The last few weeks have been a bit of an intellectual whirlwind, which always gets me really excited.  So for those people who think working with children is all about being nice and patient (and washing your hands a lot), it actually provides a platform for a great deal of intellectual challenge.

On Thursday 19^th May, I got to hear Professor James J Heckman expounding his theories on the importance of investing in the Early Years at the Daycare Trust Lecture organised to celebrate their 25th anniversary. It was a fascinating romp through 40 years worth of research, which continues to show how investing in the Early Years makes sense for the child, the family, the community and society. Two facts in particular resonated powerfully with me; firstly that children’s social and emotional skills are most potent when it comes to extending children’s cognitive development; and secondly adversity gets under the skin and determines the child’s biology.

Heckman also drew a gasp from the audience with his findings that by year three, children from ‘welfare’ families had 500 words, those from working class families had 700 and children from professional families had 1100. What more can you say here, other than parents really need to be made aware of this, so they can do something to address the issue. He then concluded by reminding us that ‘top-up’ programmes for literacy and numeracy in schools had no measureable benefit, nor did reducing the numbers of children in school classes. Instead, what really counted was giving children the best experience before they turned three.

Earlier that same day, I had the pleasure of a cup of tea with the Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove. In these straitened times, I suspected we might have a cup of tea in the hand. My mother first experienced this when I came to live in London, and she never could understand that you could drink tea without a plate of something to go with it. I have inherited this habit, so asked our children to help out – which under the tutelage of Feyi from our Marsham Street community nursery team, led to fresh batch of tasty banana biscuits! Suitably nourished, our conversation focused a lot on the importance of Early Years – in particular the youngest children and the significance of what we at LEYF call cultural capital. Professor Heckman reinforced the same, with the articulacy that so many Americans possess, and I hope Mr Gove’s team share.

Later in the week, I was able to push again for investment in the Early Years at a Dragon’s Den type experience where six social enterprises pitched to about 50 investors; an event organised by Clearly So and hosted by Coutts. We were trying to persuade investors to support our growth plans with investment that balanced straight financial returns with a social premium return.  It was very scary, not only since I was on first and the only woman, but also as I had to do this in 5 minutes. Somehow I managed to do both, whilst at the same time mingling with bankers and investors in Coutts’ august headquarters. Interestingly, the venue itself was the Coutts library, bequeathed by Angela Burdett-Coutts (1814-1906), granddaughter of Thomas Coutts, founder of the bank.  More importantly, Angela was a great Victorian philanthropist, setting up Ragged Schools for poor children; she was also instrumental in founding the NSPCC. Personally, I love being somewhere which has the hand of a great woman on it!  They also have piped poetry in the bathrooms, which I thought was quite wonderful, so I will be checking out if we could do this at LEYF - with a few nursery rhymes thrown into the mix!

The entire experience and subsequent conversations make it clear that a fresh and full debate is needed, exploring the complex world of social investment with a view to developing some sort of fund, underpinned with a clear and philosophical set of principles, specifically geared to drive more investors into this area. We have to move from an ideology of charitable donation to social investment, with a longer-term look rather than an immediate feel good. My previous bedside reading (the enjoyable Larkrise to Candleford by Flora Thompson) has now been replaced with books about investment and may soon, I fear, also have to include those about tax options for social investors. Who says you never stop learning? Or as Francis Bacon said, a wise man will make more opportunities than he finds. I for one hope this is an opportunity.

I finally concluded a busy week by spending a lively day with the team in our Centre for Research, Learning and Development.  It was a bit of a roller coaster of a day, as we shaped a clear business plan for the year ahead, with the team learning the stark financial realities of running a training business in an economic downturn. Former Head of Children’s Services at LEYF and now Lead for Quality, Learning & Development, Gary Simpson gave us the gem of a quote from Dolly Parton with which we all headed into the sunset:

The way I see it is, if you want a rainbow, you gotta  put up with the rain.”

 I read in this week’s Third Sector magazine that Kevin Carey chair of the RNIB told the  Charity Finance Directors Group that the charity sector tended to be “ conservative, comfortable and self-satisfied”.  I laughed out loud or LOL as my daughter would say. I remembered the first Charity CEO gathering I attended and I was bowled over by exactly that feeling.  I had got used to the gatherings of social entrepreneurs, a more loud-mouthed, challenging group but comparing the experience was like Pop versus Funky-House. This was confirmed by our charming Head of Finance who came back from a Finance Directors Conference incredulous at the lack of urgency and innovation that permeated the experience.

 Stepping out of the Charity wardrobe into the Narnia land of social enterprise is not easy and will take more than just re-branding a charity as a social enterprise. The clue in the term is enterprise and that means having a viable business to trade in order to run a viable social business which makes a profit. The profit has got to be used not just to improve the internal business and give more to existing customers but to reach into the heart of the community and do something more, new and innovative so the impact ripples way beyond your front door.

