67: Providing better support for teenagers — an interview with Anne Longfield

In this interview, recorded in June 2024, Anne shares her thoughts on what needs to be done to improve the safeguarding support available to teenagers across the UK, including implementing a more joined-up approach to recognising the risks that teenagers face and providing better access to early intervention and youth work services.

WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: My name's Wesley Powley-Baker and I WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: work at the NSPCC as a Safeguarding WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: Manager in the Safeguarding Unit, and WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: today we're really pleased to have WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: Anne Longfield for today's podcast. WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: In the main, we're going to be WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: talking about Anne's recent book that WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: she's just published called 'Young WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: Lives, Big Ambitions'.

WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: Just a bit of background on Anne: WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: Anne was the Children's Commissioner WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: for England from 2015 to 2021 WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: and is now chair of the Commission on

WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: Young Lives. She spent the last three WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: decades working to improve the lives WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: of the most vulnerable children and WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: earlier this year, as I've said, she's WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: published a book, 'Young Lives, Big WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: Ambitions', which explores how WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: vulnerable children and teens are WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: being let down by the system that

WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: exists to protect them, presenting WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: solutions to give every young person WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: the best chance to succeed in life. WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: So, Anne, thank you for joining us.

that. But, essentially, over the years, all of my work has been about improving outcomes, improving the law, improving our offerings, if you like, as a country, as a society for children, but especially vulnerable children.

From the early days of my work in areas of London and then in other areas around the country, it was very clear to me that there was a significant number of children who had a mountain to climb as they grew up compared to other children, and that so often they were left without help. They were marginalised until the point where the problem became a crisis and intervention was needed. And so often their life chances and expectations were massively diminished as

a result. And on the other side of it, which feeds my optimistic elements — which hopefully are in the main — I was very aware that you could do things about this. I worked in the very early days with families and parents in parts of south west London where proper ongoing support was available, and I was part of of delivering that.

And with that kind of expectation that support was there, families were really able to achieve huge things and plan for their future with their kids and have that reliance or that confidence that support was there when they needed it. So I've always known the power of having support that you could turn to and you could rely on and trusted people that could do that. And I guess that has influenced me throughout.

And to get to the point of the specific topic of this book, all of my work as Children's Commissioner built on that. One of the things that you have as your powers as Children's Commissioner is that you're able to gather data from any public body regarding children —not personal data, but administrative data that you can then analyse and you can go behind the headlines, go behind the findings and find out what's really going

on. And I spent those six years as Children's Commissioner really establishing the levels of vulnerability in this country and also the nature of that to really attempt to get the focus on the root causes of this and getting ahead of the game in terms of preventing the crises that we can all see in front

of our eyes. It was very clear to me as Children's Commissioner, but also at the end of my term, that actually there was a huge paucity of research and knowledge about vulnerability for teenagers. There was a collective horror at some of the headlines that we would all see in the newspapers or in the serious case reviews.

But actually there wasn't the machinery or policy space or policy coordination within government to spend the time needed to understand why these things happened and how they could be prevented.

So I spent the following two years, having founded a Commission on Young Lives to look at these things, understanding that and bringing forward what I hoped would be not only practical and doable solutions, but also eye-catching solutions that would really put forward a plan nationally and locally and put a policy emphasis and highlight onto that, which I hope that has done.

And that work really led to a lot of the thinking about the book and bringing all that together into a narrative about what goes wrong and also what we could achieve as a country if we were more ambitious for our vulnerable children and our teens. WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: Thank you. That was a great WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: introduction and context. WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: Moving on a bit to that first WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: chapter, which I thought was really,

WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: really powerful. You know, these are WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: young lives and particularly the WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: story around Jayden and Jacob WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: and I have a bit of a question around

WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: that. So in the beginning of that WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: chapter in the book, you talk about WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: the failure to find "reachable WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: moments" when children could be WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: better supported, or in the worst WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: instances when children's lives could

WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: have been saved. So what do you think WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: those... I mean, you've begun to talk WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: about that in that introduction, but WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: what do you think about what those WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: reachable moments look like? I think what is very evident is that we haven't recognised the risks that face teenagers enough in the past.

That recognition hasn't gained its place in many of the statutory services that need to be much more aware of this and need to be both alert but also clear of their role.

That's not to say there aren't brilliant people doing good things, but whether you look in children's social care, whether you look in the police, whether you look in some of the work around schools, there hasn't been that joined-up approach to being able to understand what the symptoms of vulnerability are, nor indeed when interventions are needed. And, as a result, children have often fallen through the gaps.

