Child poverty is overwhelming teachers & GPs!

Sorry that was in answer to GSM

That is a good point Oreo. Leadership must begin in the household. A family is a bit like a business in that you can't run it with no mission plan, no leadership, no direction and goals. The parents need training. But from who??

Macadia

I don't believe in child poverty. It should be called Parent Poverty. Children can't decide on their careers and pay. Parents (mothers) can rise above poverty if they are allowed to get the proper education or training. The root cause is much deeper than child poverty. It involves very low-paying jobs, increasing rents, stressful survival, lack of education, daughters not using birth control, sons who assist in producing babies and walk away, poor government leadership, mental illness, lack of hope, lack of direction and also the ultra wealthy encouraging poor people to blame other poor people for societal issues. GPs and teachers can't stop the occurrence. If the government just provides food supplies, housing and childcare, they are only patching holes in a sinking raft. It will take the whole population to fix this cycle, not just the ones affected by these tragedies, and the first ingredient in this collective stew pot is empathy.

It’s called “child poverty” because effectively they are ones who have absolutely no control over their situation.

I agree with your summing up and suggestions though and that the root cause has to be addressed.

However, when services available to help children in these vulnerable family groups are stopped or completely underfunded how can they move forward!

I genuinely believe in the saying l, which I’m probably misquoting, “give a man a fish and he’ll eat once, teach him to fish and he will never be hungry” but you get the meaning.

We’ve had years and years of dysfunctional family groups and it needs lots of work and cash to change their entire reliance on the state and to move forward in a positive way.

Sorry, my answer above was meant towards Cossy (not Oreo). I'm getting confuseded :

*it’s not the children’s fault and why should they suffer?

Also, whilst I’ll be the first one to say it is the parents role not the state to raise and fund and support a child, what happens when they cannot or will not?

It’s never the child’s fault.*

Good point Cossy

Yes Cossy the funding needs to continue but there needs to be a plan, too. A plan of poverty prevention. Start this education at 7 years old if need be.

Germanshepherdsmum

I saw a chap on tv who said he had 10 children aged from 14 to 2. Why? Just why?

Yes Why, but this man is the exception not the rule, most are not like him.
I retired in 2023, and in my line of work, I came across the lazy, the fraudulent, and people you would not like to employ, I don't pretend they do not exist, but most are really not like that, they want to work, but circumstances sometimes make it impossible.

Yes Cossy the funding needs to continue but there needs to be a plan, too. A plan of poverty prevention. Start this education at 7 years old if need be.
The country had a plan which helped people. It was called Sure Start. However the Tories stopped it doing what it was very good at. Helping families.

Germanshepherdsmum

I saw a chap on tv who said he had 10 children aged from 14 to 2. Why? Just why?

Too exhausted to go to work?

Oreo

So, let me get this right, your own comment wasn’t what you term snide? I think it was.
Some people do need to get a job, since Covid there seems to have been a reluctance to get back to the world of work and is widely reported.
That doesn’t mean everybody as there are some who really do have physical or MH issues.Unfortunately it’s become a ‘thing’ to claim MH issues now and hard to prove when it really isn’t!
Useless parenting is what sends kids to school hungry most of the time.

I think it’s fairer to say that what’s been highly publicised since Covid is,
A) a reluctance to return to the office
B) an increase in mental health issues
C) widespread instances of Long Covid

Grandmabatty

Yes Cossy the funding needs to continue but there needs to be a plan, too. A plan of poverty prevention. Start this education at 7 years old if need be.
The country had a plan which helped people. It was called Sure Start. However the Tories stopped it doing what it was very good at. Helping families.

Yes most of our surestart centres were closed and they were amazing. I completely agree that children as young as seven should be educated and understand the entire world of work. When I was a school governor at a local Primary School it was quite routine to ask people into assemblies to talk about their own jobs and twice a year “mock-up s” of work place setup, such as hospitals, we’re set up and illustrated how many jobs exist in hospitals other than Doctors and Nurses. It was all about inspiring children and building resilience and aspiration.

We also signed up to the Children’s University initiative, in which I became very involved. Not sure if any one here has come across this? It’s an amazing scheme (not sure if this even exists anymore).

IMO, an exceptional scheme, specifically targeted at raising aspirations in vulnerable children, but any child and school allowed to sign up!

childrensuniversity.co.uk/

As regards Mental Health mentioned a couple of time above, the BMA reports

""Mental health services in England received a record 5 million referrals during 2023 (up 33% from 2019), with the number of people in contact with mental health services steadily rising".

This comes at a time of slashing of whats left of MH services.

Busy GP's - if you can get an appointment - have little time to properly assess or offer support like they used to. Or any meaningful follow up.

