poverty

Take up the challenge: the role of local services in increasing take up of benefits and tax credits to reduce child poverty

Ministers asked the Take Up Taskforce to develop ways to help local services to support parents to access all their relevant benefit entitlements, in order to help tackle child poverty.

Many poor families are not taking up all of the financial support to which they are entitled and there are particularly low rates of take up by families where at least one parent is working. Lack of awareness of available in-work financial entitlements can present a barrier to parents entering and sustaining work.

Children's hearing system in Scotland

The children's hearings system, Scotland's unique system of juvenile justice, commenced operating on 15 April 1971. The system is centred on the welfare of the child. A fundamental principle is that the needs of the child should be the key test and that children who offend and children who are in need of care and protection should be dealt with in the same system. Cases relating to children who may require compulsory measures of intervention are considered by an independent panel of trained lay people.

Young refugees : providing emotional support to young separated refugees in the UK

This guide offers advice on how to provide emotional support to young separated refugees and asylum-seeking young people in the UK (often described as unaccompanied children). These are children under 18 years of age who are outside their country of origin and separated from both parents or their legal/customary primary care giver. In this guide the term 'young separated refugee' is used to describe these children and young people.

What is 'povertyism'?

Poverty affects children from very different backgrounds and discrimination on the basis of disability, race or immigration status mean that some sections of the population are significantly over represented among poor families. However many families living in poverty also report being discriminated on the basis of being poor, and this being compounded when involved with child welfare services.

Are 'poor' pensioners 'deprived'?

The objective of this project was to describe and explain the relationship between age and living standards in later life: exploring how sensitive this relationship is to the questions being asked; and the extent to which the experience of individuals changes as they grow older.

The report is based on analysis of deprivation questions from the Poverty and Social Exclusion survey and the British Household Panel Survey.

Poverty and social exclusion amongst children and families in the UK: facts and figures

Understanding the various meanings of poverty is a very complicated task, but this learning object is designed to help you see beyond technical definitions and to understand the way poverty changes people's lives and the way they are seen by other people. This learning object will help develop your understanding of the ways poverty and social exclusion impact the lives of children and families in the U.K and describes some of the support services and networks that can help families living in poverty. This learning object is interactive and also contains video.

Guidance to local authorities on fuel poverty

The Scottish Government is committed to the target that by 2016, as far as is reasonably practicable, no-one in Scotland is living in fuel poverty. This is a key priority for Scottish Ministers. Councils can make an important contribution to the achievement of this target.

Through both their leadership and strategic role and their wealth of local knowledge and local action they have a significant part to play in ensuring that people live in warm dry homes which they can afford to heat.