Vision: The North East will be the safest and best place to be born and to experience early life.

• Together with children’s agencies, providers and carers, and with the participation of children and young people within the region, we will establish a Regional Advisory Board for Early Life.
• The Early Life RAG will be take a view of action within all theme areas to ensure that the specific needs of children are being appropriately addressed and will identify key actions in the role of preconception and antenatal care in lifelong health.
• We will support and develop the work of the Regional Child Poverty Steering Group in early delivery of the national target of abolishing child poverty.
• We will identify and implement the most effective interventions for preventing uptake of smoking in children and young people.
• Through the new Public Health Centre of Research Excellence we will identify and implement the most effective interventions for preventing alcohol abuse in children and young people.
• Health services will primarily support the academic curriculum and the ability of children to learn. Using the curriculum as a means of delivering health messages will be a secondary consideration.
• We will extend successful social marketing approaches to the promotion of breastfeeding across the region.
• A key strand of cross-agency social marketing in the North East will be to build aspirations and expectations of our children’s potential.
• We will support and further develop social marketing and campaigning approaches to mental health promotion in children to recognise mental illness and alleviate stigma.
• We will campaign to increase awareness of the importance of emotional well-being and improve the skills of young people to help each other and access services.
• We will aim to become the region with the greatest educational attainment, and the fewest possible left behind. We will work to ensure that improving educational attainment is seen by all public sector organisations as a shared goal. In particular, the engagement of health services with education should pursue a primary goal of assisting all children to achieve their personal, academic and skills potential.

Potential areas of action for RAG consideration: Substance abuse – Emotional health – Accident prevention – Sexual health – Specific support to schools – Problems related to transitions (home to school, school to work etc) – Contraception and unwanted pregnancy – Self-esteem – Mental health needs of children and adolescents – Breastfeeding