Last week the Government announced its Child Poverty Strategy. This has the potential to dramatically improve mental health but falls short of being a long-term solution to a systemic problem.
Child poverty is a public health hazard. It causes mental as well as physical ill health to millions of children every year, often with lifelong lasting consequences.
We welcome the Government’s child poverty strategy and its ambition to give every child a better start in life. The Chancellor’s recent decision to end, from April, the two-child limit for Universal Credit, and its new pledge to protect more children from homelessness, are urgently needed to protect children’s mental health nationwide.
We urge the Government to implement this plan and put the necessary resources into effective measures to protect children and families against the devastating effects of poverty. This must include providing mental health support to parents, children and young people who are feeling the effects of poverty today.
Ending child poverty could help to turn around the rising prevalence of mental ill health among young people across the country, but falls short of being a long-term solution. We hope that through sustained action, both to tackle poverty now and to make systemic changes to protect the children of the future against it, we can see the start of a mentally healthier future for all.
Find out more about our recommendations for long term solutions to protect children’s mental health from the impact of child poverty in our report, A dual crisis.
