New explainer video for Kids First project

A new video in English has been created to highlight the Kids first! project, led by CEI Nordic and funded by Kavli Trust. Taking a long-term view and anchored in global and national research, Kids first! recognises children's strengths and needs, and prioritises local efforts to identify challenges and intervene early.

“Although Nordic countries are known globally for their well-functioning welfare states, social inequalities are increasing,” explains CEI Nordic Director, Professor Arild Bjørndal. “The number of children and adolescents who drop out of school and leisure activities in Norway is high, and referrals to our national Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Service are increasing.”

For the past year, Arild and his team have been gathering information in three local government areas across Norway – from children, parents, government workers and politicians, businesses, non-government organisations and local child support services – about how they see the challenges facing children and what responses are needed. All this data has now been brought together, and aligned and compared with the best of international research on 'what works' to best support children within their communities.

“We’re now at the stage of documenting our key recommendations, and we’ll soon report these to the local government areas involved in the program,” says Arild. “What we all want is to systematise and embed locally relevant approaches that better support children, so they can grow into robust adults.”

The English-language version of the video (originally released in Norwegian) is now available:

HERE with captions

HERE without captions

Our thanks to Kavli Trust for producing this video.