Child Poverty

Our Aims:

We will explore and develop an understanding of a life course approach to tackling, and reducing the impacts of, poverty.

This workstream will incorporate:

• Tackling Poverty (particularly child poverty)
• Financial Inclusion and Income Maximisation
• Employability
• Work and workplace (including in work poverty)

We will continue to work with locality-based and Community Planning Partners to plan activity that to address child poverty and to publish Local Child Poverty Action Reports. We will progress actions at an Ayrshire wide level where possible. Due to the difference in population groups across Ayrshire and Arran we acknowledge there isn’t a ‘one size fits all’ approach to mitigating and preventing poverty.

We will continue to provide information to staff about discussing money worries with patients and provide adequate information for staff to share both with the people they work with but also for their own financial wellbeing.

We will continue to shape and encourage dialogue around the impact that insecurity of income, food and housing has across the life course.

We will work with colleagues within the NHS to fulfil our responsibility as an anchor institution and how this will contribute to the reduction of the impact of child poverty for staff and patients as well as in the wider community.

We will work within Local Employability Partnerships to provide health information and support to teams that work with people who are in training or seeking work to remain in good health and seek fair employment.

Would you like more information?

The Scottish Government has set out a range of targets for reducing child poverty:

Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan 2022-26 – gov.scot

Child Poverty Delivery Plan progress 2024-2025: Scrutiny by the Poverty and Inequality Commission

NHS Ayrshire and Arran have an annual action plan that sets out the activity for the year around tackling child poverty:

Appendix 1: Tackling Child Poverty Supplementary paper: