Latest news with #ActionForChildren
BBC News
4 days ago
- General
- BBC News
Monksfield Hexham children's respite closure 'devastating'
The "devastating" closure of a children's respite care service has left a mother fearing it could take a year to find a replacement facility for her and her Wilkinson said 12-year-old Sarah, who has severe mental and physical disabilities, had "absolutely loved" attending Monksfield House in Hexham, Northumberland, every the charity Action For Children has said it was closing its short break service because of difficulties recruiting and retaining County Council, who had referred families to the charity, said it was "working on personalised plans of support with those who have been affected". For more than 20 years, staff at Monksfield would take disabled children for days out and overnight stays to provide respite for their families and help the youngsters experience new activities and make For Children said it was closing the service from September, but Miss Wilkinson said it was shut at the end of July."The staff there were absolutely amazing with her," she said."They would do her hair, paint her nails, them sort of things." 'Such hard work' Sarah was born with atypical Rett syndrome, a rare genetic neurological disorder which affects her speech and limits her Wilkinson has three more of her children living at home and said the help from Monksfield had been "extremely valuable".Sarah used to be collected from her school in Ashington on a Friday and went to Monksfield for the weekend, before being taken back to school on Monday Wilkinson said: "It's such hard work, you don't know how hard it is when you've got a child with special needs."She thinks the impact on her daughter will be "devastating" because Sarah was "not going to be able to experience the things she was experiencing, and go out and do things".Ms Wilkinson was told it could take a year to get Sarah a place at a replacement service and could be with an operator based an hour away. Action For Children said the residential children's home, also at Monksfield, was unaffected and would remain would also run a partial short break service through the summer Conservative-led local authority added it was working with the charity to "continue to review options". Follow BBC North East on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
Yahoo
19-07-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Column: Somerset's child poverty crisis continues to worsen
Child poverty is at an undoubted high across the UK, writes Rowan Russell. A record 4.5m children were living in poverty in the UK in the year to April 2024 and an extra 100,000 children were living below the breadline. These national statistics are reflected locally in Somerset, with an estimate of 14,300 children across the county living in extremely low-income households. These already staggering statistics are likely to be even higher as housing costs are not taken into account when calculating local figures, unlike the broader national ones, where the relative poverty is looked at after housing costs, as well as the local statistics only counting children aged up to 15 while the national ones record children up to 19 years old. The figures have been steadily rising over the past few years, from 2018 when around 12,150 children were recorded to be living in poverty - just 13.1 per cent - to now, where the percentage has increased to roughly 17 per cent - not even taking housing costs into account. However, in recent research done by the End Child Poverty Coalition in the South West, the figure was closer to 27 per cent when making the calculations after housing costs. Robert Wyatt, Action for Children's operational director in the South West, said: "No child in the South West should have to experience poverty. "These figures should demonstrate to the government just how important it is to quickly address this to prevent another generation of children from growing up in low-income families. "One in four children in the South West live in homes where daily essentials are a struggle – it's a national scandal, and we see the impact on children and families in our frontline services every day." The research also showed a strong correlation between the two-child benefit cap and children living in poverty in the South West. The two-child benefit cap was introduced by the Conservative government in 2017 and restricts the support that families with more than two children can receive. It is estimated that the two-child benefit cap affects around 2,425 children in Somerset alone. Although scrapping the cap would cost the government roughly an additional £3bn a year if fully implemented, it would provide 300,000 children nationwide with an escape from poverty. Mr Wyatt continued to say: "As a first step the government must scrap the two-child limit to benefit payments, a policy which continues to pull children into poverty every day." The policy does indeed result in children dropping into poverty on a daily basis. The End Child Poverty Coalition estimates that the limit pulls 109 children below the breadline every day across the country. Joseph Howes, CEO of Buttle UK and chair of the End Child Poverty Coalition, said: "Scrapping the two-child limit is a crucial first step to address rising child poverty across the UK. "By doing this the government could also see a boost to local economies, targeting some of the most deprived areas of the country. "We don't want