 Last week I presented at a number of conferences.  The benefit of going to conferences is to hear new things, think about what you do and whether it could be better, bump into colleagues you haven’t seen for an age and get all the gossip and meet new people and form new relationships. Two pieces of information shared last week worried me; the fall in nursery places alongside the slow return of child poverty. Is there a link? Yes, because we know that decent, affordable childcare has been one very good way of getting families out of poverty.   The recent Ofsted report says that there are 1,715 fewer providers with a net loss of places to the tune of 53,666. This could be significant once we drill down and answer questions such as whether the places were in poor neighbourhoods, whether they linked to places where there has been higher levels of redundancies among professional couples, whether the growing debt among parents damaged nursery cash-flow and saw the demise of the business or if the insufficient NEF (a loss of 98p per child per hour as an average to nursery businesses) was the final nail in their coffin. No doubt, the Daycare Trust will provide us with one of their useful analysis which highlights the impact for parents.  The failure of a business is a blow, the failure of businesses in areas of poverty is a disaster and leaves a greater trail of devastation including unemployment, reduction of money flowing in the local economy and a moral blow to an area and a community which is often fragile and vulnerable.

 Welcome, to the complex quasi childcare market. Take heed all those charities which think becoming a social enterprise is just a step away.  If you want to be a social enterprise then realise the importance of your business skills and ability to manage within a volatile market where failure affects not just you but generations of children and families.

This weekend, I spent some time helping my sister (also in Early Years!) go through her old teaching resources in readiness to move them into a new space.  Amongst the many gems we unearthed was a copy of Nursery World from May 2002.

Leafing through this random issue, I was reminded of Bill Murray in that classic film, Groundhog Day, as I discovered quite how shockingly familiar the stories in there really were: Liz Robert’s editorial was all about the delays to getting CRB checks done and the implication for nursery businesses; there was a report called Bitter Sweet which was raising concern about obesity in children;  Coram had just been funded to examine quality in childcare from a European perspective, Care work: Current Understandings and Future Directions;  the Daycare Trust was sharing the key messages from its report Raising Expectations – Delivering Childcare for All , which identified low morale among childcare staff  because of low pay and their inability to increase their salaries due to difficult access to good quality qualifications.  There was also a quote from Stephen Burke, then director of the Daycare Trust on the national childcare strategy which was as pertinent today as in 2002.

We need a rejuvenated national childcare strategy.  Without a radical rethink and substantial investment the Government won’t be able to fulfil its ambitions not just to deliver childcare for all but to end child poverty.  The pace pf change is too slow and in some cases is invisible to parents”.

Stephen Burke, Nursery World, 2002 (23^rd May, p5)

This week Nursery World reported on the Doing Better for Families report, produced by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which compared family well-being in 30 countries.  The report noted that child poverty in the UK fell from 17.4% to 10.5% between 1995 and 2005, more than in any other country.  However, the report also confirmed that progress on reducing child poverty had stalled and was at risk of rising.

So is there an easy solution to avoiding opening our copies of Nursery World in May 2020, only to discover that in ten years not much has changed once again?  We are not short of reports and research about what seems to be needed; still we seem unable, paralysed even, to implement what needs to happen if we are to see changes made that will not only last a long time, but also and more significantly make a real difference to children, families, their communities and our society as a whole.

Let’s focus on child poverty for a moment:  why can’t we write on one side of an A4 page what Early Years policy decisions and services caused the drop in child poverty?  Were Early Years policies irrelevant, with the drop in child poverty simply down to other more critical factors such as an economic shift and different fiscal policies?  Do we not have the wherewithal to work some of this out and at least try and summarise what is needed to reduce child poverty once and for all?  If not, we will only continue to shoot in the dark; wasting money, failing children and spending our time kidding ourselves that everything is fine and that the emperor really is wearing a suit of gold.  As a civilised country, we cannot allow child poverty to continue to be such a disgraceful blot on our landscape; beautiful in so many other ways.

Last week, I looked at the organisation Action for Happiness, which warned us that consumerism and individualisation will not make us happy. Neither will keeping high levels of child poverty.  The link between wellbeing and inequality was also highlighted in a most interesting book called The State of Happiness by the Young Foundation (N, Bacon, M. Brophy, N, Mguni, G. Mulgan and A. Shandro, 2010).  In the last chapter, they ask whether public policy can shape people’s wellbeing and resilience, with the following conclusion:

There is as yet no straightforward menu of policies to improve wellbeing.  Advances in behavioural economies and psychology have improved understanding of this territory.  But specific policy knowledge is limited.  There are many promising ideas and approaches but little certainty that a particular set of actions will deliver particular results.”

