The Numbers Are National. The Doors We Knock On Are Local.
What the UK’s latest child poverty figures mean for families right here in Sussex, Surrey and Kent.
Child poverty in the UK is back in the headlines. New figures released this year show around 4 million children across the UK are living in poverty. Independent analysis from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation puts the number even higher, at 4.5 million, and rising for the third year running. That’s roughly 8 children in every classroom of 30.
Those are national numbers. But poverty here across Sussex, Surrey & Kent doesn’t look like the headlines. It looks like a mum quietly asking a teacher if there’s any spare uniform in the lost property box. It looks like a family who’ve never claimed anything in their life, working full time, still coming up short by the end of the month. These are the families who fly under the radar of formal support, and they’re exactly who we exist to find.
Child poverty isn’t just a headline figure. The official measure looks at whether a household’s income, after housing costs, falls below 60% of the UK’s average. It captures families on low pay, families where nobody works, and everything in between. What it can’t capture is what that actually looks like day to day: a birthday with no cake, a school trip quietly declined, a jumper handed down twice before it’s handed down again.
It doesn’t stop at the county line
Two thirds of working-age adults in poverty across the UK live in a household where someone has a job. Having work isn’t the safety net it used to be, and that’s as true in West Sussex, Surrey and Kent as it is anywhere else. That’s the scale of it this year: a thousand doors we want to knock on, each one a family who’s had a harder year than most.
How The UK Is Tackling Child Poverty
The Government published its first Child Poverty Strategy at the end of last year, aiming to lift 550,000 children out of poverty by 2030. The biggest single piece of this child poverty strategy is reversing the two-child limit on Universal Credit, alongside free school meals for all Universal Credit households and more funded breakfast clubs.
It’s a serious plan, and it’s not finished yet. Campaigners tracking the data say over 86,000 more children have been pushed into poverty by the two-child limit since it was announced, because the reversal hasn’t fully taken effect. Policy like this takes time to reach a kitchen table.
Which is exactly why we’re still knocking
While that plays out, the families we work with still need a Christmas dinner this December, a school uniform that fits, a trip they can afford. That’s not a criticism of the strategy, it’s just the gap we fill while it catches up. Fourteen years ago, our founder Darren knocked on the door of a 15 year old girl whose mum was struggling, and left a Christmas dinner box and a bottle of perfume. That’s still the job now, just at a bigger scale.
Knock on a door with us
If the national numbers made you wince, here’s where that feeling can go. Volunteer for the Christmas programme, donate to help us reach a thousand doors this year, or just share this post so more people know families like this are closer than the statistics make them feel.
Make A Donation
If you would like to help us reach over a thousand doors this year, every donation makes a real difference to a family close to home. Thank you for even considering it.
The Greenaway Foundation is a registered charity, no. 1187817.
