Services for children: emerging as a genuine priority within health policy at last?

摘要

There is currently a determined focus on improving children's early experiences and opportunities within broad social policy in the UK. Questions remain, however, regarding the extent to which health policy is contributing to this focus on children's needs, although recent developments give cautious grounds for optimism.There has been a gradually increasing recognition in the UK and elsewhere over many years of the particular needs and vulnerability of children and young people. In particular, the profound influence of children's earliest experiences on their subsequent development and health trajectories is now well recognized (Shonkoff & Phillips 2000). There is concurrent acknowledgement that at least some recent economic and social trends have disproportionately disadvantaged children and contributed to significant shifts in their well-being (Roberts 1997). Income inequality has risen and the UK has one of the highest rates of child poverty in Europe (Child Poverty Action Group 2008).