Starting Well
Southern Policy Centre has been exploring the health and well-being of communities in the central South: what will allow everyone to enjoy full and active lives. In a series of three seminars hosted jointly with the University of Winchester, we aimed to encourage a wider discussion and debate about our society and how we can secure a better life for all.
The first seminar in 2018 discussed how our society’s demographic make-up is changing, with a growing proportion of people over 65 years of age. Our speakers considered how we can make a better life for older people. The second seminar in the spring of 2019 looked at healthy lifestyles: experts in diet, physical activity and mental well-being explored how we can ‘live well’. The third seminar in 2022 looks at the early years: how we can give our children the best start in life?
Starting Well: giving young people the best chance in life
The final seminar in 2022 looks at the first part of the journey through life, and how we can give children the best start. Our speakers will look at the impacts of physical and mental health, and of education and learning on children’s life chance, and how the circumstances they experience in their early years affect their future.
We are fortunate in the UK, our children do not experience the magnitude and scale of poverty and ill-health that their counterparts in too many countries face daily. However, as this briefing paper will discuss, we do see inequality across our communities, and that can have a very direct impact on the life chances of children. We focus on what can help children get a good start to their lives, and so will help them in securing a safe, healthy future.