Save the Children launches appeal for children in the UK

[Vagaceratops]

BBC link

And it will get worse :(

Stop child benefit from age 3
Actualy make nursery available to kids from 3 not 3.5 or 4 like it is in our area.
Free school uniform, including coat and shoes
Breakfast club open to all
Free school lunch to all
Then most kids will be on an equal footing at school
Holiday clubs free to low income families
Then at least the children are fed and clothed
And a side effect will be more jobs.
But at the end of the day it is up to the parents

Mcblubber.
Very good suggestions for those who use those services but we are low income and none of your suggestions would help us at all as they don't apply to us.

Why don't they apply to you?

Erm, why should holiday clubs and breakfast clubs be free to families that dont have two parents working?

There may be a very small number of families that have fallen through the net, but on the whole, families do get enough to live on. I agree there should be more help with childcare for working families, and families living with disability, but that's as far as it goes. After that, parents need to take responsibilty for themselves and their children.

It's not the government that needs to sort out these problems, it's parents!

Yes Outraged but the parents are not the ones who suffer when priorities are wrong.
I think if we can we should make sure the children are fed and clothed.
The parents who are managing may not use the clubs but the clubs will provide food and a warm place for a few hours a day if parental money is spent on other things.

I'd just like to say that I'm pretty shocked the responses on here. As someone who had worked in a professional capacity for many years before having children. I was abandoned by my husband when pregnant with our third child in my late 30s. It took 16 weeks for my tax credits to be processed, during which time I had housing help which didn't cover the cost of my housing and £60 a week to live on for everything including topping up my housing cost. My ex refused to give me any money, even though he knew I couldn't afford food. I ended up feeding us all one week on £11.50. I was personally at breaking point. At that point a poverty charity stepped in I asked them for a grant to get working fridge and a heater for the baby as my house was very cold. They gave me £6,000 per annum for 2 years. Now, 5 years on I work and earn a high hourly wage. I wouldn't have got through it without their help but I probably would have ended up in a psychiatric ward.

are breakfast clubs and holiday clubs not childcare outraged? are providing them free not help with childcare?

Xenia.

I have 2 older dcs completed school. I have one dd H.ed and no childcare, after school, school uniform. Not used/using nurseries. I don't wish to be employed in childcare.

i have dealings with foodbanks, and many agencies trying desperatley to help out families in the most need. the thing is, for those who don't believe it - it is really hard to grasp unless you know and see children who live like this daily.

Children who are dirty and smell and then get bullied at school - so don't go to school, then are not educated and lose their life chances and then what?

This is not a generalisation. and i am not saying that poor people ( i was one) can't and dont look after their children. but there is an element who don't and the parents need targeting through education.

look, i have dealt with families who deny to every professional that they have a drinking problem - although we know they do - the kids don't get to school becuase the parents are pissed - and nothing is done with any speed. huge amounts of money is spent on interagency support, incolving police and case workers and family intervention workers and community workers and still the poor kids bumble on like this for years. its shit. there is no solution here - the kids love their parents - the parents love the kids - they just love drink more.
love is shown but there are huge amounts of dire dire neglect. its just sad.

I was waiting for a meeting once and a kid was sat looking at xmas stuff on a computer ( it wasnt xmas)- and i asked if he knew any xmas songs we chatted for ages, i sang a couple- no. he didn't - so fucking sad.

mums who come to a support group and dont interact with babies or each other and just text for an hour - so sad.

just a few examples

but breaking the culture, breaking what those children see as norms is what is needed and this means parenting classes - it really does. dependant on recieving your benefits you must attend for people to teach us that its not ok to push your kid until her head hits the wall, its not ok to not pay the water meter so your kid cant have a bath and its not ok to lay on the setee all day every day in a pissed up stupor andd not get your kids to school

and it is ok to praise children, to want more for them, to love them, and to have hope for yourself of a better future.for you and your kids.

marmite has a point that is reallyimportant - for those who have never been part of the system - read that post, benefit fuck ups and delays happen very very often, this means familes are left with nothing NOTHING for weeks.

Outraged.
If there were fewer families with both parents working there would be more jobs for families with nobody working. Just because parents work it doesn't mean they should be the only ones to get help with childcare. What about people looking for work? Who looks after their kids when at an interview. Those on really low income and receiving free school dinners why shouldn't they get a free breakfast?

we ran a breakfast club by referal only - the kids who had not - or could not get to school. it really increased attendance rates.

its like beating a dead horse - you cannot punish the poorest families any more than they are already being punished.

by saying that breakfast clubs etc should only be for working families - just means that the poorest kids won't get breakfast - it doesn't incentivise those parents to work

Completely agree custardo.