The State of Happiness, 2010 (p86)

This could be the same issue facing child poverty: maybe we don’t know enough to solve the problem immediately.  So, what options do we have?  Remain complacent and accepting or respond to Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education, who told this week’s Nursery World that…

…rather than having a top down approach to delivering support for children in the Early Years , we need to work in partnership , not with local government, but with those in the voluntary and charitable sector.”

Michael Gove, Nursery World, 2011 (5^th May, pg 4)

It’s a fair point and one we need to act upon.  The sector must come together and agree what we need to do if we are to play a real part in helping reduce child poverty.  There are enough reports out there we can refer to – including the Department for Education’s own, launched in April by Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP – along with their recent investment in a strategic partner, charged with bringing the sector together to solve problems and celebrate successes.

From my side, I will be speaking at a national policy conference this Wednesday, so welcome any comments or questions you’d like me to raise on the day.  To get you thinking, just ask yourself:  do you really want to be reading Nursery World in 2020 about the challenges we still face in getting to grips once and for all with child poverty?

This weekend the TV presenters continually referred to the joy and happiness created by the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton.  Images of laughing people enjoying street parties, smiling at cameras and looking the epitome of happy, connected and positive citizens dominated our TVs.

Why then do we need Action for Happiness, a new organisation set up by Professor Richard Layard, Geoff Mulgan and Dr. Anthony Seldon to challenge the level of unhappiness in the UK, which despite our material comfort is much higher than 50 years ago?  They want us to focus on what really makes us happy: healthy relationships and meaningful activities, such as lifelong learning and doing things for others; they want us to reject the dominant culture of materialism and self-obsessed individualism.

I suspect Action for Happiness likes Royal Wedding street parties, however sadly infrequent they may be to make much difference in the long term.  What they appear to be more concerned with is the more enduring negative impact of our predilection for regular reality programmes, such as The Only Way isEssex, which although parody materialism and self- obsession also retain a sneaking admiration for both.  This particular programme amounts to one hour each week of amusing but vacuous discussion about the key challenges in life: seemingly hair extensions, nails, Botox and men telling women to be serious and “none of your lipstick and nails talk”.  It does not take long to realise that Action for Happiness has its work cut out.

Many years ago (1993), Professor Richard Layard gave the Annual Margaret Horn Lecture here at LEYF on the economic value of happiness.  As always, it was a thought-provoking lecture, at the end of which I tentatively asked whether we should measure the happiness of children, which to me is the real acid test of a happy society.  Some years later, in 2009, Professor Layard produced a report called A Good Childhood, commissioned by the Children’s Society and penned together with Judy Dunn. They noted that children in the UK enjoy good health and can look forward to long lives; they have foreign holidays and a wealth of consumer goods; 90% of children over 11 have their own mobile phone, whilst 80% of 5-16 year olds have their own television.  However, despite the level of material goods available to them, children were on the whole more stressed, more violent and less happy than their peers of the seventies or eighties.  They concluded that children did not thrive in a  consumer culture that promotes ‘excessive individualism’, and in effect children would only truly succeed in a society where people care for each other, promoting each other’s good as well as their own.

When David Cameron became Conservative leader in 2005, he said gauging people’s feelings was one of the central political issues of our time; his mantra was happiness, happiness, happiness.  In fact, this is now to be examined as part of the annual Office for National Statistics nationwide Integrated Household Survey.

But what will it tell us about happiness?  Will materialism be an issue in this age of austerity? Will self obsession be the type commonly associated with depression and despair?  Or will we find an increased level of happiness as people begin to rely more on each other and their own abilities and get a kick out of that?  Either way, happiness is squarely on the agenda – and probably a more important issue for the UK right now than a referendum on AV, especially for children.

So what do we know: the UK was last in the UNESCO Well Being report; A Good Childhood told us that our children are miserable and we need to think about them more.  We have a Social Mobility strategy to address key issues such as increasing child poverty, a widening gap between rich and poor, expensive childcare and Children Centres under threat.  Do we need to hear any more?  Probably not.

What we do need is to finally put children at the heart of Government policies.  The decisions we make today have to be the basis for creating happiness, not for us but for all of our children.  We don’t need any more reports or strategies; we just need to put the child’s voice at the centre and then amplify it, until it rings in our ears and we are forced to listen properly and finally act accordingly.  Nelson Mandela summed it up perfectly when he said:

There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.”

Related articles

• Happiness: Lessons From a New Science, By Richard Layard (independent.co.uk)
• Charity says spreading joy is they key to happiness (bbc.co.uk)
• Will buying a stranger a coffee enhance your wellbeing? (telegraph.co.uk)