New Child Poverty Learning Hub
Public Health Scotland has launched a new learning hub dedicated to Child Poverty. The hub is aimed at those working in local authorities, the NHS, HSCPs, the third sector, and anyone interested in reducing child poverty in Scotland. The hub is pitched at the foundation level and assumes that users will have little or no knowledge about child poverty.
We are focusing on child poverty because it is a significant problem and 1 in 4 children in Scotland are living in poverty. Children have no control over the poverty they experience. Child poverty negatively impacts on child health, development and educational outcomes. Reducing the number of children living in poverty is key to reducing health inequalities and improving outcomes for children and families. Doing so requires collective action by organisations working in a range of sectors.
The hub will support understanding of child poverty, and it also identifies some key actions that staff, particularly those working within local authorities and NHS Health Boards might take to support families living on a low income. The hub is comprised of five relatively short modules that could be worked through alone or in a team. It is a flexible resource that learners can dip in and out of, depending on their learning needs.
We encourage you to promote the use of this hub with colleagues and partners so that we can collectively work together to better understand child poverty, and to increase the likelihood of reducing the number of children living in poverty.
The hub is free and can be accessed through Public Health Scotland’s Virtual Learning Environment. If you require any further support or information, please contact phs.wdteam@phs.scot.
