At the most recent Food Alliance meeting there was a familiar theme from attendees ‘food projects continue to face increased levels of demand’. Many people are new. Many are people in work. Many of the households include children.
Data from the latest Food Foundation food insecurity tracker collected in June and July last year recorded levels of households where Children are directly experiencing food insecurityi at 18.7% (compared to food insecurity of 11.7% for households without children). This number rises further depending on the number of children increasing to 26% if there are four or more children.
National leadership
The Government made School Breakfast Clubs a priority in their election manifesto. Subsequently it’s found its way into the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. Early adopter schools will offer these from April. Work by Feeding Britain and others have led to continued funding for the Holiday and Food (HAF) programme. These are welcome steps. But piecemeal ones.
Key to the long-term alleviation of Childhood Poverty (and with it, hunger) should be the forthcoming Child Poverty strategy. The Government launched a policy paper last October. Since then, reports and call to actions have followed from the likes of the House of Lords, Feeding Britain and the Food Foundation. The most recent of these was a letter to Government Minsters - coordinated by the latter and signed by over 60 campaigners - asking for action on Healthy Start.
Regional influence...
One of the reports which has more regional and local relevance is the CHAMPS Public Health situational analysis on Child and Family poverty in Cheshire and Merseyside. (C&M). In the context of this discussion, it highlights Healthy Start, free school meals (FSM) and Holiday and Food (HAF) programme as potential solutions.
There’s extra significance locally as participation levels across all these schemes are amongst the lowest in our sub-region. For example, levels of Healthy Start - which provides financial support to address food insecurity – are the lowest across the C&M Integrated Care Board (ICB).
Local action
Anyone who’s been to a Food Alliance meeting over the last 12 months will know that I’ve been ‘banging the drum’ insistently about these programmes. I have no doubt they can play a key role, alongside School breakfast clubs, in addressing Childhood Hunger. This is one of the four areas of focus for our food work locally (see below).
So, what’s happening locally and what else can we do. Discussions about increasing Healthy Start uptake has led to the creation of a muti-sector task and finish group. There’s also a HAF steering group. The key to success however is bringing these activities together and a meeting with Public Health colleagues at Cheshire East Council in March will look to do just that.
Alongside the programmes mentioned above their other School based interventions including two school led Food clubs; one each in Crewe and Macclesfield, supported by food charity The Bread and Butter Thing.
Finally, it’s encouraging that were starting to see cohesion at a local, regional and national level. Is this good luck? Is it telepathy? Or is it just the reality that despite a forthcoming Childhood Poverty strategy and Food Poverty task force – there is unlikely to be any additional funding for any new policy interventions, so, instead we need to ensure as many people as possible can access the existing support available to them. I’d put my money on the latter.
i) Three questions are used to assess whether people were food insecure. If they respond yes to any, they are classified as food insecure: Have you/anyone else in your household: 1. had smaller meals than usual or skip meals because you couldn't afford or get access to food? 2. ever been hungry but not eaten because you couldn't afford or get access to food? 3. not eaten for a whole day because you couldn't afford or get access to food? We asked them if they had experienced this in a) the last month and b) the last 6 months.
