What is ‘deprivation’

[0None0]

It’s such a common term. I have my own idea what it means, but would like to hear other ideas. A lot of people and situations described as ‘deprived’ I would not consider to be deprived

I think there are a lot of things listed here that I would not consider to be deprivation. That’s why I’m having trouble with this concept. There are times in my life I would have considered myself deprived, and there’s times I would not have considered myself deprived, but posters here would have considered me deprived. I hugely dispute some of your definitions.

I also don’t think it helps s anyone to consider a 14 year old to be unable to take responsibility for their decisions

I think they can

@Cowbells

0None0. You can lack access to education if your family home doesn't have internet or a TV or any books, a printer or paper. Homework is set with the assumption that pupils can look up info online or print stuff out.

Deprivation to me means inadequate
housing
clothing
utilities
food
social opportunities
work opportunities
educational opportunities

No, schools do not make that assumption. -internet access anc printer access is available in school for homework. Many children have no internet or printer, that’s why schools have to provide it

@FAQs

I think it’s probably mostly not having a safe stable secure home. Children in damp housing, children in homes vulnerable to burglary and vandalism, children living in a home with an abuser, children in temporary accommodation, moved frequently, or with parents that move in and out with a different partner regularly.

This is what I have come to feel is the worst deprivation among children.

No safe secure stable home

And it has surprisingly little to do with income. Families can be earning well and still be homeless.

And I have over the years become more and more aware of bullying between siblings. Some children are not physically or mentally safe in Their own homes because of this.

And that can be wealthy privately educated children too

The longer I teach, the less I think deprivation is connected to income. It is far more connected to the type of home you are in. You can be very poor on a council estate. Not enough money for 3 meals a day. No hearing, no hot water, no washing machine. ( I raised children like this). That is not deprecation though. If your home is safe and secure

@0None0 ^^ seriously you’ve only just worked this out!

Honestly it’s noble you want to campaign however you’ll struggle to connect on the same level and risk coming across as patronising, and dare I say a champagne socialist who hasn’t got a clue what it’s like to grow up in that environment, direct it at the Gov for sure, however I think you’ll be talking from stats and not any type of reality, I can’t believe as a teacher this has only just occurred to you.

A champagne socialist ? Who has no idea of what it’s like to be in that environment? I assure you I am exactly the opposite. Which is why I feel better qualified than some to get involved in this

Sorry, which schools do you know that provide printer access? Because where my DDs went, they absolutely did not. Schools have had their budgets slashed to the bone in the past 10 years. I've provided printer access to DD2's GF because her mum can't afford to run a printer. The cost of ink is phenomenal.

You really don't live in the real world. And you need to stop it with the comparisons with developing countries in terms of what 'real' deprivation is - it's a cheap shot tactic. We live in the UK, we are a wealthy westernised nation, those are the standards.

*I also don’t think it helps s anyone to consider a 14 year old to be unable to take responsibility for their decisions

I think they can*

A lot can’t.

I used to regularly miss days at school because I was bullied so horrifically that I couldn’t get the bus as I’d be spat on. I used to have to leave at 7am to get a bus that no one else would be on and hide at the end of the playing field and then in the loos until school started to avoid the bullies (some nights I was so distraught from the bullying at school and my awful home life that I didn’t sleep, I was also left alone while my dad did nightshifts after my mum died when i was a child so I was too scared to sleep those nights, meaning I was too tired to get the early buses), or wait until the day as my dads shifts meant he could drive me.

No one would believe anyone was bullying me, the one who was failing at the well regarded grammar, the golden girls doing it were beyond reproach, so there was no help.

No teacher ever spoke to me about staying on for 6th form. They washed their hands of me.

I applied for college in the next town over to start fresh but my dad wouldn’t pay the bus fare, or buy the equipment and materials I needed for the course so I couldn’t go.

Plus my dad was the age of most of my peers grandfathers - he expected me to leave school and just get “a little job in a shop” until I got married to give up work and have kids.

I’ve heard so many stories like mine.

I never had a fucking hope.

@Sn0tnose

I maybe want to be spending some time in politics and campaigning

You don’t understand why children may be unable to access education. You think that teens not doing so is a choice. You believe that schools provide coats, shoes, cooking ingredients and sanitary products. You don’t think that children need three meals a day. You believe that being warm and having hot water to wash in are luxuries. I haven’t advance searched you but it sounds like you’ve made some pretty unpleasant comments about people attending certain universities. And you’re feeling like you’ve been ‘suckered’ into believing the reasons behind deprivation.

I’m curious about what you think you’d be able to contribute to society?

No, in many cases I don’t understand why teens are being deemed as helpless victims unable to make decisions for themselves

I KNOW schools provide shoes, coats, cooking ingredients and sanitary products, and have done for decades

I have lived much of my adult life without hot water or heating, as gas most of the world, and it’s fine! It’s just an expectation these days, that’s all

No idea what you mean about universities….

And yes, I do think the whole paradigm of presumptions behind our current understanding of ‘deprivation’ needs examining

And the most significant issues need prioritising and addressing.

