In 2013 our Chief Executive, Wendy Ellyatt, founded the movement to help raise awareness about child wellbeing in the modern world. The first small SCM team deliberately chose a provocative name that they felt might persuade people into better understanding and exploring the related issues. The movement then steadily brought together a powerful collaboration of individuals and organisations that shared a deep concern about societal values and wellbeing and the current erosion of natural childhood. It had a particular interest in how modern culture is impacting family life and how this shapes the values and mindsets of children, especially in the early years. It also promoted the concept of the child as a citizen with unique developmental rights that need to be protected.

Until now, the development of the movement has been primarily funded by Wendy, with the help of two small national lottery grants and a small number of organisational sponsors. She has been supported in her work by a succession of experts and volunteers, some of whom also gave their time as active SCM directors. 
​
The Flourish Summit

​You can read more about Wendy here

The movement was formally launched at the end of April 2013 with the two day Flourish Summit - that attracted 20 well known speakers, including the neuroscientist Baroness Susan Greenfield, Headmaster of Wellington College Anthony Seldon, Chief Executive of the Mothers Union Reg Bailey and many other concerned experts. All the speakers gave their time for free and the London venue itself was provided by a sponsor at no charge which enabled us to accommodate 350 attendees. 

The event aimed to provide a platform for the growing and multi-disciplinary concern about societal values and wellbeing in the UK and the current erosion of natural childhood. The movement expressed its aim to identify and highlight those areas of most concern, to protect children from inappropriate developmental and cultural pressures and to fight for their natural developmental rights. It also aimed to provide a critical platform for dialogue and debate, to identify examples of inspirational practice and to help source innovative and future-focused solutions. 

Advisory Board

The movement rapidly brought around it a powerful group of expert advisors and you can see who has been involved so far here. In 2014 the first English Children's Commissioner and passionate children's adocate, Sir Al Aynsley-Green also agreed to become its patron.

Within twelve months the movement had the support of more than forty global advisors

Too Much Too Soon Campaign

In September 2013 the first ‘Early Years Education (EYE)’ Advisory Group launched the Too Much Too Soon Campaign with an Open Letter to the Telegraph signed by 127 eminent academics and leading early years experts. The campaign was front-page news in all the major papers and rapidly achieved both national and international interest - particularly so as this very eminent group of experts was dismissed by the then Secretary of Education, Michael Gove, as 'The Blob'. In March 2014 the group then published its own Early Years Manifesto – ‘Putting Children First’ with the aim of asking all the political parties to support a more integrated and holistic system that has the best interests of children and families at its heart.

This then gained the support of a unique alliance of early years organisations that came together though a shared concern about the impact of policymaking on child wellbeing. In June 2015 the movement published the booklet ‘Towards an Integrated Understanding of the Child’ as a first step towards finding a new and more integrated model of development and Wendy went on to play a strategic role in the development of two of the most significant campaigns challenging the concept of 'school readiness' and the steadily increasing downward pressures of the schooling system on the youngest children.

National coverage achieved within the first year

National Children’s Day UK 

In May 2014 the movement launched the first National Children’s Day UK www.nationalchildrensdayuk.com (mainly because the UK was one of the few countries in the world that did not have one!), with the aim of getting as many people as possible to create events and activities to highlight and celebrate the Rights and Freedoms of Children (Many other countries celebrated the rights of children on the 20th of November - the United Nations nominated day, but the movement felt that it was really important for British children should to get outside on Children's Day into their neighbourhoods and nature, so it chose to hold it at the beginning of the summer). For the first three years the day was run with a particular theme i.e. Contact with Nature, The Science and Magic of Play and Mindful, Heartful Childhood, but after then people were invited to run any activity or event that they wanted.

The day has gone on to become an increasingly important national event and you can see some of the things that happened in 2019 here.

NCDUK has been awarded two National Lottery grants and has so far achieved a 3.2 million reach on Facebook

Publications

Over the years the movement has created a number of highly regarded publications that you can see in more detail here

The Movement rapidly gained national status and has been an expert contributor to many think-tanks and government consultations

Flourish Project

In 2017 Wendy began working on a new ecological wellbeing framework called the Flourish Values Model (FVM). This was in response to the fact that there was growing global interest in wellbeing, and particularly how we could move away from an over-focus on GDP, but that nobody was exploring the conditions that created wellbeing in the first place i.e. early human development. There was a great deal of interest in what she was doing, and in 2018 she created the Flourish Project www.flourishproject.net as a separate company that would focus on making the model accessible to a global market.

The Flourish Project is already gaining international interest and support.

What conditions nurture sustainable states of wellbeing? How do we protect both children and adults from systems that undermine their inherent creativity and potential? How do we ensure that we can all feel valued and connected? The movement's work explores the huge importance of protecting early human development and our shared need for meaningful relationship, community and contribution. ​