Young Carers

Figures published today show there are 244,000 young people under 19 caring for a parent or sibling; 23,000 are younger than 9 years. The data is published by the Office for National Statistics and comes from the 2011 census.

A young carer is someone who is regularly cleaning, cooking, shopping, checking medication, helping with personal care, interpreting or paying bills on behalf of a parent. About a quarter are looking after a parent with a physical disability, another quarter have a parent with mental ill-health. One fifth help care for a disabled sibling.

Children look after sick parents or disabled siblings because they are part of the family and family members look after each other. However for some the responsibilities become too heavy and long term. Young carers may need to be home soon after school so miss out on activities their peers take for granted like play, sports leisure activities and just friendships. They may have limited time for homework so school work can suffer leading to poorer exam results and limited opportunities.

Most council areas have a young carers project often run by a voluntary organisation. Young carers say they need to be recognised especially by their teachers; they need information about services that can help the person they are caring for; someone to talk to when things get tough and chances to have a break and chill out.

However the real issue is identifying who the young carers are, councils having been trying to crack that problem for over 20 years since they first realised some children were looking after their parents. The doctors or care workers that the parent sees do not ask who looks after them at home; teachers, playworkers and youth workers tend not to enquire about the home life of children or young people either. And it doesn't seem fair to expect young carers or parents to identify themselves as 'young carers' many will simply see it as part of their family life.

A lot of effort goes in to training all those professionals to be aware of young carers, to sensitively enquire if a child or young person is caring for someone else, and to know who to put the young person in touch with if they are a young carer.

Children North East does not run any projects specifically for young carers but when we do come across them in our work with families, we always put them in touch with local projects that can help them. And with their permission, we will tactfully inform the school about home life and request that they make adjustments for the young carer.

Children's Rights in the UK

Children North East is a member of the Children's Rights Alliance for England (CRAE). This week we received their annual 'State of Children's Rights In England' report. The UK is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and as such our government is required to report every 5 years to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child about progress to fully implement the Convention. The government will be doing this in 2013 so the CRAE annual report is a good indication of what should be in it.

Of the 118 UN recommendations about children's rights in England CRAE conclude there has been progress on 30, steps backwards on 37 and the remaining 51 remain the same as previous years. Among the headlines are:

• Our govenment does not routinely fulfill its commitment to give consideration to children's rights when making new legislation
• But the Children's Commissioner for England has been given a new remit to promote and protect the rights of children
• Draft legislation to reform provision for children with special educational needs has been broadly welcomed
• The Health and Social Care Act 2012 creates duties to reduce health inequalities (at present a boy born in Kensington & Chelsea has a life expectancy of 85.1 years, a boy born in Blackpool can expect to live 73.6 years
• Child poverty is set to rise yet one quarter of pupils in the south and east of England who are entitled to free school meals do not claim them
• There are 14,000 pupils who go to school in 'Pupil Referral Units' - places for children who have been excluded or cannot go to ordinary schools for health reasons. Only 1.4% of these children achieve 5 or more good GCSEs compared to 53.4% of all children
• When asked by Ofsted 50% of primary school children and 38% of secondary school pupils said they had been bullied in their current school

Early in April UNICEF published their UK report card based on comparisons of Child wellbeing in rich countries which received some press attention. It compares child wellbeing in 29 of the worlds most advanced economies. In summary it says:

'This report puts the UK in 16th position, below Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Portugal.

Worrying findings include high rates of teenage pregnancy, and high numbers of young people out of education, employment and training. The UK has one of the highest alcohol abuse rates among 11-15 year olds, and was placed in the bottom third of the infant mortality league table.

Although the Report Card shows the UK moved up the league table in overall well being, since 2010 the downgrading of youth policy and cuts to local government services are having a profound negative effect on young people age 15-19.'

The point about these two reports is vigilance, we cannot afford to be complacent about children's rights in the UK, there is still a long way to go.

CIPD North East of England HR & D Awards

Last night saw the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development North East of England Branch Human Resources and Development Award dinner at the Gateshead Hilton hotel. It was a glittering occasion to celebrate the CIPD 100th anniversary. There were over 300 guests from 36 prominent North East businesses such as Northumbrian Water, Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service, Arriva North East and newcomer to the region, Virgin Money. Like CIPD many of the organisations present were celebrating anniversaries but the oldest by far was Children North East.

The purpose of the evening was to make awards in 8 categories, we were told that the standard of entries was better than ever before and there were a higher number than ever too. Children North East were delighted to be a finalist alongside Houghon International and NAREC, the National Renewable Energy Centre for the 'SME Excellence in HR & D' Award.

