Child Social Policy in the UK - Coursework Example

Child Social Policy Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course Code & Name: Date of Submission: Child Social Policy As nature would like to dictate that each and every person on the face of the earth has equal chances to succeed in life, this is not always possible due to various environmental factors. One of these environmental factors is poverty which is cyclic in nature hence explaining the reason as to why its effects are felt in many spheres of life. A group which is notably one of the most affected demographic groups is the children. This explains why many governments have made efforts to establish various social policies to try and tackle the problem of child poverty and social exclusion. This is the same case with the United Kingdom which has seen a transformation of social policies over time which has been a major step in the fight against child poverty and exclusion. Child poverty is a state in which a child is not able to get the material things that he or she needs in order to lead a normal life as per the standards of a country (Save the Children2012, p.1). Child poverty is a major factor which draws a boundary between the children who will be successful in life and those who will not. It is almost impossible to talk about child poverty without talking about child abuse due to the close relationship between the two. Child poverty leads to child abuse as the children are put into a fixed situation which makes them prone to abuse. In a bid to ensure that the level of child poverty is reduced as much as possible, social policies are established. They entail strategies which are critically crafted so as to offer a solution to the poverty issues which facing a country (Hendrick 2008, p.117). Bad labour terms have over the years affected the working population in UK and this has partly contributed to the level of child poverty in the country. The Labour party sought to improve on the employment regulations in the country so as to enable people to benefit from their jobs. The New Labour Policy of 1997 which is notably one of the most effective social policies to have been established in the United Kingdom has proved to provide an amicable solution to this problem. The following paper will take a deep insight into child poverty in the United Kingdom. It is being done as an essay as part of the course ‘child care’. Child poverty is a problem facing many countries in the world and the United Kingdom is no exception. It is a major problem which has raised concern among many people as to warrant a more aggressive approach as seen by the ‘keep the promise rally’ held on 4th October 2008, which is the biggest ever rally focusing on eradication of child labour (End Child Poverty 2008, p.1). The major effect of child poverty is disadvantaging children so as not to have equal chances as other children have. The availability of a good environment for the upbringing of a child is paramount as stressed by Bronfenbrenners theories on ecological Systems (1979) and theory on environments and relationships. In both of his theories, Bronfenbrenners stresses that the microsystem, mesosystem, exossystem, macrossystem, chronosystem all of which relate to the environment which the child lives in determines the child’s development process and most probably what the child turns out to be. Poverty is a problem which affects all the systems according to Bronfenbrenners and therefore has a very significant effect on the child’s development. This explains the vigor with which the UK government has on its quest to eradicate child poverty. The vigor to eradicate child poverty by the Labour government was emphasized by Tony Blair, the former Britain’s Prime minister in his Beviredge Lecture on 18th March 1999. In his lecture, Blair emphasized on the need of breaking ‘the cycle of disadvantaged so that children who are born into poverty are not condemned to social exclusion and deprivation’. Education disparities between children born in poverty stricken homes and children from well off families are very visible. This is due to the inherent difference between the education opportunities which are available to children coming from the different backgrounds. More often than not, children from poor families do not have access to quality education, health services and other essential social services (Hendrick 2008, p.117). This lead to these children being disadvantaged since they are not presented with the same opportunities to succeed. As a continued cycle, these children are not able to provide these same essential social services to their children hence creating a continuous cycle of disadvantaging children hence condemning them to social exclusion and deprivation as put by Tony Blair. Child abuse exists hand in hand with child poverty. In fact, the two are intertwined. UNCRC (the United Nations Convention on the Right of a Child) is a global agreement aimed to shield the rights of persons below the age of eighteen years. This agreement was passed by the general assembly of UN in 1989 and in 1991, 16th December, the Northern Ireland and the Great Britain accepted to see to it that all children in UK have every right as stipulated in this agreement (Subdhan 2008, p.1). As a signatory, the UK’s government formulates its child acts on the confinements of the fundamental bill of children rights which is provided for by UNCRC. The close relationship between child abuse and child poverty is derived from the fact that poor children are more prone to situations which expose them to abuse. For instance a poor child seeking to feed for him or herself is more like to get exposed to situations which would lead to sexual and physical abuse. This explains why the government always puts up measures in forms of Legal Acts, policies, white and green papers so as to solve the menace which has continuously affected families and condemned children to a cyclic poverty. This will come out clearly later in the paper as the various policies, acts and strategies are analyzed in detail. Moreover, in order for the government to end the child poverty crisis, the poverty levels of the families from which they come from must be reduced drastically. This will make it possible for parents to provide to their children As at 1997, the vision of United Kingdom was to half the number of children under child poverty by the year 2020. Taking a critical look at the statistics, it can be concluded that the United Kingdom had more children living under poverty than many of the rich countries of the world. The need to formulate a joint country’s vision to try and solve the child poverty crisis came into being after statistics indicated that over the last 30 years, the number of children under child poverty had increased drastically. Statistically put, there were 1.4 million children living under poverty in the year 1968 as compared to the 4.3 children living under the same condition in the year 1995. The increase in ratio gives a more precise figure where one out of the children 1:10 lived in poor conditions in 1965 as compared to one out of three 1:3 children who lived in the same conditions as at 1995. This led to the joint / collaborative policy which is meant to turn around the situation by halving the number of children living under poverty by the year 2020 (Fitzgerald & Kay 2008, p.30). This is notably one of the most psyched up policy in recent years as its cuts across all the sectors of the economy. As a move to ensure that the vision of eradicating child poverty is carried forward by incumbent regimes, a legal act which demands that all the political party’s sign up to the vision of ending child poverty by the year 2020 was established and afterwards passed into law (John Rowntree Foundation 2012, p 1). Under the policy, there has been a reduction in the number of children