Hive joins Children at the Table campaign

With a general election on the way, we’ve joined young people’s organisations around the country and the UK’s five largest children’s charities to make sure the next government has a plan to put ‘Children at the Table’.

We’ve teamed up with 130 young people’s charities along with Action for Children, Barnardo’s, The Children’s Society, the National Children’s Bureau and NSPCC to ask the next government to:

• Work together to improve the lives of babies, children and young people.
• Put the needs and voices of children and young people at the heart of decision making
• Spend more of the nation’s wealth on babies, children and young people.

Our CEO, Jayne Wilson, said: “In a recent national poll, less than a quarter of young people felt that their wants and needs are considered in decision-making by government. But we know from our young members that the challenges facing this generation of young people – whose experiences have been indelibly marked by the legacy of the pandemic, the impact of the cost-of-living crisis and economic turmoil – are unique. To build the thriving communities and resilient workforce of the future, decision-making must start with this generation of young people and the issues affecting them.”

The Hive Youth Zone is one of 14 across the country, which are all part of the national OnSide network of Youth Zones.

Last year, our Hive Ambassadors – a group of young members who represent The Hive in the community – chose to focus on challenges facing young refugees and young people experiencing homelessness; poverty; and our environment, shining a spotlight on just some of the issues about which local young people feel strongly. And in a recent session on challenges young people see in 2024 and potential solutions they’d explore, young people talked about topics including:

• “Not being able to rely on people/people letting us down”
• “School teaching how it wants to teach, not how we want to learn”
• Bullying
• Online security and harassment
• Peer pressure
• Being yourself and expressing yourself.

To join The Hive in supporting the Children at the Table movement, you can sign the campaign’s petition here.