The Duchess of Cambridge in Cardiff: “Unless parents are supported, it makes the job that much harder.”

The Duchess of Cambridge visited the Ely and Caerau Children’s Centre in Cardiff on Wednesday morning as part of her 24-hour tour of the UK to promote the 5 Big Questions for the Under 5s she launched on Tuesday.

Meant to inform her work on the Early Years Programme, Kate has been travelling around projects in the UK that support early childhood development and provide a good start for children to create stability with their physical and mental health later in life.

Kate joined a baby sensory class at the Ely and Caerau Children’s Centre and chatted with the Centre’s service providers, as well as parents, about their work supporting the early years. She also spent time with babies and toddlers in the play area—including an outdoor excursion to Cath’s Cottage on the playground.

Kate opened up about her time in Wales—she and William lived in Anglesey when they were engaged and in the early years of their marriage, moving after Prince George was born. And she shared her experiences of being a new mother there.

“I was chatting to some of the mums,” Kate said. “It was the first year and I’d just had George—William was still away working with search and rescue—and we came up here and I had a tiny, tiny baby in the middle of Anglesey.

“It was so isolated, so cut off. I didn’t have any family around, and he was doing night shifts. So… if only I had had a centre like this.”

Carolyn Asante, the Centre’s director, told Kate that, “’That’s the thing, we all need it [support]. It’s not about social status. When you’re a parent, you take home this little baby and I don’t know about you but I didn’t know which way was up or down.”

The Ely and Caerau Children’s Centre operates under the mission “to provide the best possible environment for care, education, health, wellbeing and development within our learning community.”

When a care worker told Kate that she often fields questions from new parents about how to raise their children, Kate said that that’s why she decided to create a survey to inform her early years work. “Unless parents are supported, it makes the job that much harder.”

Speaking of her visit, Asante told reporters that Kate was “so genuine and down to earth,” and that she was “genuinely interested in what the children had to say, and you can’t fake that.

“It’s great to have the spotlight shone on the early years because everyone here recognises its importance and that it’s such a crucial stage of development, so if we can get it right at this stage, we’ve given children the best possible start.”

Kate’s survey, 5 Big Questions, is a month-long project open to anyone over 16 who lives in the UK that will “bring about positive, lasting change for generations to come.”

The survey is live until 21 February here.