Poverty action must reflect children’s views
Our office has long-called for children and young people to be meaningfully involved in informing the Child Poverty delivery plans. We need to see visible priority given to acting on child poverty including acting on the priorities of children and young people themselves. We were pleased to see the engagement work done to listen to the voices of children and young people by both the UK Government and the Scottish Government. We also saw that work of our office which collated the views of children and young people from a wide range of children’s organisations across Scotland, on the areas they were most concerned about, was considered1.
It is essential that Government listens to and takes account of the views of children and young people experiencing poverty.
This is why it was so disappointing to see so little of what children identified as key areas for them, in Scottish Government’s Child Poverty Delivery Plan and the outcomes of the UK Child Poverty Taskforce.
In Scotland, children and young people raised the following issues as priorities that were not mentioned or not addressed:
- access to mental health support – while investment in adult mental health was promised, there was no commitment to such investment for children and young people despite their clear call for this support.
- The need for access to essentials including hygiene products and clothes for themselves – we often hear how children experiencing poverty will hide these needs from parents or carers so as not to place an additional burden on family income.
- lack of jobs for young people leaving school, while a focus on skills for employment for adults is addressed, there is no specific commitment of investment in employability support that is tailored for young people.
- extending school free meals provision.
- access to social activities and hobbies, which children and young people experiencing poverty miss out on compared to their peers - while investment in primary age activities and summer sport opportunities have since been announced there still appears to be no long-term plan for bridging social opportunity gaps, particularly for older young people.
In addition, the plan also does not pay enough attention to groups such as young people without family support, children in families with adults unable to work, and in families experiencing in-work poverty.
Poverty is the most significant human rights issues facing children and young people in Scotland. Whilst recognising the investment and progress Scottish Government has made so far– this is a critical moment for the ambition to meet the scale of the challenge.
We support the call for an updated Child Poverty Action plan to be created by Scottish Government, which includes greater visibility, and measures to address the impact that poverty has on children and young people who are experiencing it, including addressing and responding to the key priorities they have shared.
We also want to see Scottish Government and the UK Government working together to maximise available resources to combat child poverty – if we are to ensure that child poverty is ended then both Governments need to work together.