A report set out the work of the Infant Mortality National Support Team in addressing inequalities and improving infant and maternal health in disadvantaged areas, and identified good practice.
Source: Marilena Korkodilos, Ray Earwicker and Marcia Perry, Tackling Health Inequalities in Infant and Maternal Health Outcomes, Department of Health
Links: Report
Notes: The Infant Mortality National Support Team (IMNST) was established in 2008 to help disadvantaged local areas in England to address inequalities in infant mortality and improve infant and maternal health outcomes.
Date: 2010-Dec
The new government announced an independent review into the commercialization and sexualization of childhood, to be led by Reg Bailey.
Source: Written Ministerial Statement 6 December 2010, columns 7-8WS, House of Commons Hansard/TSO
Links: Hansard | DE press release | Children & Young People Now report | BBC report | Guardian report
Date: 2010-Dec
A survey of over 32,000 school children, at ages 11, 13, and 15 examined the aspects of their lives that most affected their happiness. The 10 things most strongly associated with increased chances of feeling happy were (in order): being able to talk to parents when worried; having one or more good friends; not being bullied; not often feeling worried about parents or family; often sitting down to have a meal with people at home; being able to talk to friends when worried; not often feeling worried about the way they looked; being a boy; being pre-teenage; and eating fruit and vegetables.
Source: Tom Benton, Reasons to be Cheerful: Being a 12 year old boy who eats dinner with his family, National Foundation for Educational Research
Links: Research note | Summary | Guardian report
Date: 2010-Dec
An article examined social inequalities in fatal childhood accidents and assaults. The overall mortality rate in the 'routine' class was 64 per million children aged up to 15 – 4.5 times the rate of children with parents in the higher managerial and professional class.
Source: Veronique Siegler, Alaa Al-Hamad and David Blane, 'Social inequalities in fatal childhood accidents and assaults: England and Wales, 2001-03', Health Statistics Quarterly 48, Winter 2010, Office for National Statistics
Links: Article | ONS press release
Date: 2010-Nov
Two linked studies examined how young children (aged 5-12) learned about alcohol in the family context. The home was an important source of learning about alcohol: but there were gaps in relation to the health consequences of drinking, and the potential risks of drinking outside the home.
Source: Gill Valentine, Mark Jayne, Myles Gould and Julia Keenan, Family Life and Alcohol Consumption: A study of the transmission of drinking practices, Joseph Rowntree Foundation | Douglas Eadie et al., Pre-Teens Learning About Alcohol: Drinking and family contexts, Joseph Rowntree Foundation
Links: Report (1) | Summary (1) | Report (2) | Summary (2) | Manchester University press release | Leeds University press release
Date: 2010-Nov
The Scottish Government published a report setting out a national approach to anti-bullying activity – designed to ensure that all agencies were working together in a consistent way to deal with the problem.
Source: A National Approach to Anti-Bullying for Scotland's Children and Young People, Scottish Government
Links: Report
Date: 2010-Nov
Researchers examined the decision-making process that influenced the life pathways and developmental progress of a sample of very young children who were identified as suffering, or likely to suffer, significant harm before their first birthdays and whose progress was then followed until they were aged 3.
Source: Harriet Ward, Rebecca Brown, David Westlake and Emily Munro, Infants Suffering, or Likely to Suffer, Significant Harm: A prospective longitudinal study, Research Brief RB053, Department for Education
Links: Brief
Date: 2010-Oct
A large-scale study of over 3, 000 children aged 8-12 found that nearly two-thirds of children (61 per cent) had seen signs that could indicate child neglect in children in their classrooms, playgrounds, neighbourhoods, and activity clubs.
Source: Press release 13 October 2010, Action for Children
Links: Action for Children press release | Guardian report | Children & Young People Now report
Date: 2010-Oct
A report examined the impact on children of parental alcohol misuse. An estimated 2.6 million children lived with a parent whose drinking put them at risk of neglect, and 705, 000 lived with a dependent drinker. The report called for a national inquiry into the scale of harm involved, and for improved resources to protect children.
