Complete communicator
Neil Puffett
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Neil Puffett meets Anna Feuchtwang, chief executive of the National Children's Bureau.
Anna Feuchtwang is a communicator at heart. Having started her professional career as a reporter on a local newspaper in Croydon, learning her trade via an indentured apprenticeship, it was in public relations that she found her true calling. By the late 1980s, she had moved on to the communications department at Oxfam, which she would go on to head. She says communication skills have stood her in good stead for leadership.
"The so-called softer skills around being able to articulate a vision and an idea, and to be able to listen and absorb and take on other people's ideas, is what it takes to be a good communications or public affairs director," she says.
"And I think that's what you need as a chief executive, particularly in the voluntary sector."
Feuchtwang's appointment at the NCB comes after a decade spent as chief executive of international development charity EveryChild, which works to support children growing up without parental care.
"I have always been motivated by issues around injustice," she says. "I would probably describe myself as a real activist when I was a young person."
She says the move to the NCB was a "logical step" following Oxfam and EveryChild.
"The issues that Oxfam and EveryChild work on are almost identical to the ones the children's sector is working on in this country – around vulnerable children, inequality and particular types of vulnerability such as disability," she says. "After a while, I wanted to look at how I could achieve change in this country."
Feuchtwang takes over the organisation from previous chief executive Hilary Emery, who stood down in July after three years in post. During Emery's tenure, the organisation was forced to make cuts as funding from central government was dramatically reduced. It also celebrated its 50th anniversary last year and Feuchtwang says the organisation is just as relevant now as it was in 1963.
"If you look back at the history and why it came about in the first place, it was in response to what was seen as a fragmented sector where there wasn't enough added value of people working together," she says.
"It's a different type of fragmentation now, but there is a sense that the sector - all ends of it, statutory to voluntary - don't necessarily all pull together at the same time. I think the NCB plays a really important role there. We might have different ways of working, but we should all be there for the same purpose - to improve children's lives."
Coherent vision
Feuchtwang says one of her aims is to help the sector develop and promote a "common understanding" of how a child's life should be. She says there is currently a lack of a "coherent vision" of what a really good childhood should look like.
"It's there, but perhaps not articulated that well yet, and I think that's what I can help to bring about," she says.
"We tend to focus on all the things that don't work, which is absolutely right to do, because things, especially for the most vulnerable, have been tough over the past few years. But we need to have an aspiration for what a really good childhood could look like.
"Sometimes, particularly with the recession and austerity measures, we lose sight of that a bit."
The NCB's corporate strategy for 2014-17 was already in place prior to Feuchtwang's arrival. Alongside her responsibility for delivering that, she says she also wants to focus on creating partnerships to improve the lives of children.
"The NCB has a real ability to horizon-scan and look for where there are gaps for children and young people that aren't being filled adequately by the sector," she says.
"It can then bring organisations together to fill that gap rather than feeling it has to do it itself.
"Its capacity to collaborate and find strength in numbers is really important."
One of the areas of collaboration at the moment is a major project being delivered with £30m funding from the Big Lottery Fund's A Better Start programme. The Lambeth Early Action Partnership (Leap) project aims to improve social, emotional, communications and language development of 10,000 nought- to three-year-olds over the next 10 years by changing the way partners work together. The project is taking a public health approach to improving outcomes from maternity to early childhood, through prevention and early intervention.
"It's a really complex and holistic partnership model, involving local grassroots organisations in Lambeth, the local authority and health authorities," Feuchtwang says.
"Those partnership initiatives are very exciting - they will help to provide an evidence base for outcomes that we can really build on."
She believes this type of project can inform future attempts to tackle issues of social mobility and child poverty - two areas she feels the government is currently struggling to address. She cites the NCB's Greater Expectations report from earlier this year as evidence that children are coping with higher levels of depression and anxiety than previous generations.
"We are at real risk of creating a depressed and non-aspirational future generation, which is probably more significant than anything else," she says.
These issues, she adds, can be compounded by a lack of social mobility.
"It's an extra component when you know that your level of opportunity is so much less than the person sitting next to you in class," she says.
In terms of the government's record on children and young people, she gives a mixed report. She praises reforms to special educational needs and looked-after children, but is concerned about the impact of welfare cuts and lack of progress on child poverty and social mobility.
"To describe what is happening to children and young people as a result of austerity as disastrous would be wrong - to say the whole system is broken would be wrong," she says. "It's not that black and white.
"There are some parts that are working well, but there is still an overall gap between the most vulnerable children in society and those who have the best opportunities.
"If we can help and find the ways you can decrease that gap through, for example, Leap, we will be trying to persuade the government to work with us on it.
Adding real value
"It's not our job to tell the government where to cut and where to spend. It is our job to tell them the impact of their cuts as well as their investment, and where we think real value could be added."
So, with a general election next May, what policy proposals will the organisation be pushing over the coming months? Feuchtwang says the main message coming from the NCB's various membership groups is a desire for either a cross-departmental children's minister at cabinet level or a cross-government ministerial committee on children and young people.
"It's something that is not particularly controversial, but whether it is likely or not is another matter. It's the kind of thing we will be putting some effort behind."
Allied to this is a desire for young people to be "listened to" more.
"I don't mean that we (sector organisations) keep asking them more and more," she explains. "I think we and a number of other organisations have got very good at asking children what they want and gathering that information.
"It's about whether we can then get that voice heard by the government and reflected in the manifestos they (political parties) develop. That's probably the most critical thing for NCB."
Introduction of votes for 16-year-olds - something backed by the NCB - could help this to happen. "There have been some interesting debates within young NCB about votes at 16," Feuchtwang says. "The majority think it's a really good idea.
"But there is some anxiety about the level of responsibility that places on young people.
"So I think votes for 16 is a really good idea and one of the things that would empower young people - one of the simplest ways.
"But it needs to come with really good support and education around how the British constitution works and what children and young people's rights are, so that young people feel able to use that vote properly.
"It's not good enough to just give 16-year-olds the vote. They need, like the rest of the electorate, encouragement to vote as well."
ANNA FEUCHTWANG CV
- Feuchtwang worked at Oxfam for 12 years, between 1988 and 2000, becoming head of communications at the charity
- She went on to become director of communications and public affairs at London Councils (then known as the Association of London Government), where she stayed until 2004
- She took over as chief executive of international development charity EveryChild in July 2004 - remaining with the organisation until last month
- Feucthwang is also a member of the BBC's charity appeals advisory committee and chair of Asylum Aid