Scotland

240,000 children in Scotland live in poverty – that’s one in four young people whose parents struggle to get by every day.

95,000 of these children live in the most severe poverty when there simply isn’t enough money to pay for essential items. Families that we work with tell us that this is impossible and that even the basics – winter coats, decent food and back-to-school costs - can be crippling for families on such a low income.

As we're one of the richest countries in the world, this is an injustice that we want to change.

What we’re doing about it

Save the Children in Scotland is demanding that local councils and the Scottish and UK governments keep their promises to end child poverty. We want them to use the powers they have to make changes for the poorest children.

Party leaders at the Scottish Parliament take receipt of the End Child Poverty 'building blocks' - graffitied with messages from children and young people across Scotland.

Young women from Glasgow found a novel way of delivering campaign cards to Downing Street - by turning the cards into papier mâché figures.

Secretary of State for Scotland, Jim Murphy MP, hears what children in Glasgow have to say to the Prime Minister about UK child poverty.

We've worked with some of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable children in Scotland for the past 40 years.

We work directly with local communities, particularly in the east end of Glasgow, where poverty levels are at their highest. We work with schools and community groups to help children, young people and parents make changes in their own lives and the areas where they live. We also encourage young people to speak to the government, letting them know what needs to change.
We work with local councils, Scottish and UK governments. We want them to change the lives of the poorest children and end child poverty.
We raise awareness of the issue of child poverty and build support for our work both through the media and our work with local communities.
We're also committed to making sure that children’s rights are respected and protected across Scotland. We want the Scottish Government and local councils to do everything they can to make this happen.

Our projects

Our new joint programme: 'Families and Schools together'

We’ll be working partnership with Families and Schools Together (FAST), an award-winning parental engagement and community-strengthening project to help parents in improve their children’s learning and development so they can reach their full potential. FAST has changed children’s lives for over 20 years in eight countries and 2, 000 schools by enabling them:

to succeed in school and have stronger life chances
to live in supported and strengthened families with better bonds, communication, confidence and self-esteem
to live in stronger communities with increased trust, participation and social inclusion.

We’re using a similar approach to run Philosophy for Children and Communitites, a scheme of group discussions shown to improve children’s thinking, reasoning and communication skills.
By 2014, we’ll establish more than 430 groups across the UK, improving the life chances of 50,000 children and training more than 8,000 new practitioners. We’ll prove to UK governments that it’s possible to break the cycle of poverty for good.

‘Parents Matter’ - The West Dunbartonshire Project

We think it's unfair that the poorest children do less well at school and we want to change that. By working with West Dunbartonshire Council and the schools in their area, we're looking at ways for parents to become more involved in their children’s education right from the beginning – a proven step to improving a child’s success at school. We hope that other local councils in Scotland will run similar projects with us.

‘Wee Shots’

We’re working with children and young people all over the UK to produce a series of short films about what it’s like to live in poverty. These films will be used to raise awareness of the issue and to get the children and young people’s messages to decision-makers and the media.

Inspiring change

We work with children, young people and parents to find out about their experiences of poverty. The groups come up with ideas of how their lives could improve and we work with them to put those ideas into action. The Inspiring Change projects enable children, young people and parents to have their voices heard and to let local councils and decision makers know about the things that need to change in their area.

Research

We carry out research to help us better understand how poverty affects children and their families, and what needs to change so that we can end child poverty in Scotland for good.

Download our briefing on education and poverty for children in Scotland 2010 (PDF 163KB)
Download our briefing on the impact of poverty on education (PDF 118KB) for children in Scotland 2007.
Download our consultation (PDF 139KB) on the Scottish Government’s response to the 2008 concluding observations from the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.
Download our briefing on severe child poverty 2010 (PDF 110KB).

For more information about our work in Scotland, please contact infoscotland@savethechildren.org.uk or call us on 0131 527 8200.

Friday 18 December 2009 Humbug to a poor Christmas for Scots children: We say “Child poverty promises don’t have to be as dead as a doornail.”
Wednesday 9 September 2009 Thumbs up to Scot on Gormley's plinth to save lives: Janine Mitchell takes her slot on Gormley’s Plinth today to help save newborn babies lives… by collecting thumbprints on her boiler suit!