October 2025

We are now nearing the end of our Child Poverty project and have been focusing on the Lived Experience and Professional Knowledge here in RCT.

We held two working group meetings, bringing together our community partner organisations and lived experience advisors to help with the understanding of the experiences faced by low-income families accessing practical and financial support across RCT.

The first meeting focused on sharing professional knowledge gathered from our partner organisations workshops, as well as some structured conversations between partner organisations and key Council stakeholders. The second meeting centred on lived experience, drawing from surveys, interviews, and focus groups conducted with service users, along with structured conversations with two lived experience advisors.

The working group discussed challenges in awareness, application processes, and engagement, and began exploring potential recommendations based on this. In November, the working group will meet to create recommendations for the Council to take forwards and a full report will be available following the completion of the working group.