End Child Poverty Coalition: Action Toolkit
by Rachel Walters, End Child Poverty Coalition Coordinator
The End Child Poverty coalition have launched their Action Toolkit, written for young people, by young people. This aims to encourage young people to understand the root causes of child poverty and develop campaigning solutions to address them.
You can download the whole toolkit, or individual sessions here.
Government data shows that across the UK there were 3.9 million children living in poverty (after housing costs) between April 2020 and April 2021, which is a staggering 27% of all children.
Yet the needs of children and young people are often ignored by decision makers. For example there was no mention of child poverty in the ‘Levelling Up’ white paper, and recent costs of living interventions are being made without taking into account the number of children living in each family. The Action Toolkit was developed by several End Child Poverty Youth Ambassadors, with support from Dr Gill Main from Leeds University. Youth Ambassadors are young people who work alongside the coalition to ensure that the voices of 16 – 24-year-olds are heard by those is positions of power.
You can work through each session in order, or pick and choose activities to suit your group set up. The Toolkit is also designed so it can be used for groups were some people may have personal experience of living in poverty, and where others perhaps do not.
The sessions end with guidance on how the group could develop a campaign to tackle the root causes of child poverty in the UK.
