Child Poverty & Deprivation
“Deprivation” is a Government phrase, and likewise “Child Poverty”, which is the title of a 2010 Act of Parliament.
“Poor” and “deprived” are not useful labels at a personal level, to say the least. However, they are the language of Government at present when trying to find strategic solutions to local issues, not least to the apparent “cycle” of deprivation that seems to persist in certain areas.
New development in a less than wealthy area
Research into official study reports on deprivation has shown that:
- To date, there is no agreed single cycle of deprivation
- There is no published clarity around the range of different cycles – individual, generational, neighbourhood
- Consequently there is no published toolkit yet for breaking these cycles
In the absence of a received model for a cycle of deprivation, it will be important to base a focused programme for breaking deprivation on the evidence from past area-based initiatives. This evidence suggests there are two main issues:
1. Poverty (and adult poverty means child poverty) – a good income is the real guard against deprivation
2. Neighbourhoods – areas of entrenched deprivation need to change to become places where people wish to stay when they do have a good income
In places where the location of the neighbourhood means less available employment, these two issues are closely connected.
A more detailed research report may be downloaded here:
Breaking deprivation and reducing child poverty
And a 2-page overview of an approach to breaking deprivation in practice: