Despite poverty and social exclusion being common characteristics of families involved in the child protection system and a key factor associated with children becoming looked after, there is evidence to suggest that professionals struggle to truly incorporate an understanding of the impact of poverty in their assessments and interventions. In practice social workers and other professionals continue to have difficulty in making sense of the complex interplay between poverty, social deprivation, parental capacity and children's development.
This learning object will let you explore your own sensitivity to poverty with the help of six separate scenarios, each highlighting a different issue faced by families living in poverty. After you have worked through the six scenarios, you will able to see your level of sensitivity to these issues of poverty and social exclusion. You will then be able to match your responses to our examples of how to deal with the situations in a sensitive manner, reading our ideas behind each approach. The learning object concludes with a short video clip of a family member relating the importance of a sensitive attitude towards poverty.