Conferences
Bringing different voices into the same room.
Our conferences bring together families and communities with researchers, practitioners, policymakers and system leaders to share knowledge, challenge assumptions and ask what needs to change.
Through our Black Child Clean Air and Black Child SEND conference series, we create spaces where lived experience and community knowledge sit alongside research and professional expertise - and where those most affected by inequity are part of shaping the conversations that influence policy and practice.
Our Conferences
Black Child
Clean Air
Exploring environmental justice and the conditions shaping Black children's health and development.
Explore Clean Air Conferences
Our Conferences
Black Child
SEND
Bringing racial equity into conversations about SEND, education and reform.
Explore SEND ConferencesConferences
Black Child Clean Air
Our Black Child Clean Air conferences bring together communities, researchers, health professionals and decision-makers to explore how the environments children grow up in shape their health and development - and why the burden of poor air quality isn't shared equally.
Black Child Clean Air Conference 2026
How Clean Air Shapes Black Childhoods
The early years shape so much of what comes next. But what happens when children spend those critical years breathing polluted air?
Our 2026 conference brought together expertise from health, environment, research, early years, policy and community to explore how air pollution and the environments children grow up in can shape respiratory health, early development, behaviour, learning and longer-term opportunities.
From evidence to action
The conversation went beyond understanding the problem to asking what needs to change - for families, for communities, for professionals and for the systems shaping children's lives.
From the Conference
"This conference brought together the people and perspectives that are so often kept in separate spaces. It felt like a real step towards change."
Conference attendee
Five things
we heard on the night
Reflections from the conversations, panels and community voices that shaped the evening.
Creating healthier environments requires joined-up thinking
Families don't experience housing, transport, education and air pollution as separate issues. They experience them all at once. Improving children's health means those systems working towards the same goal.
Where we live shapes how we live
Black children and families are more likely to experience the combined effects of environmental disadvantage. Air pollution doesn't exist separately from wider realities of housing, neighbourhood and deprivation.
Evidence only matters if people can understand it
The science is becoming stronger every year, but knowledge isn't reaching families in ways that feel relevant or useful. The challenge is for researchers and professionals to become better communicators.
Lasting change requires moving beyond awareness
Raising awareness remains essential, but awareness alone won't improve children's health. Turning evidence into action means investing in the policies, services and partnerships that make change possible.
Every child deserves the opportunity to thrive
Children's health begins long before birth. Air pollution is one part of the picture, but so too are nutrition, maternity care, housing and the wider support available to families in those critical early years.
Our Research
Black Child Clean Air Report
What do Black mothers know about the air they and their children breathe?
Our Black Child Clean Air Report explored how Black mothers and pregnant women understand air pollution and the risks it poses during pregnancy and childhood.
What we found was a gap between concern, knowledge and the power to act. Women were worried about air pollution, but awareness of its impact during pregnancy and early childhood was much lower - and even when families wanted to reduce their exposure, where they lived, their finances and the support they relied on could limit the choices available to them.
The message was clear: protecting mothers and their children from air pollution cannot be left to them alone.
The report sets out what needs to change across healthcare, policy and communities - and helped lay the foundations for the Black Child Clean Air work we're continuing today.
Read the reportBlack Child Clean Air Conference 2024
The secret harm of indoor air pollution
Our 2024 conference brought together families, community organisations, researchers and policymakers to shine a light on the hidden harms of indoor air pollution and its impact on Black children's health.
The conversation explored an often overlooked part of environmental inequality: the air children breathe inside their homes and other indoor environments, and why understanding those exposures matters for creating healthier childhoods.
Conferences
Black Child SEND
Our Black Child SEND conferences bring together families and young people with educators, advocates, researchers and decision-makers to examine SEND through a racial equity lens - asking why Black children and their families can experience the system differently, and what needs to change.
Black Child SEND Conference 2026
Seeing the whole child
In partnership with Enact Equality and the Race Equality in Education APPG
Our 2026 conference brought families and young people into conversation with educators, SEND advocates, researchers and those shaping national policy to ask some difficult but necessary questions about racial equity and SEND.
The conversation was opened by Minister for School Standards Georgia Gould MP, who endorsed the importance of our work and of ensuring racial equity is part of the wider conversation about SEND reform.
Together, we explored what happens when children's distress is understood as behaviour rather than unmet need; whose knowledge and evidence are listened to when concerns are raised; and how race, disability, gender, class and trauma can intersect to shape children's experiences of education and support.
From evidence to action
The discussion moved beyond identifying the challenges to considering practical solutions - and what needs to change across schools, local authorities, health and policy to create a more inclusive and equitable system for Black and mixed Black heritage children.
From the Conference
"It was powerful to see families, young people and policymakers in the same room, having honest conversations about what really needs to change."
Conference attendee
Voices from the Room
Who was in the room
Our Research
Black Child SEND Report
Accessing special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) provision for Black and mixed Black heritage children
Our report explores the lived experiences of parents and professionals in South London, highlighting the barriers Black and mixed Black heritage children face in accessing timely, appropriate and equitable SEND support.
It reveals how racial bias, low expectations and a lack of cultural understanding can lead to children's needs being misunderstood, pathologised or missed altogether - and sets out what needs to change to create a fairer, more inclusive system.
Read the report
Black Child SEND Conference 2024
Building an inclusive future
Our 2024 conference brought together families, young people, educators, advocates and policymakers to explore what is needed to build a more inclusive education system for Black and mixed Black heritage children with SEND.