And yes, I think I have a lot to offer

Deprivation simply means not being able to have something you generally should have. It's relative to the society you live in. In a country of billionaires a millionaire would be deprived. It has a clear definition so it's not really something to ponder. An individual's definition doesn't matter, it's society's definitions of necessities that matters. If most of the country see something as a necessity or basic and some people can't have that, that's deprivation. I guess here it would be adequate and safe food, water, shelter, workplaces, job roles, schools, health care, public transport, consumer rights etc. Maybe more recently it includes access to things like computers and Internet.

Which is why I feel better qualified than some to get involved in this

You seem like the absolute worst person to get involved in this.

A champagne socialist ? Who has no idea of what it’s like to be in that environment? I assure you I am exactly the opposite. Which is why I feel better qualified than some to get involved in this

So, you're a skint Tory?

That figures, what with the 'I put my kids through a childhood of being too cold to sleep properly, too cold to wash/shower daily, smelly clothes and it didn't harm them in the slightest' schtick.

The patronising tone also gives it away, plus the inability to spell deprivation.

Come on, Pritti, don't you have a dinghy or two to chuck darts at or something?

While poverty is not necessarily synonymous with deprivation there are some studies on London www.trustforlondon.org.uk/data/poverty-thresholds/ and by Barnardos www.barnardos.org.uk/overcoming-poverty-hope which may illustrate some of the issues.

Well that’s silly. What percentage of the worlds population do you believe has heating and hot water ? It’s a small privileged minority

OP, you said at the start of the thread you were talking specifically about the UK.

Either you're being goady, or you're spectacularly obtuse.

I think people (including teens) do what they think is their in best interest.

School banging on about how important qualifications are, for some teens, will not outweigh low expectations and lack of jobs etc from their community.
I can't afford university, it's not for the likes of me anyway, it will be full of snobs, and there aren't any jobs here for graduates so what's the point, plus my friends take the mick of me for working when they are off playing football, and Mum wants me to bring some money in

And yes, I think I have a lot to offer

Given that you've either ignored, downplayed or failed to understand many of the points people have raised on this thread, I disagree. I think you would do more harm than good.

@Arsebucket

*I also don’t think it helps s anyone to consider a 14 year old to be unable to take responsibility for their decisions

I think they can*

A lot can’t.

I used to regularly miss days at school because I was bullied so horrifically that I couldn’t get the bus as I’d be spat on. I used to have to leave at 7am to get a bus that no one else would be on and hide at the end of the playing field and then in the loos until school started to avoid the bullies (some nights I was so distraught from the bullying at school and my awful home life that I didn’t sleep, I was also left alone while my dad did nightshifts after my mum died when i was a child so I was too scared to sleep those nights, meaning I was too tired to get the early buses), or wait until the day as my dads shifts meant he could drive me.

No one would believe anyone was bullying me, the one who was failing at the well regarded grammar, the golden girls doing it were beyond reproach, so there was no help.

No teacher ever spoke to me about staying on for 6th form. They washed their hands of me.

I applied for college in the next town over to start fresh but my dad wouldn’t pay the bus fare, or buy the equipment and materials I needed for the course so I couldn’t go.

Plus my dad was the age of most of my peers grandfathers - he expected me to leave school and just get “a little job in a shop” until I got married to give up work and have kids.

I’ve heard so many stories like mine.

I never had a fucking hope.

That's a brilliant post @Arsebucket. You explain so clearly why it is not always possible for a teenager to sort their own life out, especially if they have no support and never had any. I hope life is better for you now.

.

No, in many cases I don’t understand why teens are being deemed as helpless victims unable to make decisions for themselves

There is a spectrum between 'helpless victim unable to make decisions for themselves' and that idea that a teenager - or all teenagers - will have the same capacity or access as an adult to make choices. Both by biology and social structures, teenagers in school don't.

I entirely agreed with you on OP how deprivation can in many ways not be connected to the parents' income - it very much can, but also children with well to do parents don't automatically have access to everything their parents have, but that also includes the support to get education or anything else. Something I was discussing in a meeting today with school staff was the inclusion of vulnerable students that aren't eligible to pupil premium and the work done to identify them.

When I was a teenager, I literally spent weeks without an adult in the home. I also had an undertreated trauma disorder and physical disability (many disabled children still face barriers to accessing education). There were days I was very late for school because between that disorder, the executive dysfunction, the pain, and just not having anyone in my home who gave a fuck if I did, getting out of bed was fucking hard. You could frame it as a choice, that I was "old enough" as I too often heard, but it wasn't a free choice. I didn't have the resources or the well-being to make better choices and I had no support. As an adult, I still have multiple supports that I've put in place to help me get up even on days where everything hurts, but teen me didn't have access to that.

I also finished school in one of the most well-to-do school in the metro area, the only A rated school, the one people spent over 5k in property tax a year so their kids could go there, but I was largely left to struggle because it was a nice area and I was - as a police officer once told me when I told him at 15 that I hadn't seen a parent in 3 weeks - "old enough". All that led me to feel is that no one cared when shite happened I was 6, definitely no one is going to care when the same shite happened when I was 16 and I gave up asking for help from adults. I got plenty from other teenagers, many who had supportive parents, but adults directly, no. I lived down to their expectations of me.

