Addressing Child Poverty with a Campaign Focused on Health and Wellbeing this Winter for Yorkshire’s Most Vulnerable
Now that children have gone back to school, and the weather has turned, families are feeling the cost-of-living crisis more than ever.
To keep children warm this winter, Yorkshire Children’s Charity is launching its 2024 Winter Support Campaign, aiming to support families by offering essential items like warm, waterproof coats, school shoes, bedding, and pyjamas. Towards the end of the year, the charity will also be helping families to provide festive gifts.
Winter is an incredibly difficult time for the families Yorkshire Children’s Charity supports: for many parents, in an attempt to keep their heads above water, everyday life comes at the cost of skipping meals to feed their children or going without essential utilities. Even then, with the rising cost of living, many are finding that despite their best efforts and sacrifices this just isn’t enough.
Often powerless to the cards they have been dealt, the children supported by Yorkshire Children’s Charity are some of the most vulnerable in society. For families living in poverty, simple necessities and meeting basic needs are daily concerns; but there’s often far more to it than this.
67% of applications received last year by Yorkshire Children’s Charity cite an additional challenge on top of deep poverty, from abuse, neglect and violence to criminal exploitation, homelessness, illness and special educational needs and disabilities.
Last year, the charity supported 1058 children with winter essentials and Christmas presents, delivering over 9000 items across Yorkshire, and have already received over 2000 applications for 2024.
The essentials don’t just keep children warm and dry but play a wider part in safeguarding, wellbeing and school attendance for young people across Yorkshire.
As a result of last year’s campaign:
· 87% of schools reported students are warmer and drier as a result of the winter coats
· 26% of schools reported an improvement in attendance as a result of putting new, dry shoes on feet
· 82% of school reported an improvement in children’s wellbeing and the additional contact with parents acted as an extra intervention stage for schools ahead of the festive period
“Getting this support after everything we’ve gone through was absolutely brilliant. The difference has been absolutely massive, I cannot tell you.” – Parent
“It has been a pleasure to see children in winter coats and shoes. These children had coats that did not fit, were very worn and thin and the shoes had holes in. They now walk around the school site with pride.” – Teacher
“For a child who would have received nothing for Christmas without the charity, it is truly amazing. To see them now so happy and excited to talk about Christmas is something that we haven’t witnessed before.” – Teacher
Yorkshire has the third highest rate of child poverty in the UK, with 31% of children living in the region currently living in poverty.
Yorkshire Children’s Charity aims to relieve some of the immediate struggles of families living with poverty and disability, while in the long-term they are working to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty across the region. The Winter Support Campaign is just one of many programmes that run throughout the year.
The impact of Yorkshire Children’s Charity’s work is healthier, happier, and more independent children and young people who are empowered to meet their potential and have the most fulfilling future possible.
How to get involved?
The first round of the Winter Support Campaign has closed whilst the charity fulfils the current applications. A second intake will open up in January 2025. To receive information about how teachers can get involved in the next round and put families forward for the second intake, schools can email wintersupport@yorkshirechildrenscharity.org.
For other ways to support, any donations made to Yorkshire Children’s Charity’s ‘Light A Star’ are greatly appreciated. Each star gifted will help a child, from a warm coat for winter or new shoes, to their very first Christmas present. 100% of donations will go directly to supporting the Winter Support Campaign.
Visit the link here to make a donation.
Image: Presents arriving at a Yorkshire school in 2023
