21st June 2020
Dear Mr Johnson,
Disadvantaged children and young people
We welcome the £1billion catch up plan, with £350 million tuition for the most disadvantaged young people (children not mentioned); however, we believe the strategy is not actually dealing with the root cause. Indeed the £10million grant introduced in May last year to support tackling bad behaviour in schools, is also avoiding tackling the root cause.
The root cause you are avoiding is the challenging family environment and parent/child relationships these children and young people are experiencing every day. Whilst you continue spending these amounts of money on this same approach, how can you expect any different outcomes for our society?
We need a radically different approach to empower disdvanatged families environment and transform for parent/child relationships. Over the last few decades £trillions have been spent on education and social care on short term, uncoordinated interventions, which have mostly made the situation worse and have contributed significantly to where we are now.
This follows my previous letter to you on 6th February this year, which of course with Corvid-19 and your personal experience, has delayed any response. Again, our case is to advocate the transformation of our social care and education to deliver more effective support to build happy family relationships. Develop Your Child’s work with disadvantaged parents and families shows how children and young people are underestimated by society, and we’ve proved it in a 2-year evaluation by Canterbury Christ Church University, which reports that:
“When listened to, understood and empowered, they (children and young people) need not be passive recipients of ‘behaviour training’ but can contribute to loving, caring and the building of positive relationships in their own families and communities.”
Mr Johnson, surely Covid-19 is the perfect opportunity to prove you are behind disadvantaged families, by empowering the family environment to transform the parent/child relationship, founded in a growth mindset and self-responsibility?
I will send a copy of this letter to Mr M Rashford.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Kindest regards,
Alan Wilson – Founder
Develop Your Child CIC
Develop Your Child CIC is registered in England & Wales number: 11623569