to see another year of families suffering as a result of the two-child limit. "The government must scrap this policy as part of their soon-to-be-published strategy to tackle child poverty." Children from low-income households across the country do, however, receive support through their schools. In Somerset, the Somerset Household Support Fund gives vital support to struggling families such as providing Free School Meal vouchers during school holidays for children, weekend activities and warm spaces for families, food and fuel provisions and more. Additionally, locally-targeted organisations such as Spark Somerset and Connect Somerset help to support low-income families in the area. Spark Somerset provides information on warm and welcoming places providing young people with a place to rely on during the winter months. Connect Somerset offers help services, including a 'Team around the School' model where professionals connect with and help support schools and families. Many more national support mechanisms are in place that can be accessed via school, such as Pupil Premium, which gives schools funding relevant to the number of pupils eligible for free school meals at the specific school, and the National Funding Formula which provides schools with the additional funding they might require to give extra support to disadvantaged pupils. On top of this, the government has just announced a new fund called the Better Futures Fund. This fund is designed to support over 200,000 children living in poverty. It will run for 10 years and will aim to bring together "government, local communities, charities, social enterprises, investors, and philanthropists to work together to give children a brighter future." It also aims to intervene with children and young people heading down a path to a life of crime, hoping to give career opportunities and a promise of a safer future. This intervention will lead to many mental health support and social care organisations and indeed schools to be relieved of a lot of stress. The fund could provide additional funds in schools to bring up attendance and therefore the overall achievement of pupils. In Somerset and the South West, local youth services will be able to bid on Better Futures Funding for schemes that will focus on such things as reintegrating children excluded from school, supporting young people experiencing mental health crises and diverting at-risk youth away from criminal or antisocial behaviours. It will also be possible to build on existing regional infrastructure. The South West has many established business partners in health, education, social care, and housing, such as Somerset's Strategic Housing Group integrated approach and community-led support services. The Better Futures Fund will result in a boost in the work of organisations already supporting local vulnerable families by patching any holes in existing networks. The fund is also likely to result in unemployment going down - if sustainable organisations are given more funding then more job opportunities will become available. Children's commissioner for England, Dame Rachel de Souza, speaks of a noticeable change in how children and young people talk about their lives. She said: "Issues that were traditionally seen as 'adult' concerns are now keenly felt by children. "Children shared harrowing accounts of hardship, with some in almost Dickensian levels of poverty. "They don't talk about 'poverty' as an abstract concept but about not having the things that most people would consider basic: a safe home that isn't mouldy or full of rats, with a bed big enough to stretch out in, 'luxury' food like bacon, a place to do homework, heating, privacy in the bathroom and being able to wash, having their friends over, and not having to travel hours to school." After a period of undeniable growth in child poverty, hopefully more measures will be put in place along with the existing ones that will lead to an ease in the harsh statistics of the struggling of so many children.
BBC News
25-06-2025
- Health
- BBC News
New service launches to help young people on Guernsey quit vapes
A service to help young people in Guernsey to stop vaping has promised to support those "struggling to quit" by will run for an initial pilot period of six months and was available to young people aged 12-18. Set up by Public Health Services, in collaboration with Action for Children, care leavers will be able to use the service up to the age of sessions and nicotine replacement therapy will be provided for those heavily addicted. 'Team effort' Aaron Davies, Service Manager at Action for Children, said it was intended to "provide specific support to those struggling to quit on their own".Coinciding with regulation implemented at the start of this month banning the sale of vapes to under 18s, QuitVape aims to help young people reduce their use due to potential health risks that come with would be available in three tiers, including a self-help booklet available both online and at schools and community spaces, along with six face-to-face sessions offering vape tapering advice and extended behavioural provided are personal sessions provided by the School Nursing team for those more heavily offer immediate vaping cessation and nicotine replacement Hawkins-Drew, Associate Director of Public Health, called the pilot "a real team effort", while Katie Hill, School Nurse Team Leader, said it was "fantastic news" for those trying to cut down or quit.
