The Duchess of Cambridge has launched the Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood, an umbrella of her charitable organisation which will “drive awareness of and action on the extraordinary impact of the early years, in order to transform society for generations to come.”
Kate announced the news on Friday, releasing a video and sharing the results of the Centre’s first commissioned report, Big Change Starts Small. Kensington Palace notes that these announcements “signals her lifelong commitment to improving outcomes across society.”
The Duchess said that she hopes the Centre will, in partnership with other experts, “raise awareness of why the first five years of life are just so important for our future life outcomes, and what we can do as a society to embrace this golden opportunity to create a happier, more mentally healthy, more nurturing society.
“By working together, my hope is that we can change the way we think about early childhood and transform lives for generations to come. Because I truly believe big change starts small.”
She said that her own interest in the early years started with adults learning more about prevention. “I wanted to understand what more we could do to help prevent some of today’s toughest social challenges and what more we could do to help with the rising rates of poor mental health. I’ve spoken to psychiatrists and neuroscientists, to practitioners and academics and parents alike, and what has become clear is that the best investment for our future health and happiness is in the first five years of life.”
The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood has three aims: to promote and commission high-quality research “to increase knowledge and share best practice”; to work with people from the private, public and voluntary sectors to “collaborate on new solutions”; and to develop creative campaigns that will “raise awareness and inspire action, driving real, positive change on the early years.”
The Centre’s first major commissioned report has also been published to coincide with the announcement, focusing on “the critical lifelong impact of the early years on individuals, our economy and society at large. It also sets out recommendations on how all aspects of society can contribute positively and make a difference on this important issue.”
Kate, who penned the foreword, wrote: “Our first five years lay important foundations for our future selves. This period is when we first learn to manage our emotions and impulses, to care and to empathise, and thus ultimately to establish healthy relationships with ourselves and others.
“It is a time when our experience of the world around us, and the way that moulds our development, can have a lifelong impact on our future mental and physical wellbeing. Indeed, what shapes our childhood shapes the adults and the parents we become.”
Big Change Starts Small is a collaborative effort between the Royal Foundation and experts at the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University and the London School of Economics.
Its research found that the cost of lost opportunity—the cost of “remedial steps we take to address issues” such as child care, short- and long-term mental and physical health, that could have been avoided with early childhood intervention—is £16.13 billion per year, just in England.
The report’s six areas focus on raising awareness, building better mental health and nurturing support systems, strengthening the early years workforce, data in early years, and ways to support long-term and inter-generational change.
Kate’s foreword continues, “Investing in a child is ultimately an investment in our future societal health and happiness, but to achieve this vision we need the whole of society to play its part.”
The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood has also launched a website, where the scientific, economic and social opportunities to effect change will be laid out, and where research projects and initiatives will live, as well as a platform for those who want to learn more about early childhood.
Lord Hague, Chair of the Royal Foundation, called the launch a “pivotal moment” in the Duchess’s work with the Early Years and noted her determination to “bring people together from all corners of the country and all parts of society to help improve early childhoods and ultimately lifelong outcomes.”
He continued: “Over the coming years, the Centre will help to create better understanding of the relevant issues, making it clear why the experiences we have in our earliest years are so important – not just to us as individuals but to society at large.”
The launch of the Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood comes just under a year after Kate’s 5 Big Questions on the Under-Fives survey solicited responses from over 500,000 participants in the UK.
The Big Change Starts Small report concludes with a call to action that the time is now. “The pandemic has provided a moment for reflection on the society that we can be. With a greater focus on early childhood, we have the opportunity to build a happier society and one that is mentally and physically healthier.”