Children North East is a people organisation, our staff, volunteers and trustees are our biggest resource and everything we do is rooted in the power of human relationships to transform people's lives. So excellent HR is an absolute priority for us to ensure that we value and support the people who work for Children North East. If we don't respect them how can we expect them to respect and value the children, young people and parents we ask them to support in the name of Children North East.

In the event, Houghton International won in the 'SME Excellence in HR & D' category but we did extremely well to be selected. Children North East was one of only two third sector organisations nominated for any of the awards. So very well done Leigh and the HR team - your hard work has been recognised and you can feel justifiably proud of the quality of what you do for Children North East.

Digital stories

Have you ever seen yourself on a cinema screen? Imagine what a thrill it would be to see yourself so large; so different to a usual size photograph even on a computer or TV. That's what happened for 9 young people, their families and friends on Thursday this week at the Tyneside Cinema www.tynesidecinema.co.uk

It was the culmination, in fact the World Premier of a joint project between Children North East and digital story maker Alex Henry who is also known as Creative Curiosity funded by a grant from Newcastle City Council's 'Make Your Mark' programme for Scotswood and Benwell.

Alex helps people make and record their own story using computer technology. She worked with local children, young people and parents from Benwell and Scotswood and Sara Bryson from Children North East at our Head Office in Benwell.

They started by sharing their likes, dislikes, hopes, what they love and dislike, gradually getting to know each other. Next each decided the story they wanted to tell and with help from Alex and support from each other planned how to tell it, write it down, select or make pictures to illustrate it and finally put it all together using a computer. The result was 9 short original picture shows that are funny, quirky, poignant stories about real life in Benwell and Scotswood today.

You can see these stories too online. Samir takes us on a tour of Benwell today and reflects on the past in 'That's Benwell' and Darren describes the 'degeneration' of Scotswood in 'My Story'. Cain, Naomi and Darren tell us about their family, each in their own way in 'My Family' 'Home Sweet Home' and 'My Family Circus'.

'Tilly and Mitsy's Express' is Molly's story of her dog while Ubayed reveals a little known corner of school life in 'Are You Selling'.

The last two stories are about the future, Ryan tells about his ambition to set up a greengrocers and cafe using locally grown fruit and veg in 'Freshly Cuttings' and Shuayb explains why he is looking forward to the Islamic School opening at 'The Mitre (Benwell Towers)' and hopes the whole community will welcome it.

Everyone thoroughly enjoyed taking part in this project which gave them a unique opportunity. They were so pleased, proud (and a bit shocked) to see their work on the big screen in a proper cinema with their families and friends. Some of the children are inspired to do more, their experience of this project has made them feel that is achievable.

The stories will be offered to Tyne and Wear Museums to be included in the archive of Benwell and Scotswood.

Lifestyle choices, welfare reforms and child poverty

Politicians sometimes get lucky breaks, David Cameron, George Osbourne et al must have been delighted with the outcome of the Mick and Mairead Philpott trial at the exact moment when the Coalition's Welfare Reforms begin to bite. They have capitalised on the story by repeatedly telling us that 'for some' living off benefits is a 'lifestyle choice'. There have been repeats of Anne Widdecombe's visits to the Philpott's home when she commented on the consumer goods they owned; and repeats too of Mick Philpott appearing on the Jeremy Kyle show. The Philpotts have been depicted as the epitome of real life 'Shameless' skivers. Politicians get away with this because, as they say themselves, the public believes a great many people do chose to live off benefits; they believe that benefits are generous and that people can live comfortably and never have to work.

There are no official records but it is thought there are fewer than 12 families of 10 or more children living off benefits in the whole of the UK. Only 2% of all single mothers are teenagers and 59% of all single mothers work at least part-time. The total cost of welfare benefits and state pensions is about £205 billion but at least 60% of it (depending on how you calculate it) is spent on retired people. There have been calls for Ian Duncan-Smith to demonstrate he could live on £53 a week, the real level of out-of-work benefits for a single person; inflation is 2.7%, people with low incomes spend proportionally more on food, heating and transport which are all rising faster than that, so the 1% cap is in fact really a cut. Less than 1% (about £2 billion) of the total welfare budget is lost to fraud, by contrast tax avoidance and evasion is estimated to be about £120 billion.

Politicians have carefully avoided talking about poverty this week, the discussion has been about welfare reform and fairness instead. I wonder if this is a tacit recognition that the public now realise that lots of people are in work but are still poor - over 66% of poor children live in working families. The public is well aware that most 'hard-working families' have not had pay increases for several years; and that food, heating and transport are all much more expensive. If politicians have realised this then perhaps the way is clear for a proper public debate about poverty, jobs and wages unhindered by myths about benefits claimant lifestyles.