The Independent
05-06-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Charities welcome free school meals change but warn ‘more is needed'
Charities have welcomed the expansion of free school meals as a 'first step' towards easing child poverty, but urged the Government to axe the two-child benefit cap as economists warned the scope of the change would be limited. Campaigners and school leaders said the change, which will see all pupils in families that claim universal credit in England made eligible for the scheme, will relieve pressure on household budgets. But organisations including the NSPCC, the National Children's Bureau and Action for Children insisted the abolition of the two-child welfare rule was still needed. Meanwhile, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) warned the expansion would 'not see anything like 100,000 children lifted out of poverty next year' and that lifting the cap 'would have a lower cost per child lifted out of poverty.' The cap, which was introduced in 2017, restricts child tax credit and universal credit to two children in most households. Hundreds of thousands more pupils across the country will be able to access means-tested free school meals when the provision is extended from September 2026, the Department for Education (DfE) announced on Thursday. Currently, households in England on universal credit must earn below £7,400 a year (after tax and not including benefits) to qualify for free school meals. But the Government has announced that every pupil whose household is on universal credit will have a new entitlement to free school lunches from the start of the 2026/27 academic year. The move comes after campaigners and education leaders have called for free school meals to be extended to all children whose families are on universal credit to ease pressures on young people living in poverty. Nearly 2.1 million pupils – almost one in four of all pupils (24.6%) – in England were eligible for free school meals in January 2024. The DfE has said more than half a million more children are expected to benefit from a free meal every school day as a result of the expansion, and nearly £500 will be put back into parents' pockets every year. It suggested that the expansion will lift 100,000 children across England completely out of poverty. Chris Sherwood, chief executive of the NSPCC, said the move was a 'welcome step in the right direction' and 'a lifeline for many families who are struggling to survive in this cost-of-living crisis'. But he added: 'By removing the two-child limit, the government could lift over 350,000 children out of poverty, which, if coupled with an ambitious child poverty strategy later in the year, would help tackle the crisis children are facing.' Action for Children chief executive Paul Carberry said the changes would make a 'big difference' but 'by itself, it can't deliver the bold, ambitious reduction in child poverty that the Prime Minister has promised'. Sir Keir Starmer has indicated he is considering scrapping the two-child limit amid the prospect of a backbench rebellion over the policy, but has declined to give further details ahead of the publication of the Government's flagship child poverty strategy in the autumn. Mr Carberry said: 'This must set out a comprehensive and funded plan to fix our inadequate social security system, beginning with the abolition of the cruel two-child limit and benefit cap.' Anna Feuchtwang, chief executive of the National Children's Bureau, said the expansion should be a 'down payment' on further investment in addressing child poverty in the autumn. She said it was 'crucial' that the Government reconsiders its position on the two-child limit for the autumn. Anna Taylor, executive director of The Food Foundation, called it a 'landmark day for children'. She said: 'The expansion of free school meals is supported by the overwhelming majority of people in the UK – regardless of how they vote. 'We all know that feeding our children well, whatever their background is not rocket science, it is about priorities and today the government put children first.' The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said that in the long term, the change would mean free lunches for about 1.7 million additional children, but that in the short run, the announcement would benefit 'considerably fewer pupils'. Christine Farquharson, associate director at the think tank, said: 'Transitional protections introduced in 2018 have substantially increased the number of children receiving free school meals today – so in the short run, today's announcement will both cost considerably less (around £250 million a year) and benefit considerably fewer pupils (the government's estimate is 500,000 children). 'This also means that today's announcement will not see anything like 100,000 children lifted out of poverty next year.' She added: 'There is some evidence too that school meals can have benefits for children's health and attainment. 'But if the government's main interest is to reduce child poverty, there are other measures – such as lifting the two-child limit – that would have a lower cost per child lifted out of poverty.'
BBC News
28-05-2025
- General
- BBC News
Artists wanted for homeless charity's 'bright and natural' mural
Artists across Guernsey are being given the chance to create a mural for a charity supporting children at risk of for Children (AFC) said it was teaming up with Guernsey Arts to improve one of its accommodation's communal areas by giving it a "bright and natural" interested could submit a design and, after it has been approved by the young people, they would be given a fee of £1,000 and materials to help create the mural, bosses said. AFC houses people between the age of 13 and 25 in so-called training flats to teach them about living skills, employment, and how to deal with substance abuse. "We know engaging in projects around the arts improves long-term outcomes for young people," said Aaron Davies, from Action for Children."This particular project allows us to design a space where young people can create a sense of community, peer support and pride where they live."Guernsey Arts said it was "thrilled" to help provide "more positive, social environments" for young must submit their design to Jade@ with "AFC Mural" in the subject line.