I mean, the serious cases reviews speak for themselves in terms of the horror of how some of those tragedies happen. But also, I am told constantly by professionals working with young people that building relationships with young people who are often living lives of huge risk, there's not enough time spent on those relationships. And at the end of the day, it's the relationships that matter.

It's the relationships that young people need to be able to have that confidence there's someone to turn to. Be able to get advice, able to get support. And so often those young people have missed out and faced huge escalating risks sometimes as a result. So those moments: well, you know, there are some clear indicators. You don't have to put it in professional jargon; just when things are going wrong. As a parent, you know when things aren't going right in terms of your child's life.

When they're struggling at school, when they don't want to go to school, when there's behaviour problems at school, when the school may be instituting suspensions or exclusions, when children are spending long periods of time with groups of friends you don't know or changing groups of friends. All of those points are points that we should be alert to young people's welfare and wellbeing. And as parents and as professionals, we

need to be alert to that. So if a school has got a child who isn't attending school often, a child who is struggling with certain situations, a child who is at risk of being excluded, then that's a huge red flag for 'something is going on'.

And what I think we need to see is, at that point, a response that has — be it a pastoral team or preventative work with children at risk and families from social care — to be able to start wrapping around support and being able to help get out of that situation. And, of course, the most glaringly obvious point where there is one of those moments is when children end up in A&E.

Often with boys, they will end up in A&E where there's been some kind of serious violence or knife attack and they've ended up injured. For girls, less likely to be in that situation, but equally they may go into A&E and talk about mental health or sexual health. Those are very obvious points where no one can ignore the fact something is going very wrong here.

And one of the things that we've talked about in the book is about, at that point, to be able to have youth workers, girls workers, others there who can work intensively alongside those young people to be able to help them overcome whatever challenges, get out of whatever situation they're in. But it shouldn't take to the point where you've got a child being brought into an A&E covered in blood for us to know that something isn't going right.

And it shouldn't be that the only point our services can respond to the extent needed is if it's actually a matter of life or death. We need to come way upstream in understanding where those children have vulnerabilities at home — before school, during primary, and as they move inro secondary school — and also be able to see the signs and respond to those signs when things are going well.

And all of those moments where children are showing the signs of vulnerability, be that in school, be that not attending school, all of those points are where I would like to see there's enough relationships there to be able to bring that ring of protection around them. Now, youth workers in particular are often the ones who are able to deliver on that magic.

You know, when children might not feel able to, or that they want to, confide in schools or confide in parents or do any of the things that those people want them to do, actually, it's youth workers who will be able to be the ones that find that connection and work with them to be able to develop their trust and relationship and also support them and guide them to a different place. Which is why in the book I put such an emphasis on youth workers being part of that solution.

WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: Just picking up on that theme a bit WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: more about relationships, raising WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: awareness so we understand those WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: signs and of where to intervene. WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: But also you talked about — which I WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: love — that idea of youth workers WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: delivering that magic.

WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: And the next question I was going to WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: ask was about support at the right WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: time and the right place to properly WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: prevent abuse.

WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: And I had a question about what that WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: meant to properly invest in early WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: years, but maybe I could widen that a WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: bit more to what does that properly WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: mean to invest... WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: maybe you want to say something about youth workers WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: there? Yeah, I would say... I mean, the book is essentially about

teenagers. It's about how we provide better support for teenagers who are struggling and how we have high ambitions for their lives for them. But, you know, at the heart of that is a recognition that actually we need to start with that support from the absolute earliest weeks of life. Now, I spent a good slice of my life in the past arguing for and then helping develop and deliver Sure Start children centres.

That for me was a vital part of the infrastructure that would help those families who needed a bit more help to be able to have the back-up, the advice, the relationships with support near to home to be able to bring up their children in the way they wanted to. My hopes and ambitions are that we have a rebuilt infrastructure for children and families from birth onwards in any new government. I don't care much about what it's called, but it is about place-based support like

children centres. So helping kids get to the point where they can go into school with a bounce is really vital, and we know that the kids I'm talking about in this book are the ones that are largely going to start school behind their peers and stay behind their peers throughout.

So enabling that not to happen, ensuring that they get the best support in terms of speech and language, in terms of emotional development, in terms of helping them get ahead at that moment of starting school is really important.

Primary schools that have a strong focus on nurture, that work with families, that offer family support, that work with other services in the local community, including public services, to be able to offer a joined-up hub, if you like, of support any children and family centres or hubs of the future do need to work throughout primary school years and then into the teenage years too.