Those who work in schools or in similar spaces have to be aware and vigilent to these issues in children - including teenagers - to be able to deal with deprivation. Income does play a significant but it isn't the only role -- but age isn't a reason to write off kids as just making bad choices. We should do better than that.

The fact is poverty is the biggest indicator of life expectancy and healthy life expectancy however you define deprivation. It's not some ephemeral concept. Poverty is intrinsically linked to health and opportunity. www.bmj.com/content/364/bmj.l1492

Some teenagers can take responsibility for their decisions, some can’t, as their decisions don’t exist in a vacuum. Unless you think a 14 year old who stays at home to look after their younger siblings because their mum is ill and their dad is a drug addict, for example, could just say ‘no sorry, sort yourselves out, I’m off to school’, or a teenager who is being horrifically bullied just needs to ‘rise above it’?

I find it quite concerning that apparently you are a teacher. You’re actually saying that you don’t believe children- or adults- need heating and hot water? They don’t need 3 meals a day? That every child in the uk has access to education with no restriction at all?

I disagree with you btw. On everything. You sound suspiciously like the teachers I had growing up who must have had some idea that my siblings and I were neglected, sometimes wilfully, sometimes not and existed in a very deprived household. They did fuck all about it. Maybe like you, they didn’t think that we needed any of the stuff listed above and could go on our merry way

@IDontReadEyebrows

I find it quite concerning that apparently you are a teacher. You’re actually saying that you don’t believe children- or adults- need heating and hot water? They don’t need 3 meals a day? That every child in the uk has access to education with no restriction at all?

I disagree with you btw. On everything. You sound suspiciously like the teachers I had growing up who must have had some idea that my siblings and I were neglected, sometimes wilfully, sometimes not and existed in a very deprived household. They did fuck all about it. Maybe like you, they didn’t think that we needed any of the stuff listed above and could go on our merry way

Concerning? Fucking terrifying.

"I think. It having enough food would be deprivation. But that doesn’t mean you have to have 3 meals a day. And I think you can have a perfectly good home without heating or hot water. These things are nice to have, but are luxuries not necessities I have not had these things most of my adult life"

And it's at this point I knew there's literally no point in having an actually conversation about this.

@IDontReadEyebrows

I find it quite concerning that apparently you are a teacher. You’re actually saying that you don’t believe children- or adults- need heating and hot water? They don’t need 3 meals a day? That every child in the uk has access to education with no restriction at all?

I disagree with you btw. On everything. You sound suspiciously like the teachers I had growing up who must have had some idea that my siblings and I were neglected, sometimes wilfully, sometimes not and existed in a very deprived household. They did fuck all about it. Maybe like you, they didn’t think that we needed any of the stuff listed above and could go on our merry way

I would have hoped that teachers these days have had more training around these issues.

It seems not much has changed since the ones who ignored my problems and just wrote me off when I was in desperate need of help.

I think. It having enough food would be deprivation. But that doesn’t mean you have to have 3 meals a day. And I think you can have a perfectly good home without heating or hot water. These things are nice to have, but are luxuries not necessities I have not had these things most of my adult life

Presumably that was your choice though, and you were aware and would have preferred better. Many children and adults living in deprivation do not have that option.

@IDontReadEyebrows

I find it quite concerning that apparently you are a teacher. You’re actually saying that you don’t believe children- or adults- need heating and hot water? They don’t need 3 meals a day? That every child in the uk has access to education with no restriction at all?

I disagree with you btw. On everything. You sound suspiciously like the teachers I had growing up who must have had some idea that my siblings and I were neglected, sometimes wilfully, sometimes not and existed in a very deprived household. They did fuck all about it. Maybe like you, they didn’t think that we needed any of the stuff listed above and could go on our merry way

She'd certainly find herself in hot water facing disciplinary action if she failed to complete a safeguarding disclosure when one of her students said that they had no heating or hot water and didn't have breakfast/dinner because Mum reckoned they didn't need it, all because she thought it was perfectly OK to do so.

And there would be no defence against it - not 'well, I've done it to my own kids', as that would then result in an urgent investigation because you've said you neglect your children.

However, I'm pretty sure this isn't real, as school staff have to complete safeguarding training and neglect is clearly covered in Keeping Children Safe in Education.

She'd certainly find herself in hot water facing disciplinary action if she failed to complete a safeguarding disclosure when one of her students said that they had no heating or hot water and didn't have breakfast/dinner because Mum reckoned they didn't need it, all because she thought it was perfectly OK to do so

And there would be no defence against it - not 'well, I've done it to my own kids', as that would then result in an urgent investigation because you've said you neglect your children

However, I'm pretty sure this isn't real, as school staff have to complete safeguarding training and neglect is clearly covered in Keeping Children Safe in Education

Sadly, I’m fairly sure the OP is aware of this, she just doesn’t agree with it. She doesn’t think it’s neglect. Those children just need to learn some resilience.