The Princess of Wales looked ready for business as she joined a special meeting today that focussed on her work with young children.
Kate welcomed eight experts in childhood development to Windsor Castle after they have been appointed to offer strategic advice on her work looking at early childhood.
The team will support Kate as her work continues to promote the fundamental importance of the first five years of a child's life.
For the special event, Kate wore a smart black Alexander McQueen blazer with black Roland Mouret trousers that she teamed with a white blouse from Holland Cooper and arrived clutching a note pad before she thanked the experts for their hard work.
Those on the panel include Professor Peter Fonagy, the chief executive of the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families, and Eamon McCrory, a professor of developmental neuroscience and psychopathology at University College London.
Others include Dr Alain Gregoire, the founder of the Maternal Mental Health Alliance, and Imran Hussain, director of policy and campaigns for Action for Children.
The meeting comes as Kate prepares to announce a new revolutionary "three to five year programme” aimed at impacting the vital first five years of every child’s life.
During the gathering, Kate told them a key area that might be looked into is how to "develop the social and emotional skills which are vital for later life".
She added: “Today I just want to think about and discuss what next, really. How do we keep this conversation going?
“This campaign’s really to try and raise the awareness of the importance of this issue. And it’s sort of what can we do collectively to keep the conversation going and what we do next.
“This campaign is really laying the foundation of why early childhood matters.”
Kate said it is about what helps shapes us, what shapes our relationships, and the emotional experience of childhood and about creating the “building blocks and the scaffolding” for how we first start to understand ourselves and others.
She added: "These are really complicated, big issues to look at,” she said. “But I think, from the centre’s point of view, one of the main key areas is how do we develop the social and emotional skills which are vital for later life. How do we better manage and regulate our emotions? How do we build better relationships?"
She said they are dealing with “big questions, big topics” which are “complicated”.
For the last nine years, Kate has spent time looking into how experiences in early childhood are often the root cause of today’s hardest social challenges.
Issues such as addiction, family breakdown, poor mental health, suicide and homelessness surrounding a child’s life can often have a huge detrimental affect on their mental and physical wellbeing at such a key stage in their upbringing as the brain rapidly develops.
A royal source said: "The campaign she has been working on really is the result of several months behind the scenes (and) will launch a new three to five year programme.
"(Kate) spends a lot of time reading, meeting and speaking with professionals across the entire field - but this isn't just one project, it’s an opportunity to make generational change for all our children.
"There are a number of creative parts in the process for parents and non-parents to be involved across the country with lots more to come and the hope is as many people as possible, from those in the medical and academic world as well as parents and non-parents, join the journey.”
In January 2020, after launching The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood, the Princess created a landmark national survey and travelled around the four nations of the UK to meet with parents and listen to their views on raising the next generation.
Now Kate will announce her work is to take a dramatic shift to engage the medical and academic world to revolutionise thinking for parents, carers and teachers across the world to increase the focus on the first years of a child's life in impacting later life.
The mother-of-three, who has championed the cause since she joined the Royal Family, stressed our first five years "lay important foundations for our future selves" and ultimately "shapes the adults and the parents we become".
It has also emerged that Prince William has been helping Kate with her research and planning for her upcoming event.
Our source added: "The Prince (of Wales) has been a great sounding board and will be out supporting the Princess at the launch and you may see him at other events as well."
Elsewhere Queen Camilla was out today on a visit to Bath, where she dropped by the newly opened Royal Osteoporosis Society.
Camilla has been a long-standing supporter of the charity and spoke to staff and volunteers before cutting a cake.
