Sefton Council to hold Childhood Poverty Strategy Launch Event

Sefton Council will be holding an event to launch its Childhood Poverty Strategy on Thursday, 1st December, in Bootle.

Several prominent guest speakers will be in attendance, including council, public health, and NHS representatives. Invitees will then be welcomed to give their views on the strategy.

The Tackling Poverty Strategy explores the drivers of child poverty and its impact on children and families. Almost 8,000 under-16s in Sefton (almost one in six) were living in poverty last year. The cost-of-living crisis is making that situation worse. Poverty has no longer-reaching impacts and can harm children’s health, education and future prospects.

Running up to 2030, the new Strategy sets out a blueprint a local approach to tackling child poverty in Sefton, with actions linked to people’s finances, prospects, and places.

The Strategy says that Sefton Council is committed to increasing opportunity in employment and education and supporting the most vulnerable members of its communities. Sefton Council will continue working closely with partners in the voluntary sector, health, employers, further education facilities and community groups.

Cllr Trish Hardy who is Cabinet Member for Communities and Housing said: “Tackling childhood poverty is key to us achieving all our priorities and should be squarely at the centre of everything we do, and this is the next step in the work we have been doing since 2015 on welfare reform and anti-poverty.”

Research has shown that living in poverty can lead to poor health in children, and this effect can last into adulthood.  It can also lead to poorer educational results which in turn effects young people’s opportunities for the rest of their lives.

When Sefton's new Childhood Poverty Strategy was agreed by the Council’s Cabinet in October, Cllr Hardy said:

“We know that all of the life expectations of children in poverty are limited by their experiences which they have no personal control over.

“As a council we can’t change it, but we can do our damnedest to minimise the impact of poverty on the children we have a responsibility to in this Borough.”