Archive

Don’t send mothers to work

Does the government’s child care strategy really focus on best outcomes for children? Or is it driven by the desire to increase maternal employment? These objectives are not necessarily compatible. My concern is that the needs of the child are too far down the agenda.

In setting out its vision, the government emphasises the need to widen parental access to child care, by increasing both subsidy and supply. This entails large financial commitments, doubling child care spending over three years plus £725m on the child care tax credit. To justify that spending, the government wants to see significant increases in maternal employment. The government’s claim that work is the best route out of poverty is uncontroversial, but many mothers, especially lone mothers, are reluctant to go out to work when their children are young. Is their reluctance reasonable? Uncomfortably for government, there is recent evidence to suggest young children do not benefit from institutional care.

Last November the Institute for Social and Economic Research released the results of a study by John Ermisch and Marco Francesconi into the effects of parental employment on children. It found that more maternal employment leads to slower emotional development, lower educational attainment and higher risk of unemployment. Government-sponsored research is consistent with many of these findings. A report by Exeter University for the DfES showed that parental involvement in the form of "at-home good parenting" has the biggest positive effect on children’s achievement and adjustment. London University’s report on the Effective Provision of Pre-school Education (Eppe) found that under-twos who spent more time in daycare were more likely to have antisocial behaviour at age three. The most important influence on children’s behaviour and ability was the extent to which parents engaged in constructive activity with them.

All this suggests that the best way to improve outcomes for children is to support parents engaging with them, focusing on programmes that sustain maternal involvement, reduce isolation and depression in mothers, and encourage them to be hands-on parents. Polling evidence tells us that most mothers want more time with their children, not less, and that most working mums feel stressed by having to be both breadwinner and carer. If, as these studies show, children are disadvantaged by daycare, then surely it is time to find solutions to enable mothers to be with their young children, instead of sending them reluctantly out to work.

Jill Kirby is chairperson of the Family Policy Project at the Centre for Policy Studies.

Offer kids choice

I can’t remember what school lunches taste like. Not because they weren’t memorable - they were, although for all the wrong reasons. Or because I left school a long time ago - I finished my A-levels last June. But because for all but the first year of secondary school, I avoided them. Lunches at our school didn’t taste terrible, and weren’t over-priced as school lunches go, but even as a 12 year old I knew they were unhealthy.

Young people do care about what they eat, and not just because they want to look like the people they see on television. We care about what we eat because we understand the implications for our health and well-being, and because we value our bodies and the benefits of nutritious food to our physical and mental agility.

The first day I was allowed to leave school at lunchtime, I did. But it was a long search for a food outlet in the local area that sold food I wanted. We were surrounded by takeaways, and newsagents filled with chocolate bars. Schools know that they have a captive audience among primary school children and the younger years of secondary schools - but even older children rarely have much idea of where to eat in the local area. We are taught to trust our schools, and to regard them as a source of authority in our lives. Why, then, do they exploit us and fail us in this crucial area? It has been shown that young children have difficulty distinguishing between children’s television shows and the advertising in the breaks. Why is it so hard to accept that this may extend in to educational establishments? When we move from classroom to lunchroom, from facts and figures to nutritionally empty, high fat and sugar foods, isn’t it natural that we should accept these eating habits as correct and carry them away with our homework?

Eventually, I started buying my lunches from a local bakery, where I was treated like an adult consumer, with a wide choice of food prepared as I watched. Why are young people not given these rights in schools? As I got older, I became increasingly concerned about where my food was coming from - was it organic? Fairtrade? Locally produced?

With the help of the charity Envision some friends and I set up an alternative canteen one day a week in our lunchroom, selling home-cooked, healthy food for affordable prices. There was no contest. The school canteen closed early that day as our classmates voted with their feet and moved to eat our food instead of the chips and beans that had been forced upon them since they began school.

The way forward is clear: the government must listen to the pupils. We are discerning consumers and innovative thinkers, and the overhaul of our school meals system should be carried out in conjunction with us. We need choice and variety, not just a healthy "alternative" but a range of healthy foods geared towards different tastes, complemented by fresh fruit, juices and water - not by Mars bars, Coke and Pepsi. Who knows, if this kind of change had begun earlier, maybe I would be able to tell you how school food tasted.

Kierra Box is a co-founder of youth empowerment organisation Hands Up For...

Schools could prevent crime

January’s Audit Commission and National Audit Office reports on youth justice rightly present an upbeat assessment of recent reforms but both highlight weaknesses in the education of offenders in the community. There is widespread agreement that a good education is the key both to preventing youngsters getting into trouble in the first place and rehabilitating those who do offend, particularly those whose crimes have led them into custody. The reports repeat the depressingly familiar statistics linking truancy, exclusion underachievement and delinquency, although shockingly, the Audit Commission confesses that the precise number of children outside education is simply not known. Despite a plethora of government targets to improve participation and achievement, it is clear that schools are finding it difficult enough to hang on to the disruptive children already on their roll, let alone offer places to offenders fresh from a spell in custody. It concludes that the government should do more to provide schools with incentives and the resources to include all young people and not just those most likely to pass exams.

Research undertaken for the Rethinking Crime and Punishment initiative found that spending more on an inclusive education policy would enjoy popular support. Three-quarters of people think schools and colleges have an important role in preventing young people from offending and re-offending, with teachers seen as more important in this regard than police, courts or custody. Asked what would do most to reduce crime, better school discipline and more constructive activities for young people were ranked among the four most favoured options - along with better parenting and more police officers. When we asked how the public would spend a notional £10m on dealing with crime, the most popular option was to set up teams in 30 cities to work with children at risk. For young people consulted by a national YMCA project, tackling bullying and truancy was a key approach to crime prevention. Interestingly too, suspension and exclusion for bullies was not seen as an effective means of punishment as it was viewed as giving offenders a "holiday" from school.

Under 18s are detained in prisons and other secure units at the rate of more than one every two hours. Investment in prevention and rehabilitation through better-resourced schools would not only be an effective policy but a popular one too.

Rob Allen is director of Rethinking Crime and Punishment and a member of the Youth Justice Board.