TACT – the UK’s leading fostering charity, has joined cross-sector organisations, business leaders, unions and young people in urging the Government to reconsider its pandemic recovery measures for children and young people, asking them to urgently boost investment.
In two separate letters to the Prime Minister, coordinated by Fair Education Alliance and the National Children’s Bureau, and signed by over 240 leaders from across business, education and the charity sectors, campaigners have again urged the Government to invest in their stated intention of levelling up and show real ambition for the recovery for children and young people.
While researchers estimate that £13.5bn is needed to help children recover from a year of disruption, isolation and anxiety, the Chancellor has committed to spend only one tenth of this amount.
TACT CEO said: “TACT is concerned to see that the Government’s much vaunted commitment to levelling up seems to have abruptly levelled off”.
The campaign insists the pandemic has deepened the existing crisis in funding for the education of disadvantaged children. Alongside extra money for schools to spend on staff development and interventions for pupils, a wider investment in measures to address the impact of Covid-19 on children and young people, such as reversing rising child poverty, reducing waiting times for mental health help for children and young people, and investing in the services that protect children from abuse and neglect, is urgently needed.
TACT is pleased to be among the experts calling for the Government to set out a new and ambitious vision of childhood and education to support children, young people and their families to recover from the impact of COVID-19, with #ChildrenAtTheHeart.