Source: Anne Delargy, Don Shenker, Jo Manning and Anna-Joy Rickard, Swept Under the Carpet: Children affected by parental alcohol misuse, Alcohol Concern
Links: Report | Guardian report | Children & Young People Now report
Date: 2010-Oct
An article examined the use of physical punishment in the home. Public/parental opinion was 'less than straightforward'. Parents were often ambivalent about physical discipline, did not view it as an optimal method of behaviour management, and were more prone to smack when stressed or angry. Nonetheless, many parents continued to smack despite the fact they did not believe it to be effective. Lack of parental support for legislative reform should be reconsidered in the light of this ambivalence. The smacking debate needed to be reframed in terms of children's rights.
Source: Lisa Bunting, Mary Anne Webb and Julie Healy, 'In two minds? Parental attitudes toward physical punishment in the UK', Children & Society, Volume 24 Number 5
Links: Abstract
Date: 2010-Oct
A new index was published for measuring the well-being and quality of life of children. The 'Good Childhood Index' was designed to identify the key factors that had the most impact on a child's subjective satisfaction levels.
Source: Gwyther Rees, Haridhan Goswami and Jonathan Bradshaw, Developing an Index of Children's Subjective Well-Being in England, Children's Society
Date: 2010-Oct
A report examined children's relationship with the internet and modern technology, and considered the challenges it posed for adults' ability to safeguard their welfare. Parents and children were becoming complacent about the dangers of internet use, and making unfounded assumptions about safety.
Source: Digital Lives: Childwise Monitor Special Report 2010, Childwise
Links: Summary | Childwise press release | Children & Young People Now report
Date: 2010-Oct
A report examined the challenges and opportunities involved in supporting children, families, and communities through early intervention. Early intervention 'clearly worked' – when it was an appropriate intervention, applied well, and followed timely identification of a problem. The earliest interventions secured the maximum impact and greatest long-term sustainability (as early in the child's life as possible or as soon as possible after a need became apparent).
Source: Grasping the Nettle: Early intervention for children, families and communities, Centre for Excellence and Outcomes in Children and Young People's Services
Links: Report | C4EO press release | Community Care report
Date: 2010-Oct
Researchers estimated the intergenerational correlation of over 60 outcomes targeted under the government's 'Every Child Matters' agenda. There were very strong correlations between parents and children in their educational aspirations and expectations, specifically their desire to gain education over and above the legal requirement. There were also some patterns of correlations in health outcomes. This suggested that if policy could alter parents' attitudes towards education, good behaviour, and decisions to smoke or drink, there might be an impact on the choices of the next generation.
Source: Jo Blanden, Stephen Machin, Richard Murphy and Emma Tominey, Research on the Intergenerational Links in the Every Child Matters Outcomes, CEE Special Report 005, Department for Education
Links: Report
Date: 2010-Sep
An article examined deaths related to child abuse in England and Wales over the period 1974-2006. Death rates were at a record low, and significantly greater progress had been made in reducing them than in most other major developed countries.
Source: Colin Pritchard and Richard Williams, 'Comparing possible "child-abuse-related-deaths" in England and Wales with the major developed countries 1974-2006: signs of progress?', British Journal of Social Work, Volume 40 Number 6
Links: Abstract
Date: 2010-Sep
A report examined the level of risk to road accidents that children were exposed to across 408 local authority areas. The children most at risk were those from families on lower incomes, who often lived in large council estates where there was little owner-occupation.
Source: Child Casualties 2010: A study into resident risk of children on roads in Great Britain 2004-08, Road Safety Analysis
Links: Report | RSA press release | Sustrans press release | Telegraph report | Guardian report | Inside Housing report
Date: 2010-Aug
A new book set out the existing state of knowledge about what worked in reducing impairments to children's health and development. It examined interventions such as changes in household income, early years support, moving families to less disadvantaged communities, improving parenting, and using schools to improve mental health.
