Working together to raise the healthiest generation of children and young people: how do we build the village of today?

Children and young people’s health and wellbeing are shaped by a complex web of influences. Who is really having impact and who are we overlooking? 

This session will explore the following questions.

• How do children and young people define the village? 

• What are the circles of influence for children and young people that shape their health and wellbeing and how can they be better supported?   

• What is the role of families and how can they be supported?  

• How can those within the circles of influence be better connected to strengthen their collective impact? 

• Do children and young people have a meaningful voice in shaping the conditions that affect their health and wellbeing, and what needs to change to enable this? 

Our panel will feature young people alongside Lynn Perry and Sarah Woolnough.

This session explores:

• how local systems are working to better support children in care and care leavers

• how schools are working in partnership with health and local services to support children and young people facing the greatest barriers to good health and wellbeing

• how funding mechanisms such as the pupil premium are being used to address health and wider inequalities

• what systems need to do to better support families facing the greatest disadvantage.

Children’s health and wellbeing is shaped by the streets they live on, the spaces available for play, and the environmental conditions around them.

This session explores:

• how the physical environment influences children and young people’s health, from access to safe, inclusive play spaces in built up areas to the growing health impacts of climate change

• practical and financial barriers that prevent families from using spaces that promote health and wellbeing and how they can be better supported

• what it takes to design places that support healthy, active childhoods and what needs to be done differently to put children’s health at the centre of decisions about place and environment.

What does it mean in practice to design neighbourhood health around children and young people?

This session will explore how neighbourhood-level approaches can create more joined-up, preventative and accessible support for children and families, in line with the NHS’s three shifts: from hospital to community, analogue to digital, and treatment to prevention.

Drawing on a range of real-world examples, the session will examine how local areas are reshaping services and partnerships so that children’s needs, voices and everyday experiences sit at the centre of how support is designed and delivered. Speakers will share insights from neighbourhood health, prevention and integrated care initiatives, including Barnardo’s Family Focus model, delivered in partnership with Modality, the UK's largest national GP super-partnership. Through bringing together wellbeing workers and primary care teams, Family Focus provides early intervention support for families and helps address challenges before they escalate.

Alongside this and wider place-based approaches, our panel of lived experience, public health, NHS and local authority leaders will explore how neighbourhood health can strengthen community connections, promote integrated care and improve outcomes for children, young people and families.

Growing up poor harms children’s health now and throughout their lives. How can partnership-working across health and beyond support families with creating the conditions for good health?  

This session explores:

• How partnership working can reshape the conditions for good health for children and young people, from safe housing and nutritious food to affordable childcare and supportive communities

• How we can respond to the wider economic and global forces impacting child poverty

Businesses play a significant but often overlooked role in shaping children’s health, both nationally and locally. How can this role be better recognised and acted on? 

This session explores:  

• How local authorities, businesses, charities, community groups, and individuals can work together to create fairer, healthier, and more sustainable local food systems.   

• The role of employers in shaping young people’s health, wellbeing and life chances and how they can be better supported with the transition into the world of work.  

This session will be codesigned and co-facilitated with young people.  

How digital environments, platforms and content affect children and young people’s mental and physical health and how partners can better support children, young people and families to navigate the digital world.

This session explores:

• The role of the digital world in shaping children and young people’s health and wellbeing

• How misinformation is shaping health beliefs, behaviours and trust

• What role government should have in regulation and ensuring the virtual world is a safe space for children and young people.

This event has followed the journey of the ‘village’ around children and young people, from defining who is part of it, to exploring how those within it can work better together, and how partners too often overlooked can be brought in. This closing session looks ahead, drawing these threads together to consider what a genuinely broadened village could look and feel like for children and young people. 

This session explores:  

• how children and young people can exercise real influence over the conditions that shape their health and wellbeing, ensuring their input actually leads to change 

• real-world examples of where this is already happening and what it takes to go further 

• what difference the upcoming Modern Service Framework for Children and Young People could make 

Children and young people have a clear call to action: what will you do differently in your area of work and how will you show us that it has made a tangible difference?