Providing up to date evidence on the impact of child poverty

IT has been widely reported that pressures are continuing to mount on children’s social care with an increasing number in care and a doubling of entries to care amongst very young children and older adolescents in the last decade.  This has resulted in the English Government establishing an independent care review, which commenced in March, with a remit of ‘taking a fundamental look at the needs, experiences and outcomes of the children (social care) supports, and what is needed to make a real difference’. 

Now, a coveted grant has been awarded by the Nuffield Foundation to a University of Huddersfield Professor that will enable research to be carried out which will provide an up to date and accurate picture of the evidence on the impact of poverty and family socio-economic resources more widely.  This could significantly contribute to the care review and the debate about the future direction of children’s social care services.

A Professor of Social Work, Paul Bywaters is a member of the University’s Centre for Applied Childhood, Youth and Family Research within the School of Human and Health Sciences and will be conducting the project with a researcher.

Parliamentary inquiry into child poverty

Last month, Professor Bywaters was invited to give evidence at a Parliamentary inquiry into child poverty which can be viewed and was televised live.   He told the panel how poverty is still largely excluded from the Department for Education’s policies for child safeguarding, while child abuse and neglect is rarely mentioned in policies to address poverty.  

He highlighted how the study of the relationship between child poverty and child protection was being severely hampered by the absence of any individual level data collection about the socio-economic circumstances of families in contact with children’s services. 

“The purpose of the upcoming research is to update evidence about the relationship between poverty and child abuse and neglect.  This is because there has been a substantial amount of new research of relevance over the last five years since the last report was published,” explained Professor Bywaters. 

“It will include recommendations about the policy and practice implications of current knowledge and identify key gaps in the evidence, providing the basis for an agenda for future research and data systems,” he said.