£81 million support for Scots in crisis
More than 178,000 vulnerable households, including around 59,000 families with children, have received essential help to buy everyday products like nappies, food and cookers through the Scottish Welfare Fund. Continue reading The worst of times: 60,000 Scots families receive emergency aid
FM announces £1 million for early learning and childcare trials
A report into what more the Scottish Government and others can do to tackle poverty in Scotland has been welcomed by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. Ms Sturgeon used today’s visit to North Edinburgh Childcare to announce £1 million funding to support new early learning and childcare initiatives. Continue reading First Minister visits North Edinburgh Childcare
Senscot
Source: The disgrace of multi-deprivation in one of the richest and most civilised countries in world
This article by Kevin McKenna first appeared in Herald Scotland on 9 January and is reproduced in Senscot news bulletin today
‘Poverty cannot be acceptable, at all’ – Councillor Frank Ross
The City of Edinburgh Council’s Economy Convener, Councillor Frank Ross, makes the case for a Living Wage: Continue reading Cllr Frank Ross: Living Wage key to to tackling poverty
Life expectancy gap between rich and poor continues to grow
Lothian MSP and Scottish Greens’ spokesperson on Health and Wellbeing, Alison Johnstone has branded figures that show funding discrepancies between GPs in poorer and wealthier areas of Scotland as “shocking”.
The figures, published yesterday, were obtained by researchers at the University of Glasgow and University of Dundee, and demonstrate there is a £7 per person per year funding gap between GP practices in the top 10% most affluent and the 10% most deprived areas.
Johnstone highlighted that health inequalities in her home region and around Scotland are rife, with a 7.3 year gap between Local Authorities in overall male life expectancy, and a 5.2 year difference between Local Authorities in overall female life expectancy.
Johnstone urged the Scottish Government to ensure that GPs in more deprived communities are able to deliver a high-quality health service, and called for resources to be distributed according to need, not wealth.
Alison Johnstone said: “These shocking figures highlight the challenges our NHS is facing trying to provide a decent service to all those who need it. It’s vitally important that help goes where it’s most needed, and the unequal distribution of funding means that doctors in deprived communities are unlikely to have the resources to meet their patients’ needs.
“In Lothian, a person living in one of the more affluent parts of the region can expect to live nearly two decades longer than those from the poorest. If we don’t ensure that people in the poorest areas get the same quality service as wealthier communities, we have no chance of eradicating health inequalities.
“I urge the Scottish Government to take these figures very seriously and to reconsider how it distributes GP resources. It’s time to get back to basics – every single person from in Scotland deserves high quality healthcare, and we must make sure our NHS can deliver.”
Highest life expectancy for men in Scotland is in East Dumbartonshire at 80.7 years, with lowest in Glasgow City at 73.4 years. For females, highest life expectancy is in East Dunbartonshire at 83.9 years, and lowest at 78.7 years.
Figures available at: http://www.gro-scotland.gov.
Giving children the chance to be kids on Christmas Day
In Edinburgh the Lothians and Fife there are an estimated 45,872 children living in poverty. Continue reading Forth 1’s Mission Christmas
“Tax Credits are a vital piece of support for many families who need to bridge the gap between low-paid work and the costs of raising a family.” – Julia Unwin, Joseph Rowntree Foundation Continue reading Tax Credit cuts: an impending disaster?
More young people than ever living in poverty
The most comprehensive review ever carried out on progress towards greater equality and human rights protection across Scotland and the rest of Britain has been published. Continue reading It’s not fair: ‘many people are being left behind’
“Poverty has a huge impact on health and wellbeing, including damp housing, hunger, lack of access to healthy food, and stress and depression.” – Graham Mackenzie, Consultant in Public Health, NHS Lothian
Two Lothian projects that began with a midwife helping mums improve their nutrition have evolved into a support network ensuring low income families access thousands of pounds of unclaimed entitlements.
The projects in Leith and West Lothian have each had a welfare rights adviser working since March with a team of NHS Lothian, council and voluntary sector workers.
The welfare rights advisers are funded by the Scottish Legal Aid Board (SLAB) as part of its Tackling Money Worries programme.
In Leith, Granton Information Centre (GIC) has provided money and welfare rights advice to 89 families referred by midwives, health visitors, Dr Bell’s Family Centre, Citadel Youth Centre, nurseries and early years centres, and working with Edinburgh Community Food.
For these families the total financial gain during 2015-16 is projected to be £404,000, or an average of £4,500 per client. The maximum financial gain for one client so far has been £15,000.
This is in addition to the support GIC (pictured below) has already provided to the most vulnerable families in the North Edinburgh area, who are not included in these figures.
Citizens Advice Bureau West Lothian has been supporting families in West Lothian in a similar project, also funded by SLAB. In that project around 200 clients have gained £300,000, an average of almost £5,000 per client.