I think we underuse the great assets that a school has in terms of its resource within the community after school, during school holidays. We're at a moment in time where breakfast clubs are back on the agenda and being

discussed. I think these are all essential support platforms that can help families and help children in terms of reducing poverty, in terms of offering additional support, in terms of delivering really important things like nutritious meals and access to activities; and then following that through in terms of secondary schools, and increasing these children move into their secondary school, that importance of youth workers as one of those delivery agents to be around children's lives.

Again, huge decline in the number of places for young people to be in their community over the last decade plus. Huge decrease in number of youth centres in the number of secondary schools who are operating after school, during school holidays and the like. But if we want to reintroduce a system of support that can be a system that responds to need at the point needed, then those are all elements that I think are required as part of that build-back.

WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: Just in terms of the strengthening of WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: the workforce and, you know, WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: particularly thinking from my WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: perspective as a qualified social

WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: worker. What do you think we could do WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: to ensure that, in terms of WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: building that much more resilient WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: and purposeful support from birth to WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: adulthood, what do you think we could WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: do, what would help to strengthen

WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: that workforce? Because they're often WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: doing the most critical work and WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: they're not very well paid, the tools WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: might not be... you know, I just WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: wondered what your thoughts might be WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: on that. Absolutely. So I think at the moment, as you say, we've got a lot of very skilled people who would delivering really vital work that can be make or break for children and their families.

But often they're doing it without the recognition of the system properly or without the professional kind of wrapping that you might expect for something that important, or indeed the salary within that. And there isn't a clear pathway in. There isn't a clear packaging, if you like, of the range of workforce roles that are working in this

area. That sounds a little bit convoluted, but as an example: so when you look at young people, when you've got some people who are doing brilliant work in pastoral care in schools, you've got some that are working in the community as youth workers or indeed in schools, and that's great. You've got some people who are working as part of youth offending teams, doing vital work. You've got some people who are doing the kind of supportive work around families, again, that is really important.

What you don't have is any way of bringing all of those interventions together into a recognised group of professions or professionals that can have the recognition and status needed about the importance of that work.

Now, I think, if you went back 10 or 15 years, there were pathways towards that: a more coherent workforce strategy for those working with children; a more developed pathway and climbing frame between different elements of the professions; a more established understanding that actually pastoral care and support in a slightly less formal way than maybe social work had huge value and a connection into that.

Those, I think, have fallen away somewhat in the stresses and strains and challenges of those services being under huge pressure themselves, and a rising threshold for support often driven by cost challenges and the like. And those have obviously driven a lot of those services towards the high end of acute response and acute need and crisis.

I think it is established and everyone knows that if we're really going to get to the point where we're able to prevent some of these things developing, we are going to have to work earlier in the process. We are going to have to provide that broader early intervention preventative work that gets alongside kids and gets alongside families again. That will need some more investment in

that area. But we all know that investment in that area is just a fraction of the cost of what crises costs in the end. So there's work to be done there. There's a job to be done there. One of the things that I've been involved in over recent months is discussions about how we can build a pathway to qualification for a group of youth workers that potentially are working alongside social workers in quite a diagnostic way.

Bring in, of course, all the youth work principles and approaches to that work with young people, but also do it in a way that can be part of and complement that wider social care reach and approach. And I think there's an area there that we need to build and concentrate on in coming months and years. WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: I've picked up about intervening in, WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: you know, much earlier upstream and WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: strengthening the workforce.

WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: I was just curious — because it also WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: took me back to the book — you give WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: so many great examples of where WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: there is positive work going on. WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: So I don't want to give the impression that WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: it's not. WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: So I just wondered, was there WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: anything in particular that stood WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: out, a particular project or...?

Yeah, I guess my starting point in all this is that it doesn't have to be like this. There are fantastic example where either brilliant individuals or great projects are managing to show that it is possible to deliver things in a different way. But often, especially with local organisations, you know, they're living on short-term funding, they're living on not enough funding.

It's relying on a small team or one individual that's making all that difference, there's no way the capacity to make this mainstream and make this normal. So my hope is that in the future we notice that sort of thing when it's not happening, rather than we notice it when it is happening, because hopefully it becomes part of the way

we do things. But some of the inspiration, well, I mean thinking about schools: I talk in the book a lot about the challenge to the education system to be inclusive, to work very hard to keep children in school, to support young people when there are signs that they might be at risk of exclusion. There are some great examples of schools.

There's a school in South London next to the Old Kent Road — it's is a primary school actually — called Surrey Square, that has food banks, that has clothes banks, that has really developed work with parents. There's been a family worker there for a long time. They do deep work to understand the needs of children and families in the area.

