Centre for Young Lives: State of Childhood Vulnerability report warns the Covid pandemic is still casting a long shadow over millions of children in England five years on

• 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

The Centre for Young Lives think tank, founded by former Children's Commissioner for England Baroness Anne Longfield, is today (Friday 25^th July 2025) launching its annual report on childhood vulnerability ‘State of the Nation: Identifying Vulnerable Children and Young People and Supporting Them to Thrive'.

The report shines a light on the millions of children in England who are growing up with challenges that make them more vulnerable and hold back their life chances. It analyses the scale and nature of childhood vulnerability in England, drawing on the most recent national statistics in England available at the time of writing, and offers a snapshot of the numbers of children affected by factors such as poverty, struggling with a mental health problem, having Special Educational Needs or Disabilities, or growing up in care. 

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 historically broken and shows how the secondary consequences of the pandemic continue to cast a long shadow over the lives of many thousands of vulnerable children posing major challenges to Government reform and ambitions.

The report shows how since before the pandemic:

More children are living in poverty, living in temporary accommodation, or in a household at risk of homelessness than before the pandemic.  

• 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.
• 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. 

Lost learning has worsened since the pandemic, with an increase in persistent absence, severe absence, suspensions and permanent exclusions, alongside an increase in the use of alternative provision.

• 1,487,022 children were persistently absent from school in 2023/24. ?This has almost doubled since 2018/19. 
•  171,269 children were severely absent in 2023/24. ?This has almost trebled since 2018/19. 
•  There were 954,952 suspensions in 2023/24. ?This has increased by 118% since 2018/19. 
•  47,612 children were in alternative provision in 2023/24. ?This has increased by 82% since 2018/19. 
•  At least 153,300 children were electively home educated in 2023/24. ?This has increased by 31% since 2021/22. 
• More than 920,000 young people between the ages of 16 and 24 were not in education, employment or training in the UK between January and March 2025. ?This has increased by 19% from 775,000 between January and March 2019. 

More children are identified as children in need, and slightly more were experiencing neglect or abuse. However, despite this, fewer children are on child protection plans. 

• Just under 400,000 children were identified as children in need in 2024. ?This is an increase since 2020. 
• 35,090 children were subject to a child protection plan in 2024. ?This is a slight decrease since 2018. 
• 83,630 children were looked after (including adoptions) in 2024. ?This has increased by 11% since 2018. The number of children aged 16 and over entering care has more than doubled between 2013 and 2023. 
• Almost a thousand (931) children were placed in an unregistered and illegal children's home in 2024. ?This has increased by 500% since 2021.
• 32.4% of adult victims of domestic abuse reported there were children under the age of 16 present in the household in 2023. ?This has risen from 30.4% since 2017/18. 

More children are being identified with special educational needs, and more are needing the highest level of support.

• Over 1.7 million children have SEN in 2023/24. ?This has increased by 34% since 2017/18. 
• 1,284,284 children with SEN do not have an Education, Health and Care plan, accounting for 73% of children with SEN. ?This has increased by 25% since 2017/18. 
• 426,640 children have an EHCP. ?This has increased by 90% since 2017/18. 
• 263,989 children have been identified with autism in 2024/25. ?This has increased by 118% since 2017/18. 

The prevalence of children with a diagnosable mental health problem has doubled since 2017.

• 1 in 5 children and young people aged 8-16 had a diagnosable mental health condition in 2023.  ?This has increased from 1 in 10 in 2017.  

The number of children at risk of child criminal exploitation and the number who are victims of violence has increased.

• Child criminal exploitation was identified in 15,600 children in need assessments in 2024. ?This has increased by over 50% since 2022. 
• One in five 13-17-year-olds have been a victim of violence in 2024. ?This has increased from 14% in 2022. 

The report argues that taken together, these indicators reveal a generation of post-Covid children facing vulnerabilities that threaten to shape their futures long into adulthood. Behind every number is a child who needs support – often facing multiple, overlapping challenges that can be rooted in poverty, instability, and inequality.  The report also notes that there are many children that the data does not capture. Some of the most vulnerable children are continuing to slip under the radar entirely. Not only do they not appear in the data, but often they are not receiving any support at all. 

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. t 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.” 

Connie Muttock, Head of Policy at the Centre for Young Lives, said:

“The recent Spending Review was a welcome change in direction, with a greater emphasis on investing in early help to prevent costly crisis.

“But there is still a vitally important missing piece in the jigsaw – an accurate understanding of the scale and nature of child vulnerability in England – and a commitment to reach the children who are too often missed.

"This report is our first step in our ambition to estimate how many children are vulnerable in England, where they are, and what support – particularly early support - they need to reduce the impact of those vulnerabilities.  

“This report makes clear that the scale of the challenges children are facing are far greater than before. But it is only by helping children earlier that we can prevent the high economic and social cost of crisis.”

ENDS

Notes to editors:

1. The report was funded by the Lindley Foundation.

    2. About the Centre for Young Lives. The Centre for Young Lives, founded by Baroness Anne Longfield CBE in February 2024, is an independent think tank and delivery unit working to improve the lives of children, young people, and families across the UK — with a particular focus on those facing the greatest challenges. Our team combines decades of experience in Westminster, Whitehall and beyond with a relentless commitment and drive to breaking down the barriers that hold back some children, and to ensuring that every child and young person can thrive. We use high quality research and evidence to advocate and campaign for innovate solutions and new models that improve the lives of children, young people and their families.