Cliciwch yma am y Gymraeg
This report describes our efforts to support the Working Group in developing implementable evidence-informed recommendations to help alleviate child poverty in RCT. It sets out our process for working with Group Members to identify specific areas of focus and funnel down from national academic evidence to the specific barriers facing families and communities.
We first set out to identify the most important services for poverty alleviation. We identified two groups of services, each associated with different barriers. Child-centred interventions include services such as leisure, education, early childhood services, youth services and outdoor spaces – these are typically core Council services and associated with structural barriers or barriers related to physical access. Practical and financial support services are typically administered by the Council on behalf of other agencies such as the Welsh Government or UK Government, and may include free school meals, Council Tax relief, social security, debt and housing advice. Barriers associated with these services are awareness of provision, stigma, digital exclusion and eligibility criteria. Our review of what works to address these barriers found a variety of good practice that has been implemented elsewhere.
The Working Group were keen to focus on the provision of financial and practical support for families in RCT. Looking at population and organisational data, we found that there are a range of services that families in RCT can access, delivered by both the public and voluntary sectors, and that these have varying levels of uptake. While there are ongoing efforts to streamline processes, many of the public sector services require separate application processes requiring the same information, despite frequently having similar eligibility criteria.
We found similar barriers to accessing practical and financial support services in RCT as those identified in the wider literature: awareness of provision, eligibility criteria, applying for services and data and information system. We were able to identify specific issues within RCT using professional knowledge and lived experience, drawing on these sources of evidence to also identify potential opportunities for change from those who deliver, administer and access these services. Strengthening existing links between the public and voluntary sectors, taking advantage of opportunities for digital transformation, and providing accessible in person support were all key themes identified by the community when asked about potential opportunities for change.
The Working Group developed eighteen recommendations, which can be found, alongside the supporting evidence from our work, in Annex 4. These recommendations were unanimously accepted by Cabinet. They will be allocated to service areas in the Council and monitored to assess progress.
Read the next section: References
Cliciwch yma am y Gymraeg
This report describes our efforts to support the Working Group in developing implementable evidence-informed recommendations to help alleviate child poverty in RCT. It sets out our process for working with Group Members to identify specific areas of focus and funnel down from national academic evidence to the specific barriers facing families and communities.
We first set out to identify the most important services for poverty alleviation. We identified two groups of services, each associated with different barriers. Child-centred interventions include services such as leisure, education, early childhood services, youth services and outdoor spaces – these are typically core Council services and associated with structural barriers or barriers related to physical access. Practical and financial support services are typically administered by the Council on behalf of other agencies such as the Welsh Government or UK Government, and may include free school meals, Council Tax relief, social security, debt and housing advice. Barriers associated with these services are awareness of provision, stigma, digital exclusion and eligibility criteria. Our review of what works to address these barriers found a variety of good practice that has been implemented elsewhere.
The Working Group were keen to focus on the provision of financial and practical support for families in RCT. Looking at population and organisational data, we found that there are a range of services that families in RCT can access, delivered by both the public and voluntary sectors, and that these have varying levels of uptake. While there are ongoing efforts to streamline processes, many of the public sector services require separate application processes requiring the same information, despite frequently having similar eligibility criteria.
We found similar barriers to accessing practical and financial support services in RCT as those identified in the wider literature: awareness of provision, eligibility criteria, applying for services and data and information system. We were able to identify specific issues within RCT using professional knowledge and lived experience, drawing on these sources of evidence to also identify potential opportunities for change from those who deliver, administer and access these services. Strengthening existing links between the public and voluntary sectors, taking advantage of opportunities for digital transformation, and providing accessible in person support were all key themes identified by the community when asked about potential opportunities for change.
The Working Group developed eighteen recommendations, which can be found, alongside the supporting evidence from our work, in Annex 4. These recommendations were unanimously accepted by Cabinet. They will be allocated to service areas in the Council and monitored to assess progress.
Read the next section: References
