If you grew up poor, what minor/low level thing would have helped you?

[flowersintheatticus]

Obviously the solution is money, which isn't really an option. I'm involved in a very small scale community 'levelling up' project to help dc who are in the lowest socio-economic bracket. What practical/human resource might have helped you? The families already have access to food bank/heating vouchers, so it's more aimed at the children and their development, education and wellbeing. Any suggestions welcome.

This. This in spades.

Hope to the poorer kids that there is a way out through education, I eventually escaped by going to university. But if I was a poor kid now then I wouldn't go because the scale of debt involved would be terrifying. So some sort of confidence building and mentoring is really important, and young people I've seen mentored can blossom if they get good support.

My primary school nurtured the middle class kids but the poorest kids, especially the girls, seem to be written off very early as not being worth the investment.

Funds or paid for extra curricular activities which are wholly paid for and are really accessible eg kids can get there and back, equipment or clothing is provided. I was offered some school trips (UK, Switzerland, France, Belgium) which were 80-90% funded but we couldn't afford the balance, nor the extra kit involved like a suitcase or a sleeping bag, but my parents weren't interested either. I did go on one UK trip and worried incessantly about not having the right clothes or shoes (even just basic winter ones). Kit and fitting in is really important to kids, there's a lot of stigma to standing out for the wrong reasons.

I agree with the previous comments about offering different experiences especially outside of the reach of public transport or the usual cultural scope, and making these accessible too.

And to the OP - being a kind aunty who listens without judgement but gives encouragement would be one of the best kinds of support available

@flowersintheatticus perhaps you could contact your nearest Decathlon/Go Outdoors/Sports Direct etc and see if you could get donations of new shoes, coats etc from their overstock from last season.

The charity Transforming Lives For Good (TLG) train people who volunteer to be mentors and matches them up with children who need mentors. Anyone can suggest a child whom they feel would benefit from mentoring, it's usually their schools. TLG need volunteer mentors.

Being able to go on school trips at high school. And learning violin or piano when I was at primary school.

I had a look at that but it doesn’t have an option to search for what’s going on in a particular area.

I have to agree about the extra curricular activities and holiday clubs. Not being able to have the same opportunities outside of school. Once school is over they have very little.

@AutumnMagpies that's a shame. Is there a phone number? I'm travelling today, will have a look when I get home later.

You'll say, dont be silly, he wouldnt kill either of you, but I grew up with him saying, he would kill me and anyone close to me,so it was a credible threat.

I agree that it would have completely felt like a credible threat. We were homeless for a while and then ended up living in a house with my grandfather registered as the tenant (we lived with him). He used to threaten us children all the time by saying, "That's my name on the rent book. I can turn you out any time I like".

I could say he was mean and intolerant, which he was. He was also in his 80s at the time (huge age gap between my father and his older siblings) and understandably in no way, shape or form, prepared to live with the standard noise and mess of 3 young children.

Education monitoring - without a doubt.
Extra tuition
Homework clubs
Someone noticing that the reason I was so withdrawn was because of witnessing domestic violence and abuse at home.
I remember when the council put in central heating - my mum stopped coughing every winter and we didn't have to put our coats on our beds.
Free school school lunches were great too - really glad Sadiq Khan has arranged it in London.
I asked my late mum once why we never went to the library - she said that we couldn't afford it. No one told her that it was free.
Poverty is not just about lack of money.

If you (or anyone reading this) is from Birmingham, this charity founded by ad man Trevor Beattie makes grants of £100 to the over 16s - it’s named after his parents https://beattiefoundation.com/tons-of-help - it’s geared towards people working in the creative industry but it tries not to be prescriptive…

That is so lovely of the Beatty foundation. I can see how people in the creative industries can struggle in the current situation.

I’m a primary teacher and this used to drive me fucking MAD!
One year, I counted about 6 x £1 things, mostly in December.
I protested very vociferously against this. People said, it’s only £1!
I pointed out that we had some families with 3 or 4 children in them. FFS!
I also pointed out that £1 could buy a loaf of bread or milk.
it did eventually dwindle away, but only because another colleague and I kept speaking up about it.

I know someone who would have really benefitted from this. I wish I had known about it .

All these initiatives require switched on and caring parents. What if your parents won't access them? I do wonder what kind of relationships some of the pp's now have with their parents?

My parents seemed to revel in being as tight with their money to make us tougher. Any kind of programme to open our eyes to a better world would have been shunned. It's not for the likes of us. It benefitted my parents to keep our world small. That way we would fit in with the community (am asian)
It's horrible always having secondhand clothing, the wrong shoes for the weather, reliant on older relatives for their hand me down clothes and makeup. Toilet roll instead of sanitary towels, no cotton wool. Like others, the library was heaven. I remember getting library books as a birthday present. Ie, my dad chose books from the library for me. And we had to return them a few weeks later. Meanwhile he'd be sending money back home.

We would never have been allowed to "accept charity". Perish the thought. And I would never, never have dared suggest it.

Thank you @blueshoes , its good to hear there are people out there that would want to help if given the opportunity. I guess it's a case of find those people local to you doing fantastic grassroots work. There's a charity called Gingerbread which does great work supporting and advocating for single parents, and that can be a huge boon for the children of parents invested enough to seek out this support. But I haven't yet found an equivalent that advocates specifically for children. I've also been supporting a local charity called DASH that supports women and their children who are fleeing domestic abuse. Unfortunately some of the wonderful work these charities do doesn't always get wider attention.

This is why we are not coming from a charity angle, nor asking about needs or anything else that might suggest that this is a club for the poor/deprived. It's going to be an afterschool/evening drop in set up, limited to children in the locality.
@blueshoes you could reach out to local schools via pastoral care lead, just to say you have x experience and are willing to pass on x skills/support.

But "accepting charity" meant accepting anything, really, for which we hadn't paid. It didn't have to have a charity label attached.

I remember being very, very thirsty in hot weather and a couple that my parents were talking to offered me a drink, and I knew I was not allowed to accept. That's how crazy. Maybe that's more about my family than about financial constraints though!

Our community hub's most popular area is the clothes drying area. You can use tumble dryers for a small cost or an indoor washing line area for free.

The uniform bank gives people enough uniform that they come to dry it every week (some every other week) as so many people don't have good drying space in bad weather and often clothes end up smelling damp.

Sanitary product baskets are put in all the toilets in schools and community centres. A lot was taken in the first couple of months, but now that people know it's there all the time they just take what they need.

I pushed for funding for coats, shoes and pencil cases. That's all I wanted as a kid - a warm coat and dry feet.

@mauvish my parents were like this too, it was so rude to accept anything until you were offered three times. This was even in the homes of close family!

To help with the "charity" angle then you can target the second hand clothes and shoes as an eco project.

Over the years helping with the uniform bank I saw a lot of "I don't need charity thanks" people change their mind when it was seen as "we're saving this stuff from landfill" thing instead

It really makes a difference.

I had a uni boyfriend whose family lived abroad and invited me over for the holidays. I couldn't have afforded to go, but they offered to pay the airfare (they were pretty loaded, I think). My parents were furious, said they would not permit me to go because my family "didn't accept charity".

(They couldn't actually have stopped me, I was an adult with a passport, but then bf dumped me so "problem" solved!)

My sister came home one day and found herself locked out. A neighbour offered her a plate of dinner. My parents were furious and threw it in the bin.