anti-social behaviour, addiction and mental health, which has played an instrumental role is compiling the survey.
One of its members, David Holmes CBE, chief executive of Family Action, of which the Duchess is patron, said: “Raising the profile of the vital early years in a child’s life is work of national importance.”
Kate Stanley, director of strategy for the NSPCC, said: “It will be a vital source of information for the sector.”
‘There’s so much pressure on parents ... but actually it’s important to work together as a community’