Bray mentored a seven-year-old boy who had never been out of Peckham. When they took a Thames Clipper down the river he thought they were leaving the country. Sylvie could empathise more than most – parental domestic violence and alcohol abuse meant she was in care as a child. This is why we should listen particularly hard when, writing on Changing London, she said: ‘Every child deserves the same chance to live, and to thrive. It’s not acceptable that we just keep a whole group of children treading water … it would be terrible to give up on these kids.’
For some children, growing up in London is a dangerous, bewildering and painful experience. Some have parents who are unable or unwilling to look after them. Others might experience terrible difficulties at school, with mental health problems or with bullying. Research among children at the charity Kids Company found that one in five had been shot at and/or stabbed, and half had witnessed shootings or stabbings in the last year.42 For many more the deprivation might not be as extreme but it is almost as debilitating for their future success: leaving school unable to read or write well enough to get a job, caring for parents or siblings instead of learning or playing. If our ‘every child’ ambition is to mean anything, it must extend most actively to the most vulnerable children: every child, from whatever beginning, with whatever it takes.
A London Children’s Challenge
By the early 2000s it was widely acknowledged that children were being badly let down by the poor quality of London’s schools. In response, in 2003 the government introduced a new minister to take responsibility, some new money and a crack team of officials in the Department of Education to lead a programme called the London Challenge. Ten years later, with London’s schools amongst the best performing in the country, the London Challenge is still hailed as a model of successful intervention.43
It focused on improving leadership and teacher quality but in doing so recognised that schools thrive when the staff and leaders feel trusted, supported and encouraged. It built partnerships between schools, often pairing better- and worse-performing schools, which actually improved the performance of both. It built on the belief shared by teachers and local authorities that no child in London should be let down by their school.
In short, a fantastic programme that transformed education for a generation of Londoners. Its only limitation? Children spend most of their time out of school. A great education can help overcome the effects of poverty or neglect at home but is no replacement for preventing them in the first place, and for some children it will never be enough.
Nowhere has recognised this more famously than New York’s Harlem Children’s Zone. Fed up with the duplication, gaps and inconsistencies in the myriad of public and philanthropic services trying to cater for children in the 100-block area of Harlem, its founder set out to weave them together into a coherent ‘pipeline’ from cradle to career. Schools were vital but so were charities, local care services, and parents and families themselves. Several organisations have attempted to bring the approach to the UK, including Only Connect, via their West London Children’s Zone, and Save the Children. The model cannot be imported wholesale – services and jurisdictions are different – but the principle of joining up services in a ‘doubly holistic’ way, across all ages from 0 to 18 and across all domains, can be replicated here. Save the Children have laid out in detail how to transfer the model to a UK context, emphasising the involvement of local leaders, particularly local authorities and schools, and a robust governance structure.44
Perhaps we could learn from the best of the London Challenge and the Harlem approach. A London Children’s Challenge would extend the challenge model beyond schools to the coordination of wider services for children, particularly those in the most disadvantaged areas. It would combine expert advice with peer support and some resources to bring together different services, similar to that which Save the Children has provided for some areas under their Children’s Communities programme. Led from City Hall and adopting the same positive, supportive tone (in contrast to much of the rhetoric around child protection, which operates in a climate of media intimidation and political fear) it would champion not just schooling but the wider protection and support of London’s children.
Other cities have shown how heavy investment in the lives of struggling children can pay off. Boston’s Thrive in Five initiative aims to ensure every child is ready to start school aged five; it has brought together agencies and organisations across the city to create ‘ready families, ready educators, ready systems and a ready city’.45 San Antonio has pursued a similar goal under its SA2020 plan,46 as has Hartford with its Mayor’s Cabinet for Young Children – a cross-sector group of public sector, charity and business leaders in the city, appointed by the mayor. They provide high-level policy recommendations for the mayor and oversee budgets for programmes that serve young children across the city.45
In Cincinnati, an ambitious programme called Strive brought together over 300 city departments, charities, businesses, universities and schools to improve all aspects of services for children from cradle to career. They re-imagined the system piece by piece; performance improved across a vast range of measures.47
Learning from this experience, the mayor should champion four vital issues for London’s children
Eradicate Illiteracy
The Evening Standard launched the Get London Reading campaign in 2011 with the news that one in four children left primary school unable to read properly.48 This campaign and others have gathered huge momentum since then but too many children still leave school unable to read and write well enough to thrive in adulthood. In West Dunbartonshire, renowned child psychologist Tommy Mackay has shown that it is possible not just to tackle illiteracy but to eradicate it.49 We should seize the opportunity and aim for the same in London, redoubling our efforts and, following Mackay’s lead, setting out to change attitudes as well as provide one-on-one support for those who need it most.
The ‘Read On. Get On.’ campaign is demanding that by 2025 all children leave primary school as confident readers. Led by a group of charities, teachers groups and publishers, it is avowedly a community campaign, arguing that this cannot be a job for government alone.50 The mayor’s high-profile support could propel it forward in London.
Every Child Mentored, Every Child a Mentor
Several contributors to Changing London outlined the enormous benefits of mentoring schemes for children who ‘do not know about their city or, even worse, are afraid of it’ and for mentors, who experience a whole new side to London. Gracia McGrath challenged the next mayor to become a mentor himself, to ‘see the city through the eyes of a child’.
Extending this theme, Ellie Robinson argued that ‘having a mentor can transform a childhood – building confidence, extending networks, eroding inequality’ and wondered whether we could extend these benefits across the capital through a voluntary mentoring scheme in every school. Crucially, children would have the opportunity to be trained as mentors and to be mentored themselves, because giving support is just as valuable as receiving it.
Some children will need far more than a mentor alone can provide, but establishing it as a right would guarantee every child a minimum of one supportive, trusted relationship, and a role providing the same for others when the time comes.
Shrink the Foster Care Waiting List to Zero
Mentoring could be for everyone but fostering is mercifully rare. How we care for children whose parents can’t or won’t care for them is a defining feature of a civilised society and yet, as Mandy Wilkins pointed out, there are over 1000 children in need of foster care in London and not enough willing carers.51
A concerted campaign could see the fostering waiting list reduced to zero by the end of the mayoralty. We should allow ourselves no leniency – in a city of 9 million people it is not unreasonable to believe we can find families for 1000
