Please, please take time to read this short blog, about the current and future state of our children’s health, safety and wellbeing. We know our team, ever enthusiastic, likes to bang the drum about Mind Of My Own, but really, this is why we do what we do and the reason we are so committed to hearing (and acting upon) children’s voices.

From UNICEF:

700 million days of education will be lost between now and summer

There are massive disparities in access to resources and home support that will widen gaps in educational attainment.

More UK children will face food insecurity

Job losses and debt will diminish family finances and access to emergency food is threatened by loss of donations and volunteers.

New-born and older children’s access to healthcare will reduce

Services are stretched, limited or not accessed, storing up future long-term health problems for children.

Anxiety and stress

Staying at home with less access to support services is affecting children with mental health difficulties.

Thousands of children are at increased risk of abuse 

When tensions increase, online supervision decreases and predators seek to take advantage of the situation, at home and online.

The voices of children and young people absent from decisions made about their lives.

They have not been consulted about the impact such decisions will have on them and their future and have yet to be addressed directly by the UK Government.

And from our own data:

In the first lockdown the data from our One app showed us this is how our children are feeling:

Unsafe up 45%
Unhappy where they live up 177%
Scared up 75%

We are not a research organisation and we don’t make any claims about the statistical significance of these numbers.

BUT the numbers tell a story about our children and it resonates with what UNICEF have found. Work with us to help keep our children safe and well during this pandemic and beyond.