UK = Worst place for child welfare

The UK is the 5th wealthiest country in the developed world yet according to a Unicef report announced today the UK is also the WORST place for children to grow up in.

According to the UN, we have the unhappiest, poorest, unhealthiest and most neglected children of the world's 21 richest nations. says the UK lags behind in terms of relative poverty and deprivation.

Britain also fares poorly when it comes to the quality of children's relationships with their parents and peers, child health and safety, behaviour and risk-taking and young people's own sense of wellbeing.

The country rated higher for educational wellbeing but languished in the bottom third for each of the other measures, giving it an overall placing at the bottom of all 21 countries, along with the US.

The assessment, titled Report Card 7, Child Poverty in Perspective: An Overview of Child Wellbeing in Rich Countries, is the first study of childhood across industrialised countries, Unicef said.

Countries who fared better were the north European countries who dominated the top half of the table, with child wellbeing at its highest in the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Finland.

Unicef UK executive director David Bull said: "All countries have weaknesses that need to be addressed and no country features in the top third of the rankings for all six dimensions.
"By comparing the performance of countries we see what is possible with a commitment to supporting every child to fulfil his or her full potential.

We have a huge divide in our country which is nicely hidden but cannot continue to be when reports like this are released. I watched a program last night about modern parenting. It showed delightful middle class people with middle class voices talking how supposedly we nowadays we are terribly busy taking children to Manderin classes at the age of two and flute and piano at the age of three but it showed nicely that pompous class divide.

Yet I know children who's parents cannot afford to put a proper dinner on the table every night!

I've just heard on a latest news report that a 'Government spokesman' has stated that "Improvements have been made but growth is still required" You're telling me! Here's some facts for you Labour government seeing as child poverty is was one area you wanted to 'fix'

FACTS:

• There are 3.6million children living in poverty in the UK today, that's one in four children

• Child poverty is THREE times higher than it was twenty years ago

• One in five children lives in a family where no one works at all

• Children born into a poor family are more at risk of being poor themselves

• One in eleven 16 to 18 are not in education, training or employment

• Children from poor backgrounds lag 14% behind better off children in eduational development at 22 months

• Diminished expectations of what of what their parents can afford lead children in poor families to reduce their own hopes and aspirations for the future

• In the school holidays the complex webs of involvement and support that is provided by schools and related agencies falls away from children's lives