Children North East will help to bring children and young people's experiences and views to such a debate. We have recently received a small grant from the Webb Memorial Trust to develop Hopebook – a social media platform about child poverty for the All Party Parliamentary Group on Poverty. The MPs see Hopebook as a vehicle for getting voices of the most dispossessed children in society into the committee’s debates and for involving children and young people across the country in discussing poverty. We will be working on this closely with young people, Newcastle Live Theatre and the digital team who developed Hopebook which won the Culture Code hack in Newcastle last summer. Take a look at this preview of Hopebook: http://adayofhope.co.uk/intro.

Breadline Britain

You may have seen 'Breadline Britian' on ITV last night, or watch it here if you missed it: ITV programme 'Breadline Britain'

The programme discussed a report by the Poverty and Social Exclusion (PSE) Unit at Bristol University (and others) published yesterday (see: www.poverty.ac.uk). It repeats research originally conducted in 1983 and repeated several times since, most recently in 2012. This is the longest running research into poverty in the UK. It is based on surveys of what the general public think is 'essential' in today's society and compares that to the numbers of people who are not able to afford those things and have to go without.

The UK economy has doubled in the 30 years since 1983 but those at the bottom of society and their children have been increasingly left behind. Things are likely to worsen further with the introduction of more austerity measures next week - increased social housing rent due to the 'bedroom tax'; reduction and  transfer of Council Tax allowances to local authorities which means more people will be required to pay Council Tax; Social Fund also transfered to local authorities who are replacing it with food vouchers; limiting maximum benefit entitlement to £500 a week; abolition of Disabled Living Allowance and so on.

Sadly we at Children North East are not surprised by the findings of this research because they reflect what children and young people told us during our work about child poverty from children’s perspectives in every part of the north east during 2011.

Children and young people said the biggest problems were damp, hard to heat, overcrowded homes; this report has found 9% of all households cannot afford to heat their homes and 10% live in damp homes. The general public regard good accommodation as the most important essential of modern life.

Children and young people told us it was hard to obtain or afford fresh food and many families could not afford to replace broken household appliances. This report has found 4% of all children and 8% of all adults cannot afford to eat properly; and 26% of adults cannot afford to replace or repair broken electrical goods.

The PSE report also found significant numbers of children lack things considered essential to do well in school such as a computer with internet access at home and to be able to afford school trips. Whilst it is appalling that these things happen in what is still a exceptionally wealthy country - the 7th richest in the world - it is not enough to just moan, Children North East is doing what we can to improve things for children and young people. This month we have been piloting our audit tool for schools to assess how well they include poor children and how to improve, we expect to have this ready for dissemination by the summer along with training for teachers about the impact of poverty on children’s lives.

Tax the rich, don't punish the poor - here's why

The Baptist Union of Great Britain, the Methodist Church, the Church of Scotland and the United Reformed Church are not usually known for their radicalism so it's surprising they published a joint report this month titled 'The lies we tell ourselves: ending comfortable myths about poverty'. It is authoritative, eloquent and debunks the nonsense I pointed out in this blog last week. In the light of yesterday's budget it includes this comment:

'The Quantitative Easing programme has increased the personal wealth of the UK’s richest fi fth of families by enough to pay for Jobseeker’s Allowance for over a century.'

Full Fact supports the Labour Party's claim that people with an income over £1m a year can expect an additional tax cut of £100,000 a year from 6th April.

Last Friday Ruth Levitas, Professor of Sociology at Bristol University gave a seminar at Durham University, one of her slides showed how the wealth of the country is distributed between income groups:

 

The data is easier to understand as graphs. This is what the distribution looked like in 1972/1973 when income distribution was at its most equal in the UK during the 20th century.

And this is what it looked like in 2009/2010. Clearly the top 10% have become significantly richer while the poorest 10% have become significantly poorer. In fact every 10% cohort has a lower share of national income than 40 years ago with the exception of the richest 20%. The gap has almost certainly worsened since 2010 under Coalition policies.

Ruth Levitas published the same data in her paper 'The Just’s Umbrella: Austerity and the Big Society in Coalition policy and beyond' University of Bristol, UK, 2012. In the paper she suggests that if it chose to the Government could easily pay off the deficit by taxing the super wealthy instead of cutting welfare benefits or public services.

Ahead of the budget this week the New Statesman agreed:

'Choices regarding tax and welfare changes should be taken together, since they are both financial transfers between citizens and government. Decisions should be made from the perspective of who has the greatest capacity to absorb changes. This means that any reforms should target the top half of the income distribution, who both have the broadest shoulders and have escaped lightly from austerity until now.'

And Grahame Morris MP speaking in Parliament on 19th March in the debate about the Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Bill said:

'The Government are creating two nations. They are seeking to penalise and punish the poor for the mistakes of the rich and powerful, in part of a continuing series of policies that are badged as 'austerity'. Those policies are pushing the poorest in society further into poverty.'