The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William, and Catherine, undertook their first joint engagement of 2022 and visited Foundling Museum in London.
It was the first public engagement of The Duchess in 2022. The family celebrated Christmas and new year followed by Catherine’s 40th birthday at their country residence in Norfolk before moving back to London last week.
There is no chance that you might have missed the 3 gorgeous portraits Kensington Palace released to mark The Duchess of Cambridge’s milestone birthday.
The Duchess of Cambridge is a patron of the Foundling Museum since March 2019. She first publicly visited the Museum in November 2017. In 2019, about the patronage, Kensington Palace said, ” “The Duchess has a longstanding interest in both the arts and supporting vulnerable families, and this patronage will further highlight the beneficial impact that art and creativity have on emotional wellbeing. Upon arrival, the new patron of the Museum was welcomed with flowers“.”
“I’m so passionate about improving children’s life chances and giving them opportunities so that they can look forward to the best possible futures, fulfill their whole potential” – The Duchess of Cambridge in March 2019
Founded in 1739 as the UK’s first children’s charity as part of the Foundling Hospital, The Foundling Museum now provides support and training for young care leavers. The Royal couple visited the museum to meet people with lived experiences of the care system and learn about their stories.
About the visit Palace said, “The Duke and Duchess learned more about the care sector and meet representatives from across the system, including those with direct experience of living in care during their visit to the museum. It delivers training, mentorship programs, and creative projects, led and developed by contemporary artists, writers, and musicians, to continue to use creative activities to transform and improve the lives of care-experienced young people.”
They join a roundtable discussion that brought together experts and stakeholders from across the sector to speak about the wider landscape of care in the UK, the challenges that young people leaving care can face, including employment, housing, mental health and addiction, and the work that is being carried out to tackle these issues.
From Daily Mail’s report,
Taking their seats, Kate asked the experts: ‘From your experience what makes the difference between a young person succeeding after leaving foster care and when they do not.’
They heard about ‘challenges for young people’ when they regularly move home and are sometimes exploited by the criminal world.
William added: ‘If you keep moving a child around when they are an adult their relationships are so short and shallow.’
Kate said she was concerned that without providing stable homes for children they risk being moved around and having to ‘tell their story again and again.’
William said: ‘That may become emotionally exhausting to tell the story again and again. We’ve had that in the mental health side of things, people end up on the street, go through hoops and hurdles, tell so many people in authority and nothing changes.
‘You have to get to them a lot earlier so they don’t have to keep doing this.’
Palace continued, “Through her work over the past decade the Duchess has seen first-hand how some of today’s hardest social challenges have their roots in the earliest years of a person’s life. The Duchess of Cambridge is committed to raising awareness of the importance of early childhood experiences and how today’s hardest social challenges have their roots in the earliest years of a person’s life.”
At the museum, the couple then spent time with individuals who have lived experience of the care system and learned about their stories. These included the author and poet Lemn Sissay, a former track and field athlete Kriss Akabusi, and writer Allan Jenkins. poet Lemn Sissay was one of the members of the Judgement panel for Catherine’s very successful lockdown project ‘Hold Still 2020’.
William and Catherine also met a group of young care leavers to hear about some of the challenges they have encountered, and the impact of the support and training they are receiving through the Foundling Museum’s Tracing Our Tales programme. Launched in October 2017, Tracing Our Tales is a unique programme that has been developed to equip care-experienced young adults from London boroughs with the skills to devise and deliver workshops at the Museum for family groups. The programme provides paid employment and valuable life skills, including public speaking, critical and creative thinking, and people management, as well as skills in art and creative expression. You can learn more about the programme here on Museum website.
From Hello! report,
The couple joined them for an ‘ice breaker’ session armed with three-foot long pencils. They drew on a canvas what they could see in front of them without looking down at the floor.
Kate, who studied art history at the University of St Andrew’s, giggled as she struggled with the artwork which had the look of a vast doodle when it was finished.
William laughed and said of his three children: “The kids would really enjoy that.”
The Duchess seemed to really enjoy the activity.
A video of the day.
Catherine was wearing a blue long coat that still remains unidentified. We first saw the coat when she visited LEYF Nursery in January 2020. The single-breasted coat features flap pockets.
The Duchess paired the outfit with a Hobbs London Lara Merino Wool Roll-Neck Jumper. Thanks to KateMiddStyle, MiddletonMaven, and DataDuchess2 on Twitter for the id. Catherine was wearing her Jigsaw High-waist trousers.
She was wearing her Emmy London Josie pumps.
The Duchess was wearing a new pair of earrings – Accessorize Mini Hammered Doorknocker Hoop Earrings. thanks to Emily Collins on Twitter for the id. The £2.10, Price was reduced from £7.00, earrings were described as, “The perfect pairing to give your daytime look some chic appeal, these gold-tone designs feature an open hoop in a hammered doorknocker style, suspended from a matching disc”.
Yesterday, The Duchess of Cambridge, Joint Patron, the Royal Foundation of The Duke, and Duchess of Cambridge, held an Early Years Meeting.
Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge arrives at the Foundling Museum in London. pic.twitter.com/Y98YLVC99v
— Samir Hussein (@samhussein) January 19, 2022
I will leave you with these gorgeous pictures from today taken by Royal Photographer Samir Hussain and a look at the story behind Catherine’s birthday portraits.
