Health

Dole Animators, a ground-breaking project based in Leeds, is a group of jobseekers, single parents and disabled people who have made an animated film about their experience claiming support through social security during the period when the government’s welfare reforms are being implemented.

The Deputy Prime Minister has announced that from next September infant school pupils in England will be provided with free school meals:

In response to reports that the Deputy Prime Minister will tomorrow announce that from next September infant school pupils in England will be provided with free school meals, Alison Garnham, Chief Executive, Child Poverty Action Group, said: "This would be a very welcome announcement and an excellent example of how helping parents with the cost of living can also prevent some of the costs of child poverty mounting up...

The Leicester Child Poverty Commission has today published its recommendations for tackling child poverty in the city.

Today’s new child poverty figures confirm that while the ambitious target for 2010 was not reached, it drove forward major progress reducing child poverty across all measures: absolute poverty reduced by more than half (from 3.4 million children to 1.4 million children since 1999); relative poverty reduced by 1.1 million children (from 3.4 million to 2.3 million since 1999); material deprivation reduced by 300,000 children (from 2.2 million to 1.9 million since 2005).

While it is true that poverty is often associated with a range of other Bad Things, from stressed out families to poor grades at school and that causation can work both ways, this does not mean that they are the exact same problems.