This thread...eek. Have to say that it is so easy to wheel out the feckless parents who have dogs but no bed for child etc.
There are MANY,MANY families where one or both parents work and who struggle.They may have to work away,have no family help,where one is at home with children for various reasons.
There are possibly more people like this.Am fed up with the assumption that poverty and fecklessness is linked...it probably isn't in majority of cases.Am fed up.

My parents - and lots of my peers parents were/are working poor.
A combination of low wages, bad luck and recession in the 1970s and 1990s.
No fecklessness, no substance abuse, no neglect, just being poor.
And it sucks.

and the attidure that its them - the poor ....over there. The amount of people who have been made redundant - cant pay loand they have lose the house, social housing, or shit private rentals, huge debts

suddenly recieving benefits - that don't get processed for weeks, HB doesn't fecking arrive until you have recieved a notice seeking possession to speed things up - i mean for fucks sake

and if you can get through all that and not come through the other side having suffered with mental health problems then you deserve a bloody medal.

and the support for your mental health problems ....lets not go into why you can't get that anymore

there seems to be a disbelief that poor people exist and it really pisses me off

message me, and i'll sign you up as a volunteer

Things like food, shelter and heating are rights that everyone is entitled too. Things like childcare are not.

Who is supposed to pay for all this free stuff? We just don't have the money in the pot to pay for everyone that is struggling with money.

I find it shocking that there are sensible people who think people should be able to have children they cant afford, we should give them housing and enough money to eat and be warm, and when that isn't enough we should get them fee childcare as well!

As has been pointed out on this thread, a large number of the people who are seriously struggling are the working poor. If people who work could have access to free childcare, then that would solve a lot of problems for them because childcare is so expensive.

If parents who get enough money and housing from the state can't manage to feed and clothe ther children properly then they need to be taught how to. But then this is what Sure Start was all about, and it doesn't seem to be working. If they won't be taught how to budget and be good parents then they either need to be paid in vouchers, given uniform and other essentails through school and then have their money reduced to reflect that. And if that still doesn't work, then there is something very wrong with the parenting, and children need to be taken into care.

There is only so much the state can do, or should have to do. Parents and people in general need to take responsibilty for themselves. It's not up to other people to do it for them.

Of course we need to protect children and ensure they are fed and warm, but as the country is skint, this has to be done in the most cost effective way possible. And that is not done by giving out more money or giving out expensive childcare to people who should be available to look after their own kids.

Outraged.
"And that is not done by giving out more money or giving out expensive childcare to people who should be available to look after their own kids".

My sentiments exactly. There are so many posts on these threads where working parents complain about having no money for childcare and justify the costs by insisting they need to work to keep their career going. This is fine if they can afford the costs but they expect a hand out for someone to care for their kids, shocking. They certainly should be available to look after their kids.

I'm not sure if you are misunderstanding me, or if I'm misunderstanding you, but I'm all for free childcare for people who work. Just not for those who don't, as was suggested above.

Outraged.
I am a sahm on a low income. My best friend is a single parent with no family in the uk. She struggles to find childcare when the job centre require her to attend various meetings. Yes I have offered but this is hardly the point. Why would a working parent who should provide for their children as they are earning a wage be subsidized when my friend isn't? I'll leave it to you.

outraged you put it very succintly (think that is how you spell it) and i agree with you.

haven't read all the posts on here. Don't want to or need to. Shocking. Bloody shocking.

we're lucky because our children aren't earning 10p a day and living in brazilian favelas???? ffs.

Poor people should not smoke or have big tellys???

Jesus. Too many DM readers on here.

No critique of the bastard bankers, or the fat pigs who totally screwed our economy and threw us to the wolves while they went to their bolt hole barn conversions in the south of france?

The moment Cameron goes to northern thailand and follows through with his fart-arse talk about 'shaming feckless fathers' and has my exhusband arrested on his university campus where he is a 'lecherer' and Made To Pay for his Three Kids, I will eat my shredded cheap socks and my pants with no farking elastic from asda.

Some of these posts on this thread make me feel like hanging myself for being a fucking poor failure.