Child Poverty Solutions User Guide

Website User Guide www.childpovertysolutions.org.uk

Foreword

Andrew Chalinder, Head of Wales Programme, Save the Children

Save the Children believes that local government and their partners are key to helping meet the target of eradicating child poverty by 2020. This website is the first of its kind in Wales and will help local councils and their partners to meet the challenges in tackling child poverty locally.

Naomi Alleyne, Director of Equalities and Social Justice, WLGA Reducing child poverty is a priority for local government and its partners. Working in partnership with Save the Children, we have developed this website to provide information, guidance and practical support to assist policy makers and practitioners to meet the challenge of significantly reducing child poverty in their areas.

32% of children in Wales live in poverty. Child poverty in Wales is everybody’s business.

It affects children and young people’s life chances and well being;

Society and communities cannot be cohesive and prosperous when faced with deprivation and inequality;

The Welsh economy is less buoyant, diverse and resilient as productivity is limited by low educational achievement, poor health, lack of aspiration and reduced employment opportunities all contributing to lower national tax revenues;

The delivery of public services becomes increasingly expensive and less efficient when struggling under the costs and burdens of poor health and higher crime rates caused by poverty and inequality.

Child Poverty Solutions The Face to Face Work

Child Poverty Solutions (CPS) Wales runs action research pilots with partners to explore good practice in developing responses to local child poverty issues. We also run child poverty training, awareness raising and self assessment workshops for public bodies which support them to take action on reducing child poverty.

The Website

Child Poverty Solutions (CPS) Wales website toolkit provides a sustainable resource for public authorities and partnerships in Wales to develop a robust corporate approach to tackling child poverty.

It contains a wealth of information about child poverty, provides advice and guidance for improvement, and is a forum to discuss issues and develop best practice.

This user guide gives you a short tour through the website with a brief overview of each on-line section.

It begins with our Home Page view when you first enter CPS. You can see the main navigation tabs laid out along the top of the webpage as purple tabs. Click on a tab and it will take you to the section you want.

We work hard to keep all our web pages updated so the live views may not be the same as the views in this user guide.

The Home Page – this is what you see when you first land in Child Poverty Solutions. The purple tabs across the top are your main navigation buttons. The blue boxes down the right hand side lead to useful child poverty tools and resources.

The Home Page – a little further down the home page you will find a range of useful information from the latest policy and strategy surrounding child poverty in Wales .

The Home Page – continue scrolling down and you’ll also find latest publications and other sources of information and news for professionals.

The Policy Process Tab – takes the user through a step by step guide to developing a local approach to reducing child poverty that is informed by evidence, involves all stakeholders and is impact assessed.

The Solutions Tab - arranged by Core Aims 1 to 7. Select a core aim and read briefing papers on the link between the core aim and child poverty. The example below discusses the links between poverty and education. A number of relevant papers and articles and links to other sources of information are also listed.

The Indicators Tab – sets out the relevant sources of external data and documents. It also provides links to our own database.

The Indicators Tab – users are able to compare trends in a number of child poverty related historical data sets across Local Authority areas in Wales. Useful for informing needs assessments and child poverty action planning.

The Indicators Tab – by moving your mouse cursor across our interactive map you can find out the number of workless households and the number of children living in those workless households in a given Local Authority area.

The Learning from Practice Tab – find videos and contacts for other people who are developing innovative new ways of tackling child poverty.

The Research & Resources Tab – find an on line self assessment tool, policy proofing and good practice guides.

The Self Assessment Tool – available both on line and as a face to face training programme, this tool will allow you to assess your organisations position on your ability to act on child poverty. Answer the questions and receive your assessment report on line.

The Forum Tab – if you can’t find what you want in Learning from Practice ask questions in the practitioners’ network.

For More Information on Child Poverty Solutions Wales

Contact Ross Chamberlain Save the Children 3rd Floor Phoenix House 8, Cathedral Road Cardiff CF11 9LJ Tel: 02920396838

Email: r.chamberlain@savethechildren.org.uk or infowales@savethechildren.org.uk www.childpovertysolutions.org.uk

savethechildren.org.uk

We’re the world’s independent children’s charity. We are outraged that millions of children are still denied proper healthcare, food, education and protection. We’re working flat out to get every child their rights and we’re determined to make further, faster changes. How many? How fast? It’s up to you.