The National Children’s Bureau has just celebrated its 60th birthday and rarely in that time have we been more concerned about trends for babies, children and young people.
Fewer children feel able to attend school, far fewer families receive the early help and intervention that can prevent crises from developing, months of political deadlock in Northern Ireland has led to devastating cuts to the services that children rely on, the number of children with mental health problems is exploding, and the scandalously high rates of child poverty are getting even higher.
We’re proud of the work that we’ve done to push back against these trends, but we need to keep challenging ourselves to go further and do better, to keep pace with the rising challenges that children themselves face.
Building Brighter Futures: The focus of our 2024-29 strategy
The impact of our work has therefore never been more important. We are working hard to:
- Amplify the voice of children, young people and families
- Drive change in the local and regional systems children rely on
- Drive change in national policy and legislation
- Generate evidence that counts
- Make sure that children have the workforce they need
- Build respect and trust as a pioneering and high-performing charity
60 years of driving change
The past 60 years have seen enormous changes in almost all areas of our lives.
Throughout this time, NCB's mission has stayed the same - to our children and young people first, to bring people together from across the children's sector, to align policy with evidence and to change systems to make childhoods better for every child.
With the help of the University of Kent, we have created an interactive journey through time for you to explore, setting our impact against the backdrop of social, economic and political change.
Discover 60 years old. Forever Young.
You can also find full NCB annual reports and accounts dating back to 2012-13 to download and read here.