Source: Michael Little (ed.), Effective Interventions for Children in Need, Ashgate Publications
Links: Summary
Date: 2010-Aug
The inspectorate for education and children's services highlighted the challenges faced by local authorities in England in identifying and tracking children who were missing from education. None of the 15 local authorities surveyed felt confident that they knew about all the children living in their area in order to fulfil their duties to keep children safe.
Source: Children Missing from Education: The actions taken to prevent children from missing education or becoming 'lost to the system', HMI 100041, Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills
Links: Report | OFSTED press release | NASUWT press release | Guardian report | Community Care report | Children & Young People Now report | BBC report
Date: 2010-Aug
A new book examined the concept of child well-being, how the idea was being used in government policy and practice in the United Kingdom and United States of America, how children could contribute to the understanding of child well-being, and recent advances in the exploration of indicators and measures of well-being.
Source: Colette McAuley and Wendy Rose (eds.), Child Well-Being: Understanding children's lives, Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Links: Summary
Date: 2010-Aug
A briefing paper provided an overview of recent evidence in the field of childhood well-being. It examined how well-being was conceptualized; the domains and measures employed to assess child well-being; how the views of children and young people were incorporated into work on child well-being; and some conclusions from key studies relevant to the well-being of children and young people.
Source: June Statham and Elaine Chase, Childhood Wellbeing: A brief overview, Department for Education
Links: Report
Date: 2010-Aug
An article examined the social impact of new surveillance technologies on the lives of school children living in a northern city.
Source: Michael McCahill and Rachel Finn, 'The social impact of surveillance in three UK schools: "angels", "devils" and "teen mums"', Surveillance & Society, Volume 7 Number 3/4
Links: Article | Telegraph report
Date: 2010-Jul
A survey asked people to identify the biggest risks for children aged 6-15 in a number of different scenarios. 77 per cent said that children were exposed to a high level of risk when parents did not know their whereabouts in the evening: girls were more likely to be considered to be at high risk (82 per cent) than boys (73 per cent).
Source: Public Attitudes to Safeguarding Children, Children s Society
Links: Summary
Date: 2010-Jul
An audit report reviewed the data systems used to support delivery of the Labour government's public service agreement 14 – to 'increase the number of children and young people on the path to success' – over the period from 2008.
Source: Review of the Data Systems for Public Service Agreement 14, National Audit Office
Links: Report
Date: 2010-Jun
An audit report reviewed the data systems used to support delivery of the Labour government's public service agreement 13 – to 'improve children and young people's safety' – over the period from 2008.
Source: Review of the Data Systems for Public Service Agreement 13, National Audit Office
Links: Report
Date: 2010-Jun
A report made available the first estimates of victimization derived from extending the British Crime Survey to children aged 10-15 in households in England and Wales. Estimates ranged from 404,000 to 2,153,000 incidents, depending on the definitions used.
Source: Bryce Millard and John Flatley (eds.), Experimental Statistics on Victimisation of Children Aged 10 to 15: Findings from the British Crime Survey for the year ending December 2009, Statistical Bulletin 11/10, Home Office
Links: Bulletin | Home Office press release | Guardian report | Telegraph report | Children & Young People Now report
Date: 2010-Jun
Researchers examined a programme designed to build resilience and well-being among year 7 pupils (aged 12). They investigated whether the programme (previously trialled in small samples) could be delivered at scale; whether it had an impact on children's well-being; and if so, whether this would have an impact on behaviour, attendance, and academic attainment. Pupils were generally positive about the programme, and the quantitative work found a significant short-run improvement in pupils' depression symptom scores and school attendance rates.
Source: Amy Challen, Philip Noden, Anne West and Stephen Machin, UK Resilience Programme Evaluation: Second Interim Report, Research Report RR006, Department for Education
Links: Report
Date: 2010-Jun
An audit report reviewed the data systems used to support delivery of the Labour government's public service agreement 12 – to 'improve the health and well-being of children and young people' – over the period from 2008.
