Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood funds innovative mental health pilot

The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood has today, Friday 13 June 2025, announced that it is to fund an innovative new pilot to better understand how mental health experts in early education settings can support babies and young children’s social and emotional development.

Happy Little Minds is a collaboration between leading children’s charities Barnardo’s and Place2Be, and will see mental health practitioners providing bespoke training and ongoing consultation about social and emotional development for nearly 50 early education practitioners in two nurseries in Tower Hamlets and Hackney. The practitioners will also provide guidance for parents and directly work with some children and families. It is expected that around 150 babies, young children and their families, will benefit from the pilot, which starts this month and will take place over a 12-month period.

Her Royal Highness The Princess of Wales has long championed the importance of social and emotional development as critically important for enabling babies and young children to be mentally healthy, both in the short term and for the long-lasting impact on the rest of their lives.

Social and emotional skills shape who we are, how we manage our emotions and thoughts, how we communicate with and relate to others, and how we explore the world around us. They are fundamental to our future mental and physical well-being, shaping everything from our ability to form positive relationships, to our capacity for learning, working, and coping with adversity. They all have their foundations in early childhood and continue to be refined and enhanced throughout our lives.
Earlier this year, The Centre for Early Childhood published The Shaping Us Framework – aimed at improving awareness of and knowledge about social and emotional skills to inspire action across society.

The framework, and other supporting resources being created by the Centre, will be part of the package of training and support given to staff.

There are many good examples of mental health support being successfully embedded in schools and achieving great results, for example in the 500 partner schools where Place2Be operates across the UK.

However, far less is known about what could be done in early education settings.

Yet decades of science tell us that it is the early years that are the most crucial in terms of brain development. It is during the period from pregnancy to the age of five that our brains develop faster than at any other time and the foundations are laid for all that is to follow. Research shows that many mental health problems in teenagers and adults have their roots in early childhood and early intervention with babies and their parents can prevent problems becoming entrenched and escalating.

With increasing numbers of children (more than 90% of three and four year olds) and more and more babies in formal childcare, these settings provide a significant opportunity for services and support to reach families.

Christian Guy, Executive Director of The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood said:
“Early education and childcare settings can play such an important and influential role in supporting children and their families at such a vital time, in all sorts of ways.

“If settings are well-supported to promote social and emotional development in babies and young children, there is huge potential to positively impact all children, and for early intervention and prevention of future mental health conditions in those most at risk, which could be truly transformational both for individuals and society.

“Place2Be and Barnardo’s have such a wealth of experience to offer, and this pilot is an important step forward in understanding more about how this can be delivered to best effect.”

The idea for this project was sparked at the Shaping Us National Symposium in November 2023, when a leading infant mental health expert from Barnardo’s had a discussion with Catherine Roche, Chief Executive of children’s mental health charity Place2Be. Inspired by the content of the day, the two further developed the idea and approached The Royal Foundation for funding for this initial pilot, with a view to co-developing a model with families and practitioners to understand what is feasible and developing a model which could be delivered at scale in future.

The announcement of this pilot comes during Infant Mental Health Awareness Week. This is the second pilot funded by The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood. In 2023, it funded a trial of an observation tool for Health Visitors, known internationally as the Alarm Distress Baby Scale (ADBB). The tool focuses on a baby’s social behaviours such as eye contact, facial expression, vocalisation, and activity levels to help practitioners and families better understand the ways babies express their feelings. The pilot originally took place in two NHS Trusts, and earlier this year – following overwhelming positive results from phase one – it was expanded to eight other NHS sites. This phase will run until March 2026.