Intro:
Welcome to the NSPCC Learning podcast, where we share learning and expertise in child protection from inside and outside of the organisation. We aim to create debate, encourage reflection and share good practice on how we can all work together to keep babies, children and young people safe.
Producer:
Welcome to the NSPCC Learning Podcast. This episode features an interview with Anne Longfield, the Children’s Commissioner for England from 2015 to 2021 and now Executive Chair of the Centre for Young Lives. Earlier this year, Anne published Young lives, big ambitions, a new book which examines the problems facing vulnerable young people in the UK. You can find out more about the book on the NSPCC Library online catalogue.
In the interview, recorded in June 2024, Anne shares her thoughts on what needs to be done to improve the safeguarding support available to teenagers across the UK, including implementing a more joined-up approach to recognising the risks that teenagers face, and providing better access to early intervention and youth work services.
Wesley Powley-Baker:
My name is Wesley Powley-Baker and I work at the NSPCC as a safeguarding manager in the safeguarding unit, and today we're really pleased to have Anne Longfield for today's podcast. And in the main, we're going to be talking about Anne's recent book that she's just published called Young lives, big ambitions.
Just a bit of background on Anne: Anne was the Children's Commissioner for England from 2015 to 2021, and is now chair of the Commission on Young Lives. She spent the last three decades working to improve the lives of the most vulnerable children, and earlier this year, as I've said, she's published a book — Young lives, big ambitions — which explores how vulnerable children and teens have been let down by the system that exists to protect them, presenting solutions to give every young person the best chance to succeed in life. So, Anne, thank you for joining us.
Anne Longfield:
Pleasure. Thank you so much.
Wesley:
The first question I'd like to ask, and I'm sure our audience would be really interested in, is what was the journey that led to the writing of this book for you?
Anne:
Well, quite a long one. You've just mentioned three decades there, and that's— even a little bit more than that. But, essentially, over the years, all of my work has been about improving outcomes, improving the law, improving our offer if you like as a country, as a society for children, but especially vulnerable children. From the early days of my work in areas of London and then in other areas around the country, it was very clear to me that, you know, there was a significant number of children who had a mountain to climb as they grew up compared to other children. And that so often they were left without help; they were marginalised until the point where the problem became a crisis and intervention was needed. And so often their life chances and expectations were massively diminished as a result.
And on the other side of it, which kind of feeds my optimistic elements — which, hopefully, are in the main — I was very aware that you could do things about this. I worked in the very early days with families and parents in parts of southwest London where proper ongoing support was available and I was part of delivering that. And with that kind of expectation that support was there, families were really able to achieve huge things and plan for their future with their kids and have that reliance or that confidence that support was there when they needed it. So I've always known the power of having support that you could turn to and could rely on and trusted people that can do that and I guess that has influenced me throughout.
And to get to the point of this specific topic of this book, all of my work as Children's Commissioner built on that. One of the things that you have as your powers, as Children's Commissioner, is that you're able to gather data from any public body regarding children — not personal data, but administrative data that you can then analyse and you can go behind the headlines, go behind the findings and find out what's really going on. And I spent those six years as Children's Commissioner really establishing the levels of vulnerability in this country and also the nature of that, to really attempt to get the focus on the root causes of this and getting ahead of the game in terms of preventing the crises that, you know, we can all see in front of our eyes.
It was very clear to me as Children's Commissioner, but also at the end of my term, that actually there was a huge paucity of research and knowledge about vulnerability for teenagers. There was a collective horror at some of the headlines that we would all see in the newspapers or in the serious case reviews. But actually there wasn't the machinery or policy space or policy coordination within government to spend the time needed to understand why these things happened and how they could be prevented.
So I spent the following two years, having founded a commission on young lives, to look at these things. Understanding that and bringing forward what I hoped would be not only practical and doable solutions, but also eye-catching solutions that would really put forward a plan nationally and locally and put a policy emphasis and highlight onto that, which I hope that has done.
And that work really led to a lot of the thinking about the book and bringing all together into a narrative about what goes wrong, and also what we could achieve as a country if we were more ambitious for our vulnerable children and our teens.
Wesley:
Thank you. That was a great introduction and context. Moving on a bit. So that first chapter, which I thought was really, really powerful, you know, these are young lives and particularly the story around Jaden and Jacob and I have a bit of a question around that. In the beginning of that chapter in the book, you talk about the failure to find reachable moments when children could be better supported, or in the worst instances when children's lives could have been saved.
So, what do you think those — I mean, you've begun to talk about that, in that introduction — but what do you think about what those reachable moments look like?
