Friday, 4 May
The All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Social Mobility
launched an interim report this week titled Seven Key Truths about Social
Mobility. At the heart of this topic – which the APPG
acknowledge is often co-opted by those on both the left and right
of the political spectrum – is the question of to what
extent a person’s background (in terms of income or social class)
influences where they end up (measured in the same way). The United
Kingdom scores badly in comparison with other OECD countries – 50%
of children here can have their prospects accurately predicted on
the basis of their parents’ circumstances. This compares with 41%
for France, 17% for Australia and 15% for Denmark. I was
surprised to see that the UK scores even worse than the USA
(47%).
I was pleased to see that developing ‘personal
resilience and emotional wellbeing’ is one of the seven ‘key
truths’ that the report suggests can break the cycle of low
mobility. The College has recently launched a broad campaign
centred on recovery and resilience and
I will write to the APPG Chair to offer our advice on this aspect
of their work. I note that mental health also underpins another
‘key truth’ mentioned in the report, namely the significance of a
child’s life experiences between the ages of 0-3 (or perhaps that
should even be -9 months and 3) where good parental mental health
is rightly mentioned as a key factor.
Wishing you all a good Bank Holiday weekend. And, after
yesterday's blog, a Happy Star Wars Day today to all those those
Star Wars fans out there (including my
grandson) – May the fourth be with you.
Sue
If you would like to post a response to Sue's blog, please
email your message to the Website
Manager, who will be pleased to upload it to the website.
Subscribe to this post's comments using
RSS