They even go along to the local council and the housing department with families to help them argue their case for better housing or some housing in some awful cases. You walk into that school, you know it's about the community. You know it's about them sticking by that community and doing everything they can as an anchor organisation in the community. A great example... Well, there's some fantastic examples of work going on in A&E, in some of the most awful

situations. Redthread's work with girls, really inspiring work in some A&Es, again where they build relationships with young people over time and really help support those young people to a different place. Football Beyond Borders, working with children in schools — young people in schools at risk of exclusion. 97% success rate of keeping them in schools when they do that. You look around the country, all over there are individual projects and schools doing fantastic things.

But every one of those is working probably against all odds because they're working without the support or recognition they need. Imagine— I come away from every one of those just saying, 'imagine if we have this everywhere'. And it is within the range of possibilities to have those kind of approaches and those things everywhere. Hence, the book makes the case for why we should.

WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: Thank you. I could see, I mean, the audience WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: won't see this, but I can see how much WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: that lit you up describing those WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: initiatives. WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: That's such great work that does take WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: place under the most difficult and WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: pressing of circumstances. WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: Let me just move on a bit more.

WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: One of the things that that struck me WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: when reading the book was that a lot WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: about what you talk about refers to WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: boys, and particularly boys from WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: minoritised communities. WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: Just curious to know whether that was WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: a conscious decision or borne out by WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: the research process that you WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: undertook to write the book?

I think the answer to that is both. We knew from the evidence that already existed. You look at any of the evidence, and the huge disproportionality of involvement of especially Black boys in so many of the aspects that we were talking about is just very clear to see. We'd also taken great attention of David Lammy's work around disproportionality in the criminal justice system. So many messages there that we were very, very aware of.

But again, you don't have to look for long at the statistics that you find out or the conversations you have to know that this is something which is in plain sight. There is huge disproportionality here which leads you to then ask, well, at what point do we then recognise and understand that the systems we have aren't working for these kids? Often they're working against them.

And why aren't the signs — whether you wanted to call it racial bias or whatever within the system — why aren't we more alert to this and why aren't we doing something about this?

So if you look at children in care, if you look at children who are being excluded from school, if you look at children in YOIs (Young Offender Institutions), if you look at young people who are part of the wider justice system, you can see there's an enormous disproportionality of boys in the system and Black boys as well. So that's a major theme throughout the book and one that we believe, and I believe, needs huge attention. WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: We're nearly at the end of our time.

WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: But just to conclude, if you could do WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: three things to improve the lot for WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: children, what would you do and why? Well, I mean, the big thing is really to persuade our society, our government, that actually, as a country, we have choices that we can make about how we value children.

If you look at some Scandinavian countries, decades ago they decided that children were an important part of our population, that if we helped children thrive, then actually we stand the chance of helping our society thrive, which has, of course, benefits not only for those children, but in terms of social issues and in terms of the economy, because we all want an economy that's going to be active and productive and all the rest of it. We haven't almost dared to go there.

That feels far too interventionist. Well, I think, during the pandemic, our support systems for children were given a good test and I don't think they fared very well. So I think there's a moment here where we can look to recommit ourselves to kids in a way that says as a nation, we think they're important.

We need to put them first. Next to that is that when you do that, you think about children when you're thinking about your neighbourhood; the space that's taken up for children or given to children; the facilities that are there that are safe for children; the way we design our homes, especially social housing; the way that we design our parks, the way that we design our roads or non-roads, our public space, essentially.

Imagine if we designed our area, our planning for public space in a way that was child-friendly. I would love us to consider and put high on the list — and require even — children's needs to be built into all of the way that we design our country and the way it's established. Let's put forward places where children can safely play, be with each other, be children, enjoy childhood safely.

The third is really to have an overriding commitment with the engine of government behind it to give all our kids the best chance possible and be ambitious for all our kids for a positive childhood and a positive scenario in terms of of our adult life. We know that childhood and experience of childhood sticks with you for life, good or bad. We have choices about the way we help children thrive as children and help them get that best start into life.

WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: That's fantastic. It's fantastic. WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: And I just love that idea, that sense WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: of, in a way, quite revolutionary WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: perspective and ambition that we have WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: for children which has come through WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: there. And I love that idea about the WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: design and the lens; let's look at WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: the way we live through that WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: perspective.

It's about being ambitious. It's about, you know, valuing young lives, but also being ambitious for what we could do for those children, but also for what we want for our country. Why can't our country be the best place to grow up? We could make it so, and obviously, in my view, we should. WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: What a great place to stop. WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: I'd just like to thank you so much WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: for for talking about 'Young Lives, WESLEY POWLEY-BAKER: Big Ambitions'.

Thanks very much.