Voluntary and community groups working to tackle child poverty

Last Friday Voluntary Action LeicesterShire brought together voluntary and community groups from across the City to discuss how to tackle child poverty.

The groups met with the Child Poverty Commission and examined how to ensure a Child Poverty Strategy can make a difference to Leicester, and how voluntary and community groups can work effectively with the Commission.

Voluntary and community groups are in a unique position as they see how young people are affected by poverty and what can be done to meet their needs. VAL believe it is vital that groups are given the opportunity to use their knowledge and experience to make a difference.

People attending included Jim Munton - Leicester Charity Link, Sara Swire - New Dawn New Day, Jaawhir Daahir - Somali Development Group, Gail Brown - Leicestershire Cares, Julie Foster - Lighthouse Learning, Sally Norman - Soft touch Arts, Matt Lilley - Focus Charity and Saqib Deshmukh - Highfields Youth & Community Association,

Discussions were productive and some of the key issues highlighted included the need to focus on prevention - stopping more families from falling into poverty, the need to understand that it won't be a one size fits all approach to every family, and the importance of services that enable disadvantaged groups to access services.

Krista Blair, policy manager at Voluntary Action LeicesterShire, said "Our research shows that children and young people's services provided by voluntary and community groups have been hit hard by the cuts: groups have already had to withdraw services from some of the most disadvantaged children in the City.

"This is why we are asking the Child Poverty Commission to examine how previous spending cuts and the budget proposals will affect children and young people living in poverty. We need to identify actions to prevent spending cuts from disproportionately harming children and young people."