The Duchess of Cambridge has arrived in Copenhagen for a whistle-stop tour meeting health workers and academics at the forefront of Denmark’s world-leading approach to early childhood development.
Kate will spend two days in the capital on a fact-finding, working visit with her Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood.
It will be the first time she has taken the work of her foundation, which she launched in June, to the international stage.
The visit will also pay tribute to the historic ties Britain shares with Denmark and celebrate the countries’ joint jubilees – the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee and the Golden Jubilee of Denmark’s Queen Margrethe II, both of which fall in 2022.
The duchess travelled by a scheduled flight to the capital Copenhagen but it is thought her plane was delayed by around 30 minutes.
She made up some time for her first visit to the University of Copenhagen to meet researchers from the Copenhagen Infant Mental Health Project (CIMHP), which aims to promote the mental wellbeing of, and relationships between, infants and their parents.
Academics have developed an innovative screening tool, the Alarm Distress Baby Scale, used to help health visitors identify infants at risk of adverse social and emotional development.
The duchess will meet leading researchers running the initiative and will hear from health visitors who are implementing these tools in their work.
Alongside the screening tool, academics have launched the Understanding Your Baby research project which provides further training for health visitors so they can help new parents as they begin to notice and interpret their babies’ behavioural cues.
At Copenhagen’s Children’s Museum the duchess will meet a few of the 1,300 first-time parents benefiting from the project, begun in 2019 and ending in July, that involves more than 200 health workers.
Kate’s final event of the day is a trip to the Lego Foundation PlayLab at University College Copenhagen where she will join students, training to be early years professionals, taking part in activities.
