Youth related crime and anti-social behaviour are on the rise especially in the inner cities and more deprived communities across the nation.
Barking and Dagenham is ranked the 3rd most deprived Local Authority in England (out of 326) in relation to the IMD 2015.
Almost 1/3 of children in the Borough live in low-income families.
Notably, 1 in 10 adults is out of work in Barking & Dagenham – the highest unemployment rate of any London Borough.
37% of children live in poverty in Barking and Dagenham, 6th worst in London.
53,700 young people aged 0-15, constitute 21% of the total population.

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Fair Society, Healthy Lives (The Marmot Review, UCL 2010) demonstrates that inequalities in educational outcomes affect physical and mental health, as well as income, employment and quality of life.

To address these inequalities action is needed throughout life, investing in early years development to improve children’s readiness for school, enabling children and young people to develop skills for life as well as achieve qualifications during their school career, and provide learning opportunities throughout life.

For the residents of Barking and Dagenham, strategic partners work together to support children and young people, and their families and carers, to realise their potential through education and lifelong learning opportunities to develop the skills and empowerment to acquire, achieve and aspire to a better future.

“Health inequalities result from social inequalities. Action on health inequalities requires action across all the social determinants of health”. (Marmot)

The social gradient in educational attainment and skills continues throughout school and on into further or higher education. Inequalities in education outcomes impacts on employment opportunities, income and quality of life, as well as adversely affecting physical and mental health.

Those adults with no educational qualifications in 2001 reported long term limiting illness rates over 2 and a half times higher than those with degrees.

If everyone had the mortality rate of those people with a university education then each year it would:

• prevent 202,000 people aged 30+ dying prematurely (40 % of deaths)

• result in 2.5 million life years gained.

Not all of the inequality can be attributed to the health behaviours of the different socio-economic groups. But some can, for instance smoking prevalence is significantly higher in routine and manual workers than average, and this will lead to higher prevalence of heart disease, respiratory illness and cancers and therefore premature mortality.