Kate Middleton Steps Up for Preschoolers in Powerful New Move for Kids
The early years are a crucial part of the Princess of Wales' public life, and she sees it as something she will continue with for decades to come
The new initiative is being spearheaded by two leading British children's charitiesKate Middleton's mission to help support youngsters has taken a major step.
Amid Infant Mental Health Awareness Week, the Princess of Wales' foundation announced that it is providing mental health services across an underprivileged part of London. In a groundbreaking new pilot, mental health workers will provide training and consultation to staff and families to support the social and emotional development of babies and young children in two early education settings in Tower Hamlets and Hackney. It will see around 150 babies, young children and their families supported over the year-long pilot.
"Happy Little Minds" is being spearheaded by two leading children's charities in Britain, Barnardo's and Place2Be (of which Kate is the patron). The non-profits will provide bespoke training and consultation about social and emotional development to around 50 early education practitioners at two nursery schools, classrooms that typically cater to children aged 3 and 4, in the two boroughs. They will also provide help for parents and carers, working directly with some children and families.
It is Princess Kate's lasting and ongoing mission to underscore the importance of social and emotional development for enabling babies and young children to be mentally healthy, both in the short term and in order to provide long-lasting impact for their lives. The royal mom of three is helping spread the message that the span from infancy to 5 years old is the most crucial in terms of brain development and the foundations are laid for all that is to follow.
Often, mental health problems in later life have their roots in early childhood and early intervention with babies, and Princess Kate set up the Centre for Early Childhood to funnel this work.
Christian Guy, Executive Director of The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood, said in a statement, '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," he said.
'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," Guy added.
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The idea for the new initiative started at the Shaping Us National Symposium in November 2023, when an infant mental health expert from Barnardo's had a discussion with Catherine Roche, Chief Executive of Place2Be. The pair then developed the idea and approached the Foundation for funding.
Part of the package given to staff will be The Centre for Early Childhood's The Shaping Us Framework, which she launched in February, which is aimed at improving awareness of and knowledge about social and emotional skills to inspire action across society.
In 2023, it funded a trial of an observation tool for health visitors, known internationally as the Alarm Distress Baby Scale (ADBB).
In May, Princess Kate's bid to extend the initiative into the business world also bore fruit. A collection of major companies, from NatWest Bank to IKEA and the Co-op, showed how they are rolling out programs designed to better support parents and help children thrive, such as increasing paternity leave.
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Scientific American
a day ago
- Scientific American
How Scientists Finally Learned That Nerves Regrow
Billions of nerve cells send signals coursing through our bodies, serving as conduits through which the brain performs its essential functions. For millennia physicians thought damage to nerves was irreversible. In ancient Greece, founders of modern medicine such as Hippocrates and Galen refused to operate on damaged nerves for fear of causing pain, convulsions or even death. The dogma stood relatively still until the past two centuries, during which surgeons and scientists found evidence that neurons in the body and brain can repair themselves and regenerate after injury and that new nerve cells can grow throughout the lifespan. In recent decades this knowledge has inspired promising treatments for nerve injuries and has led researchers to investigate interventions for neurodegenerative disease. In humans and other vertebrates, the nervous system is split into two parts: the central nervous system, composed of the spinal cord and brain, and the peripheral nervous system, which connects the brain to the rest of the body. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. Attempts to suture together the ends of damaged neurons in the peripheral nervous system date back to the seventh century. It was only in the late 1800s, however, that scientists began to understand how, exactly, nerves regenerate. Through his experiments on frogs, British physiologist Augustus Waller described in detail what happens to a peripheral nerve after injury. Then, in the 1900s, the influential Spanish neuroanatomist Santiago Ramón y Cajal provided insight into how nerve regeneration occurs at the cellular level. Still, there remained fierce debate about whether stitching nerves together would harm more than help. It was against the backdrop of bloody world wars of the 20th century that physicians finally made significant advances in techniques to restore damaged neurons. To treat soldiers with devastating wounds that typically involved nerve damage, doctors developed methods such as nerve grafts, in which pieces of nerves are transplanted into the gap in a broken nerve. Over time physicians learned that some peripheral nerve injuries are more conducive to repair than others. Factors such as the timing, location and size of the injury, as well as the age of the patient, can significantly impact the success of any given intervention. Crushed nerves are likelier than cut ones to be repaired, and injuries that occur closer to a nerve's target tissue have a greater chance of regaining function than those that occur farther away. Take the ulnar nerve, which stretches the entire length of the arm and controls key muscles in the lower arm and hand. A person with nerve damage near the wrist is much more likely to regain function in the arm and hand after undergoing treatment than someone who injures the same nerve near the shoulder, in which case it must regrow from the shoulder all the way to the wrist. Even today many peripheral nerve injuries remain difficult to treat, and scientists are striving to better understand the mechanisms of regeneration to facilitate healing. One notable development in recent years, according to neurologist Ahmet Höke of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, is a 'nerve transfer,' in which a branch of a nearby nerve is rerouted to a damaged nerve. In cases where, for example, a nerve is damaged far from its target muscle, existing techniques may not be sufficient to enable regrowth across the long distances involved within a time frame allowing for recovery. This detour provides an alternative pathway to regain function. Susan Mackinnon, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon at Washington University in St. Louis, has largely driven the advances in nerve transfer, enabling patients to use their limbs after peripheral nerve injuries that previously would have led to a permanent loss of movement in them. For instance, Oskar Hanson, a high school baseball player, lost sensation and movement in most of his left arm after a surgery to mend a ligament injury ended up damaging the ulnar nerve in that arm. 