How would you tackle child poverty and improve outcomes?

[Cindyyyy]

I would back:

• free basic school meals for all from 3 (extras can be paid for) of healthy, veg-based, minimally-processed meals
• investment into school-based pre-school, to be free for all from age 3
• increase school funding massively, pay rises for teachers and nursery staff, investment and subsidies into training
• increase number of SEN schools and in-school SEN provision, as well as PRUs
• subsidised holiday clubs for all parents working full time
• extend SureStart, increase reviews by health visitors. If a child isn’t meeting milestones, earlier intervention and increased checks
• expand apprenticeships

You?

How is child poverty different from 'poverty'?

Depressingly I’m not sure you can.

I don’t like most of the measures in the OP because they assume the child being away from their parent(s) as much as possible is in the best interests, and it isn’t.

I agree.

While I do think we need more social housing, and that improvements are needed to the private rental sector, it does play an important role. For instance, people moving to new areas who want to know what the area is like before buying, to name just one example.

I’d ban AirBnB / holiday lets before private rental for housing.

Sadly in many cases it is.

Adoption used to be common and I know several adults of 60-80 who were adopted as newborns; all very successful and no drink/drug problems.

Worlds away from the end result of kids who ricochet from care to parents and back again.

Those adults were mostly likely removed at a few hours old, from mothers who would have liked to keep them but didn't have the support to do so. Are you advocating that?

Removing older children brings very different outcomes. Even at a few months old.

I can't say what I would do to ensure the feckless in society do not breed children they have no hope in hell of providing for on a public forum....
Ideally every child born in this country should have the best start in life, provided by it's parents.
Benefits (UC top ups) should not be seen as a way of life. Too many people have children and decide instead of working to provide for them that they will do the minimum hours required to top up their wages at the tax payers expense. This needs to stop as of yesterday.
Perhaps if we weren't focused on topping up lazy people's wages we would have spare cash for things like Sure Start, FSMs, and more inexpensive full time childcare.
It should never have become a choice to rely on the State (everyone working an paying tax) to fund an easier lifestyle for some families.

No but I am supporting children of parents who are clearly unable to care for them early on rather than constant chances to mess up their life

Education is the ultimate key to improving outcomes, though.

So educate parents through Sure Start centres, make it as easy as possible for children to stay in school and get an education - this involves looking at what schools are actually for, as the current curriculum may not be fit for purpose.

I’d also make child maintenance a factor in any benefits received, and child maintenance to be calculated as 50% of a notional cost per child not depending on income. This would not reduce the amount the resident parent receives from the State, but the non-resident parent would have to reimburse the State for benefits paid that they - as the other parent - should have been responsible for. The debt could be interest bearing and repaid in the same way as student loans, but not written off.

Money management advice. Eg, budgeting, batch cooking, etc

I don’t know but what I have first hand experience of is going to school with a sock in my knickers because there’s was sanitary towels at home, no heating and holes in my shoes and a slice of toast for dinner.
Growing up like that ruins your self esteem and makes it impossible to concentrate and do well at school, which then screws your future.
Luckily meeting my husband completely changed my future but looking back do I think my “poor addicted to selfishness and cigarettes mother needed for support? No, I think her children did though.

I know. Just look at this website in the last 24 hours - a poster whose son is eating himself to death at 20-odd because benefits are funding his sedentary lifestyle of junk food, and poster whose young and chaotic daughter is pregnant and expecting to have everything provided via benefits.

I just despair and we get no say in it. Benefits aren’t even helping them - the bad choices are enabled by benefits as well as the other way round

Well exactly. Supporting your mother better would have supported her children, especially support given really early on.

Make the cost of childcare part of cms and have it be split regardless of when it is used or which parent needs to use it. NRP should not be able to avoid paying for childcare by only having the children on their non-working days. RP should not face childcare bills alone.

A lot of the dads are on benefits themselves and ‘have no money’

Its not a silver bullet.

Also bring back evening classes so parents can retrain for better jobs around their existing commitments (when the other parent is more likely to be around for childcare).

Employers to be incentivised to provide on-site creches.

18 months of fully paid (at normal salary) parental leave for each parent, therefore covering the first three years of life if that’s how you choose to spread it.

Single parents can have 3 years, but also an option for their children to get fully funded childcare from 18 months.

Children don’t choose what they are born into and cannot do anything to better their own situation.

People need to get their heads out of their arses and realise that children are people, the next generation who will run the country when we are all old. They are not luxury possessions like wide screen televisions or iPhones that people are wasting money on.

Anyway OP for me the CMS point is a biggie, make deadbeat dads (because it is almost always the Dad) pay for their children instead of running away from their responsibilities.

That would be incredibly expensive and wouldn't help children in real poverty?

Invest more in sure start/family hubs especially in deprived areas. Support families to cook on a budget, budget bills, make healthy choices.

They don’t want to make healthy choices. I know it’s hard to accept but it’s true.

It’s pie in the sky thinking, but concretely it would improve things for all children and families, which I think is the point of this thread.

The problem with that is that research shows that you start to become de-skilled after a year out of the workplace. Who is to pay for this? The country can’t afford it, and no employer would be willing to do so. As for single parents to have three years off, how on earth could any company, particularly a small one, cope with that? It would certainly have a deleterious effect on the economy.

But the OP is proposing this for all children, not just the minority in the care system.

Extreme cases make bad laws.

I would pay the majority of benefits in vouchers , rather than cash. This would hopefully ensure they are spent in the right places.

I also agree with everything in the OP. Though I don’t agree it’s down to the government to sort by themselves, we have to get PEOPLE being more responsible, having the amount of children that they can house and sustain. It’s often just irresponsible life choices that lead to poverty.

I agree. It’s a human right not to starve and to have a roof over your head, but that doesn’t extend to the state catering to your every whim. If people want a bedroom per child or to buy alcohol/vapes, they can get a job and buy those things. The expectations of what the state should provide is utterly mad on here.