Tackling Child Poverty in Barking and Dagenham

A seamless package of support is delivered through Barking and Dagenham children’s centres as part of the borough’s wide-ranging Poverty Agenda. This includes welfare benefits advice, housing benefits outreach, family support, training, job-seeking, and job brokerage.

Capacity provided training for all frontline staff in children’s cntres to raise awareness of the causes of poverty and the families who are at most at risk. The initial Child Poverty Awareness Training involved more than 90 people over a six month period and involved Strategic Leads of Integrated Family Services, Children’s Centre Managers and Support Workers, Family Support Workers and Coordinators, Play and Language Workers and Co-ordinators, Nursery Staff, Jobcentre Plus Lone Parent Advisors, Job Brokers and Welfare Benefits Staff.

The training was followed up by action planning to focus on those most at risk. There is already evidence that people are now discussing and understanding the causes of child poverty where before they may not have considered it their business. A new phase of delivery is underway to create an evidence and outcome framework against which the success of the strategy can be measured.

Capacity is a member of End Child Poverty