What shapes child well-being in our richest countries?

Year of Transformation and Uncertainty 

2020 has been a year of uncertainty and unrest for many communities across the globe. The Coronavirus has altered the structure of our lives as we know it, coupled with tragic environmental disasters, sociopolitical issues and residual economic downturn. Amongst the chaos, a mental health crisis has been escalating – especially amongst children across the world.

Young children face an even greater risk – the isolation and panic that they face now can have a huge impact on their mental development in later life. We, as a society, have a responsibility to support caregivers and parents in ensuring that they can support their children during unprecedented times – when they need it the most.

At PlayBox Technology UK, we’re proud to support early childhood development as a major focus within our corporate social responsibility as a company. We have teamed up with the Don Ash Charity Foundation, set up to emphasise and prioritise those early stages in a child’s life that matter the most for their ongoing development into adulthood.

Innocenti Report

In keeping with this mission, UNICEF spearheaded the Innocenti Report – a document that has outlined the way we measure children’s well being across the worlds most industrialised countries. Each report focuses on a topic of discussion and includes a league table ranking OECD countries according to their record on the subject. 

The most recent Innocenti Report Card is titled ‘Worlds of Influence: Understanding what shapes child well-being in rich countries’. The main message of the report is that many of the wealthiest countries, despite having the resources, are not maintaining consistently high child well-being outcomes. Society is effectively ‘failing children’, according to Gunilla Olsson, Director of UNICEF Innocenti.

The report concluded that: 

• In 12 of 41 countries, less than 75% of children aged 15 have high life satisfaction.
• Approximately 1 in 3 children in all countries are either obese or overweight. With the number of obese children aged 5 to 19 expected to grow by ~58%.
• Around 40% of children across all OECD and EU countries do not acquire basic reading and mathematical skills by the age of 15.

It’s noted in the report, that unless rapid government action is taken, alongside current pandemic responses, we will continue to see rising levels of child poverty, further declines to levels of mental and physical health and an increasing divide in skills amongst children worldwide.

Based on the conclusion of the latest Innocenti Report Card, UNICEF offered recommendations on what needs to be done to address these findings. Some of the main recommendations include:

• Immediately combatting the lack of mental health services for adolescents and children worldwide
• Working to minimise income inequality and poverty to ensure children have access to the resources they need as they grow
• Putting vulnerable families and children at the forefront of COVID-19 policies, and protecting them from austerity measures

PlayBox Technology and Early Childhood Development

As part of PlayBox Technology’s CSR, The Don Ash Charity Foundation was set up in 2018 in the memory of the founder of PlayBox Technology –  Don Ash. The foundation seeks to bring the importance of early childhood development to the forefront of societal agendas across the globe. Partnering with UNICEF Bulgaria, the Don Ash Charity Foundation works to spread this message and ensure that their futures are bright.

The experiences of a child’s early life are crucial to their development into adolescence and adulthood. The thoughts, emotions, stimulus and care received in the first 8 years of life have a profound impact on who you become. It won’t be easy for any child growing up in the time of a worldwide pandemic – with school closures, isolation, anxiety and loss of family members. It’s important that we take action immediately to safeguard children in all territories, from all walks of life. It has the potential to shape our global future. 

The best investment we can make as a society in ensuring their future success is optimizing the early years of children’s lives. Therefore, we will continue through project work to support the efforts of the organisations that are making a direct impact on children’s life in the first years of their formation.