The New annual ‘State of the Nation’ report exposes the scale and nature of childhood vulnerability in England in 2025, revealing how many measures of vulnerability like poverty, children’s mental health, Special Educational Needs, school attendance, and the number of children going into social care have worsened and continued to hold children back since the pandemic.
The report shows how since pre-pandemic more children are living in poverty and temporary accommodation, how school absence, exclusions, and home education have rocketed, how the number of children with Special Educational Needs continues to soar, how more children are being taken into care, and how more children and young people are struggling with a diagnosable mental health problem.
The report highlights how five years on from the first Covid lockdowns, the promises to put children at the heart of “building back better” were never met. Instead, a scattergun approach, driven by budget cuts and the decimation of early support and youth services in the early 2010s, has resulted in creaking systems that have often failed to identify or support vulnerable children posing major challenges to Government reform
Figures show that 4.5 million children in the UK were living in relative poverty in the year to April 2024 after housing costs, representing almost a third of children. while 165,510 children were living in temporary accommodation in December 2024. This is a 33% increase since 2018.
34,150 households with children were homeless and qualified for support from the council under the main homelessness duty in the year ending March 2024. This is an increase of 78% from 19,210 in 2019.
Baroness Anne Longfield, Executive Chair of the Centre for Young Lives, said:
“Government has set out an ambitious agenda to break the link between background and opportunity, but this report lays bare the scale of the challenges so many children are facing. It shines a spotlight on the millions of children growing up with vulnerabilities in England – and how the Covid pandemic and the cost of living crisis continue to cast a long shadow over the life chances of many of our children and young people.
“Identifying these children is vital to understanding not only the nature of reforms needed but also the scale of intervention needed to transform life chances. It is crucial to shaping and reforming the services they need to keep them safe and allow them to flourish requires us to know the scale of the problem and where resources would be best targeted.
“Over recent years, a scattergun approach, driven by budget cuts and the decimation of early support and youth services in the early 2010s, has left us with a creaking care system, a postcode lottery of Special Educational Needs support, children’s Mental Health services unfit for demand or purpose, and an education system straining with the increased demands outside of teaching.
“The promises to “build back better” were broken, and the hope that children would be at the heart of post-Covid government thinking came to little.
“Childhood vulnerability and need has risen sharply in recent years across a range of measures, and without further reform, investment and intervention, these trends may continue to rise.”
Responding to the Centre for Young Lives think tank’s annual report on childhood vulnerability, Cllr Arooj Shah, Chair of the Local Government Association’s Children and Young People Board, said:
“This important report highlights the urgent need for a cross-government strategy for children, young people and families to ensure we are all working towards a shared ambition.
“Councils are seeing more children needing help with increasingly complex and challenging needs. By integrating planning and funding across departments, and ensuring services have the resources they need, we can make sure children receive the care they deserve. Increased funding for early intervention services will also help to prevent children reaching crisis point and reduce the numbers entering care.
“The rising number of children with special educational needs and disabilities requiring support also reinforces our calls for comprehensive reform of the SEND system. The current SEND system is not working and is not meeting the support needs of children and families. Councils stand ready to work with government in tackling these challenges, but we have to ensure the voices of children and their families are heard and acted upon.”