'There was zero hope that he would be able to have use of his arm again,' says his mother, Patricia Hanson. But after Mackinnon performed a nerve transfer procedure, most of the function returned. 'She saved his life with that surgery,' Hanson says. Despite the leaps that were made in treating peripheral nerve injuries, the notion that neurons within the central nervous system—the brain and spinal cord—were incapable of regrowth persisted until the late 20th century. A pivotal moment came in the early 1980s, when Canadian neuroscientist Albert Aguayo and his colleagues demonstrated that in rats, neurons of the spinal cord and brain stem could regrow when segments of peripheral nerves were grafted into the site of injury. These findings revealed that neurons of the central nervous system can also regenerate, Höke says: 'They just needed the appropriate environment.' In succeeding years, neuroscientists worked to uncover what, exactly, that environment looked like. To do so, they searched for differences in the peripheral and central nervous systems that could explain why the former was better able to repair damaged neurons. Several key differences emerged. For example, only injuries within the central nervous system led to the formation of glial scars—masses of nonneuronal cells known as glial cells. The purpose of these scars is still debated, however. Today the search for the specific mechanisms that prevent or enable neuron regrowth—in both the body and the brain—remains an active area of investigation. In addition to uncovering the processes at play in humans, scientists have pinpointed molecules that enable nerve cell repair in other organisms, such as 'fusogens,' gluelike molecules found in nematodes. Researchers are attempting to harness fusogens to help with difficult-to-treat human nerve injuries. Modern neuroscientists have also challenged another long-standing doctrine in the field: the belief that the adult brain does not engage in neurogenesis, the creation of brand-new nerve cells. Early clues for neurogenesis in the brain emerged in the 1960s, when researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology observed signs of neurons dividing in the brains of adult rats. At the time, these findings were met with skepticism, says Rusty Gage, a professor of genetics at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif. 'It was just too hard to believe.' Then, in the early 1980s, neuroscientist Fernando Nottebohm of the Rockefeller University discovered that in male songbirds, the size of the brain region associated with song-making changed with the seasons. Nottebohm and his colleagues went on to show that cells in the animals' brains died and regenerated with the seasons. Inspired by these findings, researchers looked for signs of adult neurogenesis in other animals. In 1998 Gage and his colleagues revealed evidence of this process occurring in the brains of adult humans—specifically within the hippocampus, a region linked with learning and memory. Although support for adult neurogenesis in humans has amassed over the years, some experts still debate its existence. In 2018 a team co-led by Arturo Alvarez-Buylla, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco, who had worked with Nottebohm on songbirds, published a study stating that the formation of new neurons was extremely rare, and likely nonexistent, in adult human brains. Still, there's a growing consensus that neurogenesis does happen later in life —and that this growth appears to be largely limited to certain parts of the brain, such as the hippocampus. This past July a team at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden reported that the molecular signatures of precursors of neurons, known as neural progenitor cells, were present in the human brain across the lifespan—from infancy into old age. 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Vogue
2 days ago
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The Best Ectoin Skincare for High-Powered Hydration
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Speaking of living organisms—we humans battle extreme conditions everyday, whether it be a scorching summer heat wave, or brutally cold winter. Ectoin, thus, works as a buffer. Elegantly and stealthily, it coats the skin in a protective seal to prevent transepidermal water loss. (If any ingredient moonlighted as a secret agent, it might just be this one.) Whether you're aiming to soothe irritation, keep a parched complexion at bay, or prevent oxidative stress, ectoin could be your answer. Find out everything there is to know about the ingredient, below, and discover our favorite skincare products that feature it. In This Story Best with Exosomes: Skinfix Exo + Ectoin Intensive Repair Baume Skinfix Exo + Ectoin Intensive Repair Baume $70 AMAZON Why We Love It: This rich, reparative balm pairs ectoin with exosomes to help skin rebound from dryness, irritation, and environmental stress. 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Key Ingredients: ectoin, ceramides, shea butter, panthenol ectoin, ceramides, shea butter, panthenol Type: moisturizer moisturizer Size: 1.7 oz Best with Niacinamide: Good Molecules 5% Niacinamide Serum With Ectoin 5% Niacinamide Serum With Ectoin $8 AMAZON Why We Love It: A budget-friendly powerhouse, this serum combines ectoin with niacinamide to refine texture, balance oil, and calm visible redness. 'This formula is a smart pairing where niacinamide evens tone and refines pores while ectoin protects and hydrates, making it great for urban skin exposed to pollution,' says Brezavscek. It's a minimalist formulation with maximum everyday payoff. A budget-friendly powerhouse, this serum combines ectoin with niacinamide to refine texture, balance oil, and calm visible redness. 'This formula is a smart pairing where niacinamide evens tone and refines pores while ectoin protects and hydrates, making it great for urban skin exposed to pollution,' says Brezavscek. 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Key Ingredients: ectoin, hyaluronic acid, sodium pca, glycerin ectoin, hyaluronic acid, sodium pca, glycerin Type: serum serum Size: 1 oz Best Night Cream: Biossance Squalane + Ectoin Overnight Rescue Face Cream Biossance Squalane + Ectoin Overnight Rescue Face Cream $68 AMAZON Why We Love It: This overnight treatment melts into skin, delivering a blend of ectoin and squalane that repairs and replenishes while you sleep. Plus, it's a favorite of Miss-Made-From-Scratch herself, Nara Smith, who reaches for this pick every night. 'I always tell people that they have to prioritize their nighttime skincare routine,' Smith previously told Vogue. 'That's when your skin is at its highest level of repair.' This overnight treatment melts into skin, delivering a blend of ectoin and squalane that repairs and replenishes while you sleep. Plus, it's a favorite of Miss-Made-From-Scratch herself, Nara Smith, who reaches for this pick every night. 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Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Prince William, Kate Middleton move caused 2 families to relocate
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