Source: Review of the Data Systems for Public Service Agreement 12, National Audit Office
Links: Report
Date: 2010-Jun
An article examined the way in which recent policy developments had highlighted the influence of children's wider circumstances on their well-being, providing the foundations for more holistic approaches to service provision. Nevertheless, these policy developments were unlikely to be successful unless they were accompanied by fundamental changes within the culture of many agencies and professions.
Source: Gordon Jack and Owen Gill, 'The role of communities in safeguarding children and young people', Child Abuse Review, Volume 19 Issue 2
Links: Abstract
Date: 2010-Mar
The first annual report was published of the National Advisory Council for Children's Mental Health and Psychological Wellbeing. It said that improving children's and young people's emotional well-being and mental health was still not high enough on everybody's agenda. There had been some good progress made: but it needed to be sustained. (The Council was created following the report of an independent review, published in 2008.)
Source: One Year On: The first report from the National Advisory Council for Children's Mental Health and Psychological Wellbeing, Department for Children, Schools and Families
Links: Report | NAC press release
Date: 2010-Mar
A report said that passive smoking in the home was a major hazard to the health of the millions of children who lived with smokers. It called for a comprehensive tobacco control strategy, including: sustained increases in the real price of tobacco; further reductions in smuggling and illicit trade; investment in new and innovative mass media campaigns targeting smoking in younger adults; more effective health warnings; prohibition of point-of-sale display; generic standardized packaging; and tailored cessation services.
Source: Passive Smoking and Children, Tobacco Advisory Group/Royal College of Physicians
Links: Summary | RCP press release | RCN press release | Bath University press release | York University press release | Telegraph report | Guardian report | BBC report | Nursing Times report
Date: 2010-Mar
A progress report by an independent adviser said that the United Kingdom was a world leader in child internet safety: but it needed to make faster progress to stay ahead of advances in technology.
Source: Tanya Byron, Do We Have Safer Children in a Digital World? A review of progress since the 2008 Byron Review, Department for Children, Schools and Families
Links: Report | Hansard | Children & Young People Now report
Date: 2010-Mar
A report presented preliminary findings from the first year of a three-year programme aimed at supporting the development of innovative models of mental health support in schools for children and young people at risk of or experiencing mental health problems.
Source: Miranda Wolpert et al., Me and My School: Preliminary findings from the first year of the national evaluation of targeted mental health in schools (2008-2009), Research Report RR232, Department for Children, Schools and Families
Links: Report
Date: 2010-Mar
A government-commissioned report recommended that the existing ban on physical punishment in schools and other children's settings should be extended to include any form of advice, guidance, teaching, training, instruction, worship, treatment or therapy; and to any form of care or supervision that was carried out other than by a parent or member of the child's own family or household. The government accepted the report's recommendations in full.
Source: Roger Singleton (Chief Adviser on the Safety of Children), Physical Punishment: Improving Consistency and Protection, Department for Children, Schools and Families
Links: Report | Letter | Hansard | DCSF press release | Children & Young People Now report | Guardian report
Date: 2010-Mar
A report mapped the evidence relating to the indicators, prevalence, and consequences of online risks to children – as well as effective safeguarding measures and regulation.
Source: Thomas Spielhofer, Children's Online Risks and Safety: A review of the available evidence, UK Council for Child Internet Safety
Links: Report
Date: 2010-Mar
A paper examined evidence for an income gradient in children's mental health – a tendency for low family income to be associated with poor mental health. It concluded that research findings in this area might not be very robust, and that findings should be treated with caution and interpreted in relation to the source of health assessments used for the analysis.
Source: David Johnston, Carol Propper, Stephen Pudney and Michael Shields, Is There an Income Gradient in Child Health? It Depends Whom You Ask, Working Paper 2010-08, Institute for Social and Economic Research/University of Essex
Links: Working paper
Date: 2010-Mar
A new book documented the first five years of life of children in the Millennium Cohort Study (tracking almost 19,000 babies born in 2000 and 2001 in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland). It looked at the children's lives and development as they grew and began formal education, and the implications for family policy and service planning in health and social services. Failure to reach key 'milestones' at 9 months was associated with learning and behaviour problems at age 5.
