Aspirations and Respect

The council's 'Respect' team, based at the council's Staple Tye office, has agreed to give me its views about my Aspirations project. Ben, Alan, Terry, Christine, Tracey, Sue and Pete are all there, and have plenty they want to say, based on the work they've been doing in the local community.

It's a wide-ranging conversation, from lack of apprenticeships and careers guidance to the disincentive of high house prices and the importance of positive male role models. We tackle some interesting questions. Has Jo Frost as Supernanny on television broken down the barrier to parents asking for help in coping with looking after their children? Do we spend too much time and resources on a small minority of children, and not enough on the majority?

And Christine suggests a really exciting idea. There's a national project tracking a group of children born in the year 2000 over 25 years. Should we consider setting up our own Harlow study of a group of children born in Harlow's 60th birthday year, to help us track their development and better understand how we can help our children and young people achieve their full potential?