Published Date: Oct 5th, 2020
It’s Scotland’s ‘Challenge Poverty Week’ and here in Fife, we’re launching our annual Child Poverty Action Report.
The Fife Child Poverty Action Report 2020 sets out how Fife Council and NHS Fife, are working together, along with our third-sector partners, to tackle child poverty in Fife.
Cllr Judy Hamilton, Convener of Community and Housing Services said: “The pandemic has had an enormous impact on Fife’s communities. Many families have been thrown into hardship due to furlough or job loss with their money needing to stretch further. It has exacerbated Fife’s existing health inequalities, with less affluent families more likely to be impacted by the coronavirus and more likely to be missing opportunities to learn.
“But there have been positives too, with neighbours and communities pulling together to support each other in new ways. Now is the time to learn from our response to the pandemic. We need to join up support at a local level, reduce duplication and improve resource allocation to address child poverty.”
Dona Milne, NHS Fife’s Director of Public Health added: “It’s more important than ever to listen to families and understand their experiences. By doing this we can respond effectively to the barriers people face in having enough resources to nurture and support babies, children and young people, as well as women in pregnancy.
“A great deal of effort has been made by staff across Fife’s public and third sectors to respond to the crisis. But now we need to examine the wider drivers which impact on income such as education, training and employment and access to good work, access to relevant benefits and reducing essential costs for families.”
The Scotland-wide ‘Challenge Poverty Week’ campaign is designed to highlight that too many people are living with the constant pressure of living in poverty and that we must redesign our economy so that everyone has enough.
In Fife, one in five children in Fife are living in relative poverty and 19% of households are living in fuel poverty.
Peter Kelly of The Poverty Alliance said: “Too many people in Scotland are living with the constant pressure of living in poverty.
“As we plan our economic recovery, we must redesign our economy to reflect the values of justice and compassion we all share.
“By boosting people’s incomes and reducing the cost of living we can make sure we all have what we need.”
You can get involved and tell us your experiences of poverty or how you challenge poverty at www.fife.gov.uk/challengepovertyweek2020