The National Children’s Bureau has championed the rights and amplified the voice of children and young people for over 60 years and rarely in that time have we been more concerned about the challenges faced by future generations.
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 go further and do better to keep pace with these rising challenges.
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 and pushing boundaries to build a better childhood and a brighter future by:
- Amplifying the voice of children, young people and families
- Driving change in the local and regional systems children rely on
- Driving change in national policy and legislation
- Generating evidence that counts
- Making sure that children have the workforce they need
- Building respect and trust as a pioneering and high-performing charity
- Looking beyond childhood itself to consider transitions into adulthood and the impact of childhood issues on an entire lifespan
More than 60 years of driving change
Since NCB was founded in 1963, we have seen enormous changes in almost all areas of our lives.
Throughout this time, NCB's mission has stayed the same - to put 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 and build brighter futures.
With the help of the University of Kent, we created an interactive journey through time for you to explore, setting our impact against the backdrop of social, economic and political change.
Over 60 years old. But forever young.
You can also find full NCB annual reports and accounts dating back to 2012-13 to download and read here.
