Make improving children's wellbeing explicit aim of all work

Wellbeing isn’t a fluffy concept, it affects every aspect of a child’s life. Children and young people are telling us that school, their friendships and worries over their appearance are making them feel unhappy with their lives. Alarmingly, this year we have found that those children who are unhappy with their lives at age 14 are more likely by the age of 17 to have symptoms of mental-ill health, to have self-harmed, or even made an attempt on their own life.

There is often much – important – focus on the early years for children. But our research shows that the teen years are a vitally important time too to change the story for young people. Working with young people who are unhappy during adolescence, tackling those factors that are making them unhappy, giving them time, tools and support to build supportive relationships and address bullying might result in drastically different outcomes for these children by 17.

To those of us working in the sector, perhaps these findings don’t come as a surprise. Even before the pandemic children’s happiness was showing a 10-year decline, but the last year has been exceptionally disruptive.

One of the more positive findings of the report is that most children coped remarkably well overall with the pandemic throwing their lives into disarray. But sadly we also found that around four per cent of 10- to 17-year-olds (equivalent to an estimated 250,000 children in the wider population) are struggling. They didn’t cope well with the pandemic and also report being unhappy with their lives. We know that low wellbeing is linked to other issues such as finding it harder to cope with daily life at home and school, and has a higher risk of developing mental health conditions.

We cannot allow these trends to get worse and as we emerge from the pandemic it seems clear that we need a bold and ambitious vision for childhood in England and a new deal for children. At every level, all work with children and young people should have the explicit aim of improving their wellbeing. From Cabinet-level leadership and close monitoring of children’s wellbeing by national government to really get to grips with how young people are feeling, right down to local early help services for mental health and social care.

Local authority early help services have been cut by 48 per cent since 2010 and this needs a massive investment – in youth services, parenting support, and children’s centres. We urgently need to address children and young people’s emotional health and provide early mental health support in every community so that these vital developing years in a child’s life and in early adolescence are protected and children don’t continue to be short changed when it comes to their mental health. We need a new social contract with our young. They are worth the investment.

• Mark Russell is chief executive of The Children’s Society