Knowledge about how children develop, how they learn, how they experience the world, and what promotes healthy development, is a vital tool for policymakers who are working to make children’s lives better.
We’ve brought together three experts, Sally Hogg, Eleanor Ireland and Amy McNaughton, to share how they’re building collaborations to drive change for children of the future.
About Sally Hogg
Sally is Associate Director for Programmes and Impact at the Centre for Early Childhood, which is part of the Royal Foundation of the Prince and Princess of Wales.
Sally is a specialist in early childhood and a passionate advocate for babies, young children and their families.
Sally has had a varied career in academia, charities, national and local governments, leading teams to develop and implement interventions for families in the early years, translating science into action, and campaigning successfully to drive policy change. Sally was a Policy Fellow in PEDAL from 2022-2024.
About Eleanor Ireland
Eleanor Ireland leads the development and management of the Nuffield Foundation’s research portfolio in early years and was the chair of the Early Years Funders Group between 2023-25.
Prior to joining the Foundation, she worked as a Research Director at NatCen Social Research, where she designed and managed research projects in the areas of early years education, parental separation and family policy; and NFER where she worked on a range of mixed methods educational evaluations.
About Amy NcNaughton
Amy has led the First 1000 Days and Early Child Development Programme within Public Health Wales since 2017, making the case for and supporting the implementation of evidence-based action in the early years. She is an experienced Public Health Consultant with over a decade of experience leading on maternal and child public health in local and national systems.
During her career she has worked as a public health professional across a range of NHS and Local Authority settings with experience of commissioning, service design, health intelligence and national strategy development. She participated in the PEDAL Mobilise Programme on Early Child Development in 2024.
Sally, Eleanor and Amy’s presentations concluded with a short Q&A session: