Category

• Emerging Local Practice

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Poverty impact

• Mitigation
• Awareness

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Poverty driver

• Increase income from benefits
• Non-driver - improving quality of life

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Keywords

• Research and Evaluation

Aim

• To gather and analyse local data on families with children and young people with Additional Support Needs (ASN) who are experiencing poverty, particularly those living in areas of deprivation across South Ayrshire, including Whitletts.
• To provide targeted financial support to families experiencing financial hardship.
• To develop local measures of parental wellbeing and improve understanding of the relationship between poverty and wellbeing informed by the, Scottish Government's Experimental Wellbeing Indicators.

Summary

Wallacetown Child Poverty Research, maps family support services and develops a parental wellbeing monitoring system for families with children with additional support needs (ASN). The team has connected with 26 services, two early years centres, and regularly attends food banks and community events. Engagement includes sessions, wellbeing and carers events, and family learning activities. Parenting workstream efforts include distributing a new flyer, attending multiple local drop-ins and toddler groups, and progressing Solihull/Togetherness and PEEP training. The team is exploring parental wellbeing models, including 'East Lothian’s Families Together' to learn from their 'Blossom' approach for future collaborative development work.

What difference does it make?

Too early to ascertain at this stage.

Key take-aways

• Co-location of research work and community support is beneficial.
• Focusing on relationships with families and being led by families. Formal outcome targets are not of primary importance to the work.
• Ensure work has a lasting impact, informing the next Children’s Services Plan and the Parental Wellbeing Monitoring Tool.
• Vouchers for families to ensure their time was respected and they are partners in this work demonstrates impact. All families were given a £20 voucher for participating in the interview, questionnaire, or focus group.

 

Organisations

South Ayrshire Council.

Location

Community hub based at Newton Primary school.

Contact