Source: Kirstine Hansen, Heather Joshi and Shirley Dex (eds.), Children of the 21st Century (Volume 2): The first five years, Policy Press
Links: Summary | IOE press release (1) | IOE press release (2) | IOE press release (3) | Guardian report (1) | Guardian report (2) | Telegraph report
Date: 2010-Feb
An audit report said that government policies and programmes had not significantly improved the health of the under-fives in England in the previous decade. More than £10 billion had been spent, directly or indirectly, over the period: but results were disappointing considering the level of investment. Some aspects of young children's health had improved – there were fewer deaths in infancy, and obesity rates were slowing overall. But gaps between the health of children in disadvantaged areas and those in better-off places had grown – a child in a deprived area was 19 per cent more likely to have bad teeth than the average child.
Source: Giving Children a Healthy Start, Audit Commission
Links: Report | Audit Commission press release | NCT press release | PSLA press release | Liberal Democrats press release | Guardian report | Local Government Chronicle report | Children & Young People Now report | New Start report | Nursing Times report
Date: 2010-Feb
Researchers examined how children's behaviour might be influenced by their parents' attitudes and behaviour towards alcohol. 1 in 4 of the children interviewed said their parents had never talked to them about alcohol.
Source: Bridget Williams, Laura Davies and Vicki Wright, Children, Young People and Alcohol, Research Report RR195, Department for Children, Schools and Families
Links: Report | BBC report
Date: 2010-Feb
Researchers examined changes in well-being for children across two time periods: mid-childhood (7.5 years to 10.5 years) and early adolescence (10.5 years to 13.8 years). They also looked at those children who had a large number of risks to well-being in their lives, identifying those factors that might help protect their well-being. For most dimensions of well-being only around 50-60 per cent of children experienced stability, with around one-half of the remainder experiencing an increase and one-half a decline in well-being. The exception to this pattern was school well-being, where fewer children experienced stability and more experienced decline, particularly in mid-childhood.
Source: Leslie Morrison Gutman, John Brown, Rodie Akerman and Polina Obolenskaya, Change in Wellbeing from Childhood to Adolescence: Risk and resilience, Research Report 34, Centre for Research on the Wider Benefits of Learning/University of London
Date: 2010-Feb
The report was published of an independent review into the 'sexualization' of young people. It looked at how sexualized images and messages might be affecting the development of children and young people, and influencing cultural norms. It also examined the evidence for a link between sexualization and violence.
Source: Linda Papadopoulos, Sexualisation of Young People: Review, Home Office
Links: Report | Home Office press release | Guardian report | BBC report
Date: 2010-Feb
A new book examined the role of law in the care and development of children. It considered the law's approach in the United Kingdom and the United States of America to resolving parenting disputes after separation, protecting children from abuse and neglect, and affording children procedural protections in the juvenile justice system.
Source: Emily Buss and Mavis Maclean (eds.), The Law and Child Development, Ashgate Publications
Links: Summary
Date: 2010-Jan
A committee of MSPs published a commissioned research report that examined the prevalence of 'sexualized goods' – such as toys and clothing – that appeared to be aimed at children under the age of 16.
Source: External Research on Sexualised Goods Aimed at Children, 2nd Report 2010, SP Paper 374, Scottish Parliament Equal Opportunities Committee
Links: Report | Scottish Parliament press release
Date: 2010-Jan
A survey found that 7 per cent of children aged 10-15 were 'significantly unhappy'. Family conflict was the biggest factor in causing unhappiness, together with a lack of freedom and choice, schoolwork, and where children lived. The structure of families had a negligible impact on children's sense of well-being.
Source: Gwyther Rees, Jonathan Bradshaw, Haridhan Goswami and Antonia Keung, Understanding Children's Well-Being: A national survey of young people's well-being, Children's Society
Links: Report | Summary | Children's Society press release | York University press release | Children & Young People Now report | BBC report
Date: 2010-Jan