Anne:
I think what is very evident is that we haven't recognised the risks that face teenagers enough in the past. That recognition hasn't gained its place in many of the statutory services that need to be much more aware of this and need to be both alert but also clear of their role. That's not to say there aren't brilliant people doing good things, but, you know, whether you're looking at children's social care, whether you look in the police, whether you look in some of the work around schools, there hasn't been that joined up approach to being able to understand what the symptoms of vulnerability are, nor indeed when interventions are needed. And, as a result, children have often fallen through the gaps.
I mean the serious case reviews speak for themselves in terms of the horror of how some of those tragedies happen. But also, I am told constantly by professionals working with young people that building relationships with young people who are often living lives of, you know, huge risk: there's not enough time spent on those relationships. And at the end of the day it's the relationships that matter. It's the relationships that young people need to be able to have that confidence there's someone to turn to; be able to get advice, to be able to get support. And so often those young people have missed out and faced huge escalating risks sometimes as a result.
So those moments: well, you know, there are some clear indicators — you don't have to put it in professional jargon — just when things are going wrong. As a parent, you know when things aren't going right in terms of your child's life: when they're struggling at school; when they don't want to go to school; when there's behaviour problems in school; when the school may be instituting suspensions or exclusions; when children are spending long periods of time with groups of friends you don't know or changing groups of friends. All of those points are points that we should be alert to young people's welfare and wellbeing. And as parents and as professionals, we need to be alert to that.
So, if a school has got a child who isn't attending school often, a child who is struggling with certain situations, a child who is at risk of being excluded, then that's a huge red flag for something is going on. And what I think we need to see is at that point, a response that has — be it a pastoral team or preventative work with children at risk and families from social care — to be able to start wrapping round support and being able to help get out of that situation.
And of course, the most glaringly obvious point where there is one of those moments is when children end up in A&E. Often with boys, they will end up in A&E where there's been some kind of serious violence or knife attack, and they've ended up injured. For girls, [they’re] less likely to be in that situation but equally, they may go into A&E and talk about mental health or sexual health. Those are very obvious points where no one can ignore the fact something is going very wrong here. And one of the things that we've talked about in the book is about at that point, to be able to have youth workers, girls’ workers, others there who can work intensively alongside those young people to be able to help them overcome whatever challenges, get out of whatever situation they're in.
But it shouldn't take to the point where you've got a child being brought into an A&E covered in blood for us to know that something isn't going right; and it shouldn't be that the only point our services can respond to the extent needed is if it's actually a matter of life or death. We need to come way upstream in understanding where those children have vulnerabilities at home, before school, during primary and as they move into secondary school, and also be able to see the signs and respond to those signs when things are going well. And all of those moments where children are showing the signs of vulnerability — be that in school, be that not attending school — all of those points are where I would like to see there's enough relationship there to be able to bring that ring of protection around them.
Now, youth workers in particular are often the ones who are able to deliver on that magic. When children might not feel able to — or that they want to — confide in schools or confide in parents or do any of the things that those people want them to do, actually, it's youth workers who will be able to be the ones that find that connection, work with them to be able to develop their trust and relationship, and also support them and guide them to a different place. Which is why in the book I put such an emphasis on youth workers being part of that solution.
Wesley:
Just picking up on that theme a bit more about relationships, raising awareness so we understand those signs and where to intervene. But also you talked about — which I love — that idea of youth workers delivering that 'magic'.
And the next question I was going to ask was about support at the right time and the right place to properly prevent abuse. And I had a question about what that meant to properly invest in early years, but maybe I could widen that a bit more to what does that properly mean to invest maybe about... maybe you want to say something about youth workers there and the importance of that work?
Anne:
Yeah. Well, I would say, I mean, the book is essentially about teenagers. It's about how we provide better support for teenagers who are struggling and how we have high ambitions for their lives for them. But, you know, at the heart of that is a recognition that actually we need to start with that support from the absolute earliest weeks of life.
Now, I spent a good slice of my life in the past arguing for and helping develop and deliver Sure Start children's centres. That, for me, was a vital part of the infrastructure that would help those families who needed a bit more help to be able to have the backup, the advice, the relationship, the support near to home to be able to bring up their children in the way they wanted to. My hopes and ambitions are that we have a rebuilt infrastructure for children and families from birth onwards in any new government. I don't care much about what it's called, but it is about place-based support, like children's centres. So helping kids get to the point where they can go into school with a bounce is really vital.
And we know that the kids that I'm talking about in this book are the ones that are largely going to start school behind their peers and stay behind their peers throughout. So enabling that not to happen, ensuring that they get the best support in terms of speech and language, in terms of emotional development, in terms of helping them get ahead at that moment of starting school is really important. Primary schools that have a strong focus on nurture; that work with families; that offer family support; that work with other services in their local community, including public services, to be able to offer a joined-up hub, if you like, of support — any children and family centres or hubs of the future, I think do need to work throughout primary school years, and then into the teenage years too.
