We are delighted that the CASCADE Centre for Children’s Social Care at Cardiff University are the lead international collaborator for a major new Centre to improve childhood in Denmark. Professor Donald Forrester, CASCADE’s Director, will be the Research Director establishing the Centre and CASCADE will have a key role in setting up and supporting this major new initiative.

Three Foundations (Novo Nordisk, LEGO and TrygFonden) are investing c. £38 million over 10 years establishing the new interdisciplinary Best Childhoods Centre based at University College Copenhagen with a special focus on younger children. In the centre’s work, research and practice will go hand in hand to strengthen professional efforts to ensure the well-being of Danish children.

The Best Childhoods Centre aims to improve the practice of professions working with children under 7 by building an evidence base, ensuring professional practices are improved and developing research capacity. The core professions it will target are social workers, daycare workers, social pedagogues, health visitors and midwives.

It is a tribute to the profile of Cardiff University and the CASCADE Centre that it is taking a leading role in this major international collaboration:

“I am delighted to be helping set-up the Best Childhoods Centre. It is an exciting initiative, and the involvement of CASCADE reflects our international profile as a centre for excellence for research that makes a difference for children.”

Professor Donald Forrester

Background Information

In Denmark, the centre will be the first fund-financed research centre of its size to be located at a university college, where welfare professionals are trained. In this way, the centre’s knowledge will be translated directly into the education of future social pedagogues, social workers, midwives, health nurses and physiotherapists.

In addition, the centre will create a better knowledge base for practice, so that the professional work of supporting young children and their families is strengthened. Thus, the centre will conduct practice-based and cross-professional research closely connected to real life challenges.

“We want to have a special focus on creating holistic solutions across all the professionals who surround young children and their families in the first years”, explains Dean Annegrete Juul from the Faculty of Social Education, Social Work and Administration at University College Copenhagen.

While most professionals are educated in University Colleges, they receive limited public funds for research, which makes the support from the Novo Nordisk Foundation, the LEGO Foundation and the TrygFonden absolutely essential. This funding will enable the building of necessary knowledge and capacity within the area and put profession-oriented and practice-oriented research at the forefront of solutions for children aged 0-6 years and their families.

“We know that play strengthens children’s quality of life, development and lifelong learning. We are therefore particularly excited that the Centre for Better Childhoods is investigating the role of play in relation to children’s social, mental and physical well-being in the early years. And that the centre focuses on putting the new knowledge into practice, so that children in Denmark get to experience the results of the centre’s work directly”, says Michael Stahl, Team Lead, LEGO Foundation Denmark and Ukraine.

“Midwives, health nurses, pedagogues and social workers can be of decisive importance for early development of children, and they do a great deal of work every day to support children and parents. We would like to contribute to these professionals gaining even stronger skills, so that more children get the best start in life, where they thrive physically, mentally and socially”, says project manager Frederik Mühldorff Sigurd from TrygFonden.

“Welfare professionals contribute to promoting the health and development of our children early in life, and thus they are also an important part of the joint effort to take action against increasing inequality in health, which we are very concerned about. By entering into close interaction with practice, the centre will pave the way for new knowledge that can be quickly translated and be useful for children and families and in the training of future generations of welfare professionals,” says Flemming Konradsen, Senior Vice President, Social & Humanitarian, Novo Nordisk Foundation.

The Centre for Better Childhoods is being launched on Wednesday 21st August 2024, at a major event attended by international experts, funders and government ministers at at University College Copenhagen.