On my way to work the other day I passed two men wearing skirts. Hackney is changing. It’s hard to ignore the coffee shops, vintage clothes stalls and pop-up hairdressers. Hackney is changing yet behind the rows of sourdough bakeries and boutique shoe shops, ordinary people are still stumbling through their daily lives.

Hackney is one of the most deprived boroughs in London and deprivation is not only about having enough food to eat or clothes to wear. Adequate speech, language and communication skills are a key indicator for success at school, in the workplace and in life. Children from deprived homes are still growing up with around a quarter of the vocabulary of a child from a more affluent home. Young offenders are three times more likely to have a communication difficulty than other young people.

The world we live in is changing and the ability to communicate is vital. Whether your aim in life is to run a retro clothes stall on Broadway Market or an IT business in Shoreditch, communication is key.

We’re hoping that our new website, GetHackneyTalking.org will go some way to improving the communication of Hackney’s children and young people. We want to see change in Hackney but change that reaches the Kingsmead Estate and Homerton Grove Adventure Playground, change that reaches from Homerton Maternity Ward to Hackney College. Change that Gets Hackney Talking.