Child Welfare Groups Call For Action On Wellbeing

Scotland’s leading child welfare experts have called for immediate and radical action to improve children’s wellbeing after the UK came bottom of a Unicef report on welfare.

Scotland’s Children’s Commissioner, Children 1st and the Child Poverty Action Group have said that urgent action needs to be taken to address the problem as significant numbers of children now face the real prospect of being left behind by an increasingly affluent society.

The report, An Overview of Child Wellbeing in Rich Countries, is the first study of childhood across the world’s industrialised nations, looked at 40 indicators including poverty, peer and family relationships, and health. It placed the Netherlands at the top in terms of child wellbeing while the UK came 21st and last in the study.

The country rated higher for educational wellbeing but languished in the bottom third for each of the other measures, placing it at the bottom of the child wellbeing table of 21 countries, along with the US, which has the world’s most powerful economy. The report found that a thriving economy and prosperity did not necessarily mean a great social environment in which children could prosper. For example, the Czech Republic achieved a higher overall rank for child wellbeing than several much wealthier European countries including the US and the UK.

Kathleen Marshall, Scotland’s Children’s Commissioner, told TFN that the UK’s performance in the report was “alarming” and that children’s needs must now become an integral part of all government policy in Scotland.

She said: “The Unicef report makes very uncomfortable reading. We have to take note of it because it has the potential to pull us out of an inward-looking self complacency. It might be possible to quibble with one or two figures as being out of date or misleading, but the message about the UK’s poor performance is so consistent as to be alarming.

“What can our government do about it? As politicians have pointed out, there are a lot of well-intentioned initiatives around. But we need to do something radical to ensure that the needs and rights of our children and young people are kept to the fore in all policy formulation and decision-making.”

Tom Roberts, head of public affairs at Children 1st echoed the commissioner’s concerns. “Many of the risk taking behaviours highlighted, including having sex at an early age, smoking, drinking and fighting, are often ways of masking difficulties, troubling emotions or low self esteem and it is clear that families need to be valued more highly and to receive far more support from the Executive than is currently happening at present,” he said.

But John Dickie, head of Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland (CPAG) said the figures should not detract from the progress already being made in child welfare.

“We must now work to ensure the shock of finding ourselves bottom of this UN league acts as a spur to government at both Westminster and Holyrood to find the resources needed to meet their goals of eradicating child poverty. Real progress, while not reflected in this latest table, is already being made. Furthermore the Report clearly shows child poverty in rich countries is not inevitable. The goal is attainable – we can climb, and top, the league table. But we need to invest in our children.”

A Scottish Executive spokeswoman said the executive had had a number of successes in child welfare but admitted it could do more. “We recognise there will always be more we can do, but we are confident that our strategies will make a real difference in the years ahead.”