Over half of those accessing support for the first time have been in work, and were not aware of their unclaimed entitlements (e.g. tax credits, benefits) and other help available (e.g. advice about debt, access to hardship funds).
The figures have been released during Challenge Poverty Week 2015 which aims to raise awareness of poverty and to highlight the great work that community organisations are doing to help those in crisis.
Graham Mackenzie, Consultant in Public Health, NHS Lothian, said the success of the advice projects illustrated the importance of the NHS and other services working with welfare rights advisers, and could be repeated in many other parts of the UK.
“This work, which started with a single midwife focusing on ensuring families were claiming food vouchers they were entitled to, has expanded into a sophisticated package of support that we are aiming to offer to hundreds of families over the coming year.
“Poverty has a huge impact on health and wellbeing, including damp housing, hunger, lack of access to healthy food, and stress and depression.
“With hundreds of thousands of pounds secured for families, and more to come, we are taking practical steps to help families tackle the consequences of poverty.”
The Lothian projects were formed following work started with Healthy Start food and vitamin vouchers, a UK-wide scheme designed to improve nutrition for low income families. Across the UK around a quarter of eligible families miss out on these valuable vouchers, with the number of pregnant women and children under four years old in receipt of vouchers falling over recent years. In Lothian, however, after concentrated work with NHS Lothian staff and families, the number of pregnant women in receipt of vouchers increased from 294 in March 2014 to 368 in July 2015.
The work started with simple insights from a single midwife about how to make the application process more reliable, and secure vouchers for women earlier in pregnancy.
From 10 weeks of pregnancy to the child’s fourth birthday Healthy Start vouchers are worth up to £899 in total.
With 76 more women benefitting across Lothian as a result, this work has boosted family budgets by tens of thousands of pounds; this in addition to the hundreds of thousands secured through the Tackling Money Worries work. Vouchers can be spent on fresh and frozen fruit and vegetables, milk and formula feed. Vitamin vouchers are provided separately.
This work, part of the Scottish Government Early Years Collaborative, provided insights that have now been applied to much greater effect through the Lothian Tackling Money Worries projects by providing families with money and welfare rights advice.
Cyrenians launch TELL YOUR STORY campaign
More than a quarter of Scots believe poverty is a result of laziness according to a new poll published by a Scottish charity seeking to challenge public perceptions of those in need.
The poll, commissioned by Cyrenians as part of their newly-launched “Tell Your Story” campaign aimed at changing public perceptions of those living in poverty, found that 28% believed poverty was a result of laziness on the part of those living in poverty. 24% believed a lack of willpower was another contributory factor to people living in poverty
The study found that the majority of Scots think that unemployment (76%), addiction (59%) and family circumstances (56%) are main causes of poverty.
Scottish people believe early intervention and working with those most at risk, along with providing more jobs, are the best ways to reduce poverty, with only a tiny minority backing reductions in benefits.
The poll found that Scots believed providing jobs (59%), working with families at risk of poverty (58%), early intervention (53%) and providing education (51%) were the best ways the Government should help those living in poverty in Scotland; with only a tiny minority (6%) believing cutting benefits would do so.
In order to tackle poverty, Cyrenians aim over the next five years to increase the number of people they support annually from 4400 to 6000 people in a major expansion of their work in Scotland as they respond to a rise in demand from those who feel excluded from family, home, work or community. These interventions include:
The leaders of Scotland’s five main political parties, along with major celebrities such as Irvine Welsh, Mark Greenaway, Brian Cox, Grant Stott, Bill Paterson and Mark Cousins have backed Cyrenians call for people to tell their own personal story to remind us that everyone has a past, a present and a future. Cyrenians aim is to shine a light on the different ways anyone can find themselves in poverty in order to change public perceptions of those in need.
To encourage others to tell their story, Cyrenians has published a series of case studies of people they have worked with and who, for a variety of reasons, have been excluded and fallen in to different types of poverty, only to turn their lives around with help from the innovative work of the charity.
Announcing the expansion at an event with award-winning TV chef, Mark Greenaway, at Cyrenians Good Food depot in Edinburgh, Cyrenians Chief Executive Ewan Aitken, said: “The Scottish public clearly believe that the type of support provided by Cyrenians, such as working with people in danger of becoming excluded from their family or home at an early stage and working with those most at risk, are the best ways to reduce poverty rather than blunt financial instruments or stigmatising language. We want to build on that and challenge any perception amongst the public that those in poverty are only there through laziness or lack of willpower.
“Politicians, along with the rest of society, must stand-up and tackle the causes of poverty and change public perceptions. To do that we must work to prevent people from feeling excluded from family, home, work or the wider community. Through our own stories and those of people we support, as well as they services we provide, we can achieve that change.
“We should remember that we all have a past, a present and a future, so we are urging people to come forward and, please: TELL YOUR STORY.”
