Prince William is using the school run to tell his children about homelessness, just as his mother did when he was a boy, as he tries to find ways to tackle the issue.

William says he talks to Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis when they spot rough sleepers – much in the same way that his mother Diana, Princess of Wales, did when he and his brother Harry were children.

He told a British documentary – Prince William: We Can End Homelessness, that Princess Diana took him to a shelter for homeless people when he was just 11, saying it left a deep and lasting impression that inspires his work today.

“When you are that small you are just curious and trying to work out what’s going on,” he said.

“My mother would talk to us a bit about why they were there and it definitely made a really big impact.”

The Prince of Wales was asked when he felt the right time would be to introduce the subject of homelessness to George, 11; Charlotte, nine; and Louis, six.

“I am probably already doing it on the school run. The first few times I thought ‘do I bring this up or should I wait to see if they notice?’ Sure enough, they did,” he said.

“They were sort of in silence when I said what was going on.”

“I do think it is really important that you start these conversations when the children are small so they understand the world around them, rather than just living in their own worlds.”

The prince was followed for the program during the first year of his Homewards initiative which aims to develop a blueprint for eradicating homelessness in all its forms, “making it rare, brief and unrepeated”.

He also responded to criticism that his privilege made him the wrong person to head up a homelessness campaign.

“Criticism drives you forward,” he said.

“I think it is right to question but I think ultimately, at the end of the day, (it is) that pushing forward to deliver change, hope and optimism into, frankly, a world that has had very little of it for a long time and I hope I can bring something that has not been done before.”

“When you feel the human connection with somebody who has been in deep trouble – I would challenge anyone not to feel a desire to help.

“There has to be a better way than just accepting that homelessness is there and we just live with it. I don’t believe that. I won’t accept that.

“What I want to see, and I think what she (his mother) would want to see is, action, movement and change.”

This post was originally published on Michael West.