I think we underuse the great assets that a school has in terms of its resource within the community, after school, during school holidays. We're at a moment in time where breakfast clubs are back on the agenda and being discussed. I think these are all essential support platforms that can help families and help children in terms of reducing poverty, in terms of offering additional support in terms of delivering really important things like nutritious meals and access to activities.
And then following that through in terms of secondary schools and increasing these children moving to that secondary school, that importance of youth workers as one of those delivery agents to be around children's lives. Again, huge decline in the number of places for young people to 'be' in their community over the last decade plus. A huge decrease in the number of youth centres, in the number of secondary schools who are operating after school, during school holidays and the like. But if we want to reintroduce a system of support that can be a system that responds to need at the point needed, then those are all elements that I think are required as part of that build back.
Wesley:
Just in terms of the strengthening of the workforce — particularly thinking from my perspective as a qualified social worker — what do you think we could do to ensure that, in terms of building that much more resilient and purposeful support from birth to adulthood, what do you think we could do... what would help to strengthen that workforce? Because they're often doing the most critical work and they're not very well paid. The tools might not be there. I just wonder what your thoughts might be on that.
Anne:
Absolutely. So I think at the moment, as you say, we've got a lot of very skilled people who are delivering really vital work that can be make-or-break for children and their families. But often they're doing it without the recognition of the system properly or without the professional 'wrapping' that you might expect for something that important or indeed the salary within that. And there isn't a clear pathway in. There isn't a clear packaging, if you like, of the range of workforce roles that are working in this area.
That sounds a little bit convoluted, but as an example: when you look at young people, where you've got some people who are doing brilliant work in pastoral care in schools. You've got some that are working in the community as youth workers or indeed in schools, and that's great. You've got some people who are working as part of youth offending teams doing vital work. You've got some people who are doing the supportive work around families, again, that's really important. What you don't have is any way of bringing all of those interventions together into a recognised group of professions or professionals that can have the recognition and status needed about the importance of that work.
Now, I think, if you went back 10 or 15 years, there were pathways towards that: a more coherent workforce strategy for those working with children; a more developed pathway and climbing frame between different elements of the professions; a more established understanding that actually pastoral care, and support in a slightly less formal way than maybe social work, had huge value and a connection into that. Those, I think, have fallen away somewhat in the stresses and strains and challenges of those services being under huge pressure themselves and, you know, rising thresholds for support, often driven by cost challenges and the like.
And those have obviously driven a lot of those services towards the high end of acute response and acute need in crisis. I think, you know, it is established everyone knows that if we're really going to get to the point where we're able to prevent some of these things developing, we are going to have to work earlier in the process. We are going to have to provide that broader early intervention preventative work that gets alongside kids and gets alongside families. That will need some more investment in that area. But we all know that investment in that area is just a fraction of the cost of what crisis costs in the end. So there's work to be done there. There's a job to be done there.
One of the things that I've been involved in over recent months is discussions about how we could build a pathway to qualification for a group of youth workers that potentially are working alongside social workers in quite a diagnostic way, bringing, of course, all the youth work principles and approaches to that work with young people, but also do in a way that can be part of and complement that wider social care reach and approach. And I think there's an area there, that we need to build and concentrate on in coming months and years.
Wesley:
I've picked up about intervening much earlier upstream and strengthening the workforce. I was just curious because it also took me back to the book. You give so many great examples of where there is positive work going on. So, I don't want to give the impression that it's all negative.
I just wondered, was there anything in particular that stood out? A particular project or...
Anne:
Yeah. I guess my starting point in all this is that it doesn't have to be like this. There are fantastic examples where either brilliant individuals or great projects are managing to show that it is possible to deliver things in a different way. But often, especially with local organisations — you know, they're living on short term funding, they're living on not enough funding — it's relying on a small team or one individual that's making all that difference. There's no way the capacity to make this mainstream and make this normal. So, my hope is that we notice that in the future, we notice that sort of thing when it's not happening, rather than we notice it when it is happening, because hopefully it becomes part of the way we do things.
But some of the inspiration. Well, I mean, thinking about schools. I talk in the book a lot about the challenge to the education system to be inclusive, to work very hard to keep children in school, to support young people when there are signs that they might be at risk of exclusion. There are some great examples of schools.
There's a school in south London, next to the Old Kent Road — it's a primary school, actually — called Surrey Square that has food banks, that have clothes banks, that has really developed work with parents. There's been a family worker there for a long time. They do deep work to understand the needs of children and families in the area. They even go along to the local council housing department with families to help them argue their case for better housing, or some housing in some awful cases. You walk into that school, you know it's about the community; you know it's about them sticking by that community, doing everything they can as an anchor organisation in the community.
