Are children and young people getting the opportunities they want?

The All Party Parliamentary Group for Children has published Are Children and Young People Getting the Opportunities they Want?

The report states that too many disadvantaged children and young people are not able to fully access their rights and entitlements. It also states that children and young people's access to key services, including education, healthcare, and social care needs to be improved, particularly in terms of identification of need and co-ordination, and calls for an immediate need to revisit youth policy.

The report four key recommendations made by the report are that:

• The Department of Health, NHS England and Public Health England should take action to implement the recommendations of the Children and Young People’s Health Outcomes Forum in full and should report back to the Forum on progress.
• The Government should introduce a legal obligation for public bodies to have due regard for children’s rights, as set out in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, in making decisions affecting children and young people.
• Schools should ensure that they offer a range of personalised, tailored, flexible support with an appropriate focus on developing children and young people’s communication skills, and should ensure that children and young people have guaranteed access to Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education.
• A cross-Government youth strategy should be established, building on Positive for Youth, and driven by the Department for Education, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, Department for Communities and Local Government, Department for Work and Pensions and Department of Health.

To download the report visit www.ncb.org.uk/media/977389/appgc_report_on_opportunites_final.pdf.