London's recovery starts with you

The objectives here are all important. On top of this I think it is critical that initiatives look at how local communities can be strengthened and equipped to try and draw our young people into them more and give them a sense of local belonging too. 

school counsellors in every school in London

keeping youth centres open and youth workers employed engaging with young people especially those who are now more disengaged with education or have spent a lot of time indoors on computers - physical social so important for mental health

asking and acting on what young people want - listening to them as everything changes - building resilience in whatever ways we can 

there are countless young people including my son now 26 who are likely to be unemployed

Can we have a range of opportunites across the board from those just leaving school to those like my son who got to university [despite dyslexia] etc but now can't get started either

Think meaningful apprenticships are good but need entry into work for those with degrees as well

Specific interventions to address mental health and wellbeing porgrammes should include trauma-informed practices. If we do not understand trauma response and the factors that cause it, we misinterpret it as bad behavior or personality flaws. This is perpetuated in school discipline policies, our justice system, and mental health. Trauma Informed Specialists are making lasting change in schools. 

Highly commendable mission and objectives, but 'pie in the sky' and impossible to achieve without somehow radically changing young people to become realistic.

This means getting them away from online social media and their smartphones; getting rid of their meaningless aspirations to become millionaires as footballers, music artists, models and reality TV stars and replacing these with the ambition to get a proper job and gain satisfaction from working diligently to succeed and become 'millionaires' that way (as the majority of genuine millionaires did!); realise that there is more to life than just 'enjoying themselves' day and night; most vitally, to eradicate the situation where the easiest way for them to earn lots of money without doing any significant work is by becoming middle to low level illicit drug suppliers to other youngsters and the middle classes.

Achieve all this and then young people will actually make use of the facilities and services you are proposing to provide,

I think/hope that a lot of Londoners who are perhaps more established and homeowners etc will understand the situation of young people. I realise I now risk an onslaught of replies but being bold and direct and raising the council tax rates in the upper bands and saying Sorry chucks, but it's for the younger generations, might be the only sensible thing to do - and while some will complain I am not so sure that large numbers of people actually would. 

Speech and Language Therapists are highly skilled at supporting young people to give their views and using them would be helpful.

There is inequitable access to Speech and Language services across different parts of London and not enough service to support them to access education effectively. Between 7.5 and 8% of people have a Developmental Language Disorder (that's around 2 children in every class); this is a lifelong condition and a hidden disability and affects ability to access learning effectively with an additional impact on mental health, behaviour and offending; for every £1 spent on speech and language services there is a large saving on services for these children across their lifetime and their life chances are improved. Investing more effectively in this profession  and increasing access to professional help and advice is crucial in order to provide early intervention and increase the skills of teaching staff to adapt the curriculum and provide quality first teaching that is accessible.

On a different note, removing free bus travel for school children through the Zip card is not a good start to improving life chances and is likely to impede access to education for some families, increasing the financial divide.

Your mission is fine but first of all you need to ensure that all children get back to school asap - Open The Schools, everything else can follow on once everyone is settled and trained staff can judge who is in need of what. I don't know who the young children are who are excluded from the mainstream - there shouldn't be any so change that to start with.

In order to ensure that children have equal opportunities support needs to be given in the home.

The only people that can go into a family without prejudice are health visitors/ caters.

These have been reduced to practically nil and are not seen as cost effective to government.

This is shortsighted as they can assess the home situation and request resources- ie family support.

Unfortunately this has been cut as part of council efficiency and funds redirected to children’s centres.

tRhese centres serve a portion of community- but not the most vulnerable who have difficulty engaging.

Stop presenting CoVid as though it is the apocalypse and open the schools.

Time to be imaginative and think some different thoughts about education. 

It's true that many young people are missing out through school closure; sadly, these may also be the children who school attendance historically further disadvantages. A return to dull, disempowering classrooms led by a dry curriculum, may not be the best thing to aim for; nor need it be the only thing to aim for.

Yes, get children back into education, but think flexibly about what that means. Right now, classrooms are 'out', so let's make use of the space we have outside the classroom. Look to imaginative integration (and re-establishment) of youth services with education. Establish community-based youth schemes that give young people opportunities safely to be together, and to work together for the benefit of themselves and their communities. Meaningful work like this might not fit with the current curriculum, but I have no doubt that it would engender in young people the kind of self-belief and self-worth that would set them up well for an eventual return to more formal educational settings. 

We might even look beyond what I have referred to as work to include other projects more resembling the kind of opportunity usually only available to well-off young people, for example outdoor pursuits of all kinds, creative activities.

Education can (and in my view, should) be about personal development. Right now there is a real opportunity to start making something like this happen.

Mental health and wellbeing programmes with a strong community focus

An education programme post COVID-19 with a focus on those young people excluded from the mainstream and most at risk of being susceptible to exploitation and violence

A skills, training and employment offer with mentoring, quality careers advice, entrepreneurship; reflective of the different needs of each young person needs (see also: the mission about "good work for all Londoners".)

I think schools will play a major role in this. However, funding of education has been compromised and for this to succeed school need much more support. Many parents are happy to play a role in this, I am sure, but they need to feel empowered and valued. 

Parents will need employers to provide them with time (and compensation) to fulfill their community 'duty' within school initiatives. I do believe employers need to step up now more than ever to facilitate their employees to help improve this society by engaging with their local communities and especially schools. Schools will be able to provide an educated structure to make this a success.

Again, we as a society (and those at the top) may need to reflect on the current economic model; it may need some revision. Perpetual growth and gain does not suffice. We need to invest in the well being of the next generation on multiple levels.

Organisations and businesses should open up to provide training/teaching places for young people to gain experience for the purpose of supporting young people, not exploiting them.

Again, we need to listen to the voices of children and young people