A great example... Well, there's some fantastic examples of work going on in A&E, in some of the most awful situations. Redthread’s work with girls — really inspiring work in some A&Es, again where they build relationships with young people over time and really help support those young people to a different place.
Football Beyond Borders, working with children and young people in schools at risk of exclusion. 97% success rate of keeping them in schools when they do that. You look around the country all over there are individual projects and schools doing fantastic things, but every one of those is working probably against all odds, because they're working without the kind of support or recognition they need.
Imagine— I come away from every one of those just saying, 'imagine if we had this everywhere'. And it is within the range of possibilities to have those kind of approaches and those things everywhere. Hence, the book makes the case for why we should.
Wesley:
Thank you. I could see— I mean, the audience won't see this, but I can see how much that lit you up describing those initiatives. And that's such great work that does take place under the most difficult and pressing of circumstances. Let me just move on a bit more.
One of the things that struck me when reading the book was that a lot about what you talk about refers to boys, and particularly boys from minoritised communities. Just curious to know whether that was a conscious decision or borne out by the research process that you undertook to write the book.
Anne:
I think the answer to that is both. We knew from the evidence that already existed, you know, you look at any of the evidence and the huge disproportionality of involvement of especially black boys in so many of the aspects that we were talking about is just very clear to see. We'd also taken great attention of David Lammy's work around disproportionality in the criminal justice system. So many messages there that we were very, very aware of.
But again, you don't have to look for long at the statistics that you find out or the conversations you have to know that this is something which is in plain sight. There is huge disproportionality here, which leads you to then ask, well, at what point do we then recognise and understand that the systems we have aren't working for these kids? Often they're working against them.
And why aren't the signs — whether you want to call it racial bias or whatever within the system — why aren't we more alert to this and why aren't we doing something about this. So if you look at children in care, if you look at children who are being excluded from school, if you look at children in YOIs, if you look at young people who are part of the wider justice system, you can see there's an enormous disproportionality of boys in the system and black boys as well. So that's a major theme throughout the book and one that we believe and I believe needs huge attention.
Wesley:
We're nearly at the end of our time. But just to conclude, if you could do three things to improve the lot for children, what would you do and why?
Anne:
Well, I mean, the big thing is really to persuade our society, our government, that actually, as a country, we have choices that we can make about how we value children.
If you look at some of the Scandinavian countries, you know, decades ago they decided that children were an important part of our population; that if we help children thrive, then actually we stand the chance of helping our society thrive, which has, of course, benefits not only for those children, but in terms of social issues and in terms of the economy, because we all want an economy that's going to be active and productive and all the rest of it. We haven't almost dared to go there. That feels far too interventionist.
Well, I think, during the pandemic, support and systems for children were given a good test and I don't think they fared very well. So, I think there's a moment here where we can again look to recommit ourselves to kids in a way that says, as a nation, we think they're important. We need to put them first.
Next to that is that when you do that, you think about children when you're thinking about your neighbourhood: the space that taken up for children or given to children; the facilities that are there that are assigned for children; the way we design our homes, especially social housing, the way that we design our parks, the way that we design our roads or non-roads; our public space essentially. Imagine if we designed our area, our planning for public space in a way that was child friendly. I would love us to consider and put high on the list, or requiring even, children's needs to be built into all of the way that we design our country and the way it's established. Let's put forward places where children can safely play, be with each other, be children and enjoy childhood safely.
The third is really to have an overriding commitment, with the engine of government behind it, to give all our kids the best chance possible and be ambitious for all our kids, for a positive childhood and a positive scenario in terms of our adult life. We know that childhood and experience of childhood sticks with you for life, good or bad. We have choices about the way we help children thrive as children and help them get that best start into life.
Wesley:
That's fantastic. That's fantastic. And I just love that idea, that sense of, in a way, quite revolutionary perspective and ambition that we have for children which has come through that. And I love that idea about the design and the lens. Let's look at the way we live through that perspective.
Anne:
It's about being ambitious. It's about, you know, valuing young lives, but also being ambitious for what we can do for those children, but also for what we want for our country. Why can't our country be the best place to grow up? We could make it so. And obviously, in my view, we should.
Wesley:
What a great place to stop. I'd just like to thank you so much for talking about Young Lives, Big Ambitions.
Anne:
Thanks very much.
Outro:
Thanks for listening to this NSPCC Learning podcast. At the time of recording, this episode’s content was up to date but the world of safeguarding and child protection is ever changing – so, if you're looking for the most current safeguarding and child protection training, information or resources, please visit our website for professionals at nspcc.org.uk/learning.