There used to be, in every area, Psychological support services (called different things in different areas ) which were not part of the more serious referrals to Mental Health Services.

They offered front line counselling with no waiting list to catch people "on the way down" and help them keep jobs/lead a more normal family life.

These have largely disappeared altogether, resources going into those at greatest risk of harm to self or other.

The consequences are obvious, not being able to hold down a job, family life suffers, poverty.

Time off work, including in those very professions vital to a welfare state

We recently had Trooping the Colour and anyone watching that from abroad would be forgiven for thinking that we were a rich nation devoted to militarism. We are not. The sun set on the British Empire ages ago.
All our public services are struggling to cope even though those on the front line are going above and beyond to try to keep things afloat.

The military personnel involved in the ceremony are paid whether they are taking part or sitting in barracks. However such ceremonial occasions attract many tourists and their money.

Germanshepherdsmum

The military personnel involved in the ceremony are paid whether they are taking part or sitting in barracks. However such ceremonial occasions attract many tourists and their money.

I’m far from a Royalist, but no one does a parade quite like us, and I actually like to see these men and women in these regiments out on parade, especially those on horseback

Agree, but at a total loss as to how it relates to child poverty? Thread drift is fine but....?

Wyllow3

Agree, but at a total loss as to how it relates to child poverty? Thread drift is fine but....?

???? Can only assume that’s it’s meant to make us think of the money spent on the military, which, in my opinion, is completely off topic and irrelevant 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

There's a thread on Trooping the Colour for people to enjoy

www.gransnet.com/forums/news_and_politics/1337330-Trooping-of-the-Colour.

I'd like to go back to agree with how much Sure Start helped many and. how important it is to restore it (even in a more modest form)

Most social workers and teachers vote Labour. They are always cracking on about child poverty and how bad the Government is.

Social workers know the system inside out. I know a husband and wife both qualified social workers and they both retired in their 50s on health grounds due to “stress” which is of course very difficult for anybody to prove otherwise. I also know a nurse who claimed she injured her back at work and she took several years off to bring up her small children while claiming to be too ill to work. She said loads of nurses do that, again, because it is not easy to prove otherwise.

I see little evidence of real child poverty.

Primrose you probably don't see the evidence you wish to see because you are not working with young children.
I'm not sur e though what you mean by "real" child poverty.

I worked alongside social workers for many years and have social work friends. I think it's unfair to complain of people taking stress-related early retirement. If you go home one day not sure if your client will be alive the next I challenge any normal person to not feel stressed.

A good friend moved to live in Ireland and when looking for a job there and being asked what she did here she said she worked in a government post... which she did. She was a children's services Service Lead.
She said "I'm never going to let them know that".... are you mad!

Bumface

We recently had Trooping the Colour and anyone watching that from abroad would be forgiven for thinking that we were a rich nation devoted to militarism. We are not. The sun set on the British Empire ages ago.
All our public services are struggling to cope even though those on the front line are going above and beyond to try to keep things afloat.

One time a year. It's lovely.

We've no other regular big ceremonies as other countries have.

Octoberfest in Germany (maybe just beer), Independence Day in USA (any day in July to us), Belgian National Day, Latern Treaty Day in Vatican City.

Primrose53

Most social workers and teachers vote Labour. They are always cracking on about child poverty and how bad the Government is.

Social workers know the system inside out. I know a husband and wife both qualified social workers and they both retired in their 50s on health grounds due to “stress” which is of course very difficult for anybody to prove otherwise. I also know a nurse who claimed she injured her back at work and she took several years off to bring up her small children while claiming to be too ill to work. She said loads of nurses do that, again, because it is not easy to prove otherwise.

I see little evidence of real child poverty.

Yes we nurses are a notoriously work shy lot and loads of us pretend to to have back problems because we are all so lazy. And as for social workers..... well!
I have personally seen plenty of evidence of 'real' child poverty and so has my school teacher, husband. But what do we know. You are clearly the expert.

I always wonder why, when faced with compelling evidence such as that produced by the very well respected Rowntree Trust, who have talked to professionals - teachers, GP's, Social Workers -

working right now with children and families,

people feel it necessary to produce the few examples of "the undeserving" they know of

Instead of trying to actually change the situation for many, not just for some moral abstract reasons but because we are all the worse off for parts of our system that are dysfunctional.

Leaving things as they are is not an option if we are to flourish as a nation.

Wyllow - it's party political. Tories have said the money for tax cuts will be partly funded by a lower working-age benefits bill. So posters who are on this thread & going to vote for them shortly, feel the need to justify why they don't believe the report by bringing up anecdotal evidence of "the undeserving".