The language used by professionals and policymakers to describe children and young people can have a big impact.
Already there are concerns some phrases that have become commonplace during the Covid-19 pandemic are potentially “hugely damaging to young people”.
This was the message from government-appointed youth mental health ambassador Dr Alex George who warned MPs of the dangers of bandying around terms like “lost generation” and “catch up”.
He told an education select committee meeting in March he had received messages from concerned young people asking: “Am I part of this lost generation?”
A survey on public attitudes to children in care carried out in March for children’s charity Coram found the first words that sprang to mind were negative terms including “sad”, “poor” and “vulnerable”.
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