living in poverty by 800,000 as at the year 1998. As at this year, the number of children living in poverty was 2.6 million, down from 3.4 million children in 1998 (John Rowntree Foundation 2012, p 1). Taking an analysis at the Households Below Average Income (HBAI), as at the financial year 2010/2011, 2.3 million children representing 18 % of the children in UK were living in households with and income which was below 60% of the contemporary median net disposable household income before housing costs (Department for Work and Pensions 2012, p.1). This figure is encouraging as compared to the year 2009/2010 when the percentage was 20 % and the year 1998/1999 when the percentage was 39 %. A sure way of reducing child poverty is by reducing the poverty levels from the families in which the children come from. The labour party’s policy seeks to transform the phase of employment in UK as worklessness is one of the main contributing factors to child policy. A research shows that children living in poverty have at least one employed parent while the majority of them have none working (Openheim 2009, p.1). As many of the proponents of the policy argue, a job whose earnings do not change the livings standards of the employee is as good as no job (Hill 2006, p4). When the Labour party came into power in 1997 there was a promotion of employment in the country to the individualistic approach which the party upheld as opposed to the familistic approach which was previously upheld by the immediate former government. This new approach encouraged more people to get employed due to the policy of ‘opportunities for all’ which it held. It was with the ‘opportunities for all’ that the party made a remarkable declaration of providing equal resources to all the children by ending child poverty by the year 2020. At its establishment, the child poverty policy was divided into four targets which were equally spaced in intervals of 5 years each. The number of children living in poverty was to be reduced by a quarter by the year 2004 and halved by the ear 2010, reduced by three-quarter by 2015 and eliminated by 2020. All the political parties signed an agreement which made them to concert their efforts towards eradicating child poverty by 2020. The government also drafted the green paper in November 2004 which was titled ‘Every Child Matters’. The green paper was drafted together with the Children Act which was passed in 2004. The green paper and the children act all emphasized on raising the degree of equity in the availability of chances to children coming from both poor and well to do families. All these legal documents were drafted after the first target of the children poverty policy was reached shortly after 2004. As per the title of the green paper reads that ‘ Every Child Matters’ the paper was meant to synthesize the elite in the society on the need to uphold equitable allocation of resources to all the children. The green paper and the children act identified the following key issues which are vital for the well being of each and every child. The issues are: good health, safety existence, enjoying and achieving in life, positive contribution to the society and lastly attainment of economic or financial well being. The five issues stated above forms the focus of the government on pupils. The safeguarding measures introduced in the Every Child Matters (ECM) and the Children Act of 2004 includes the following: Common Assessment Framework (CAF) which is an assessment tool which is shared by all the local regions and children’s services located in England. The objective of this tool is to enable and early identification of the problems facing children and in the process making it possible for service provision which is coordinated well. The Contact Point is another safeguarding tool which allows for children workers to know who else is working with a specific child hence enabling a coordinated approach to support services delivery. The last of the measures is the Integrated Children’s System (ICS) which was defined in the Children Act of 1989 allows for the continued support of children who have at one time undergone abuse. The Green Paper, strategized on setting out one hundred and fifty projects nationally, all of which were meant to ensure that each and every child in the United Kingdom was able to enjoy the above. The facilitators of these programmes were local authorities and partners of the policy. The green paper noted that for the goal of eliminating child poverty by 2020 to be realized, there has to be a collaborative working by all the stakeholders (Department of Education 2012, p1). As pointed out by Fitzgerald & Kay in their book, some matters such a reducing the levels of child poverty calls for a collaborative effort by all the people who are affected by the issue (Fitzgerald & Kay 2008, p.32). The government acknowledged this fact and in the children act and the green paper of 2004, it included the services of education institutions, social setups e.g. religious institutions and sporting institutions. All these departments were to work together to ensure that they provide all the important issues pointed out above to the children hence ensuring that they lead a god life. This policy and strategy did not enable the government to realize its goals of halving the number of children under child poverty by 2010. Although substantial ground was made towards realizing this, the government fell short by 700000 children in reaching their target as per the children’s policy of 1998. The effects of this strategy were felt throughout the country in terms of the budget. The financial implications of the strategy cut deep into the budgetary allocations of the country. This is due to their large numbers and the heavy financial demands that they had if their success was to be realized (Lister 2005, p. 445). Another effect of the green paper was the increased involvement of the children and the youth in various activities of their own interest. There was an increased enrolment in educational institutions which was coupled with more school retention rates which was as a result of the subsidized education given by the government. The health and social act of 2010-2012 is yet another strategy or policy of ensuring that the level of child poverty is reduced as much as possible. As pointed out earlier, a healthy life ensures that one is able to enjoy life to the fullest and have an equal chance of succeeding in life. The act provides for subsidized health care to disadvantaged children which include the various medical services of child care. This ensures that all the children have an equal chance of succeeding in life due to a healthy well being (Frost& Parton 2009, p.23). This act has been able to patch up the loopholes which were unforeseen in the Child Poverty Policy of 1998. With the rising cost of medical care which has been fuelled by the global economic crisis, it was apparent that health care was proving to be a divisive factor in the attainment of equal chances to children descending from poor and well up families (Waldfogel 2010, p.60). Children from well up families had the chance of growing up healthy hence been able to access more opportunities than poor children due to their mental and physical well being. The act has been successful in reducing the poverty gap between the poor children and the well up children in the society, which is the aim of the government. The education act of 2011 is crafted in line with the ‘The Importance of Teaching’ White Paper. The act and the white paper give the teachers powers of maintaining good discipline in schools and providing freedom to schools and colleges by removing the bureaucratic requirements which pulled down the efforts of providing quality and equal education. By reducing the bureaucratic requirements for schools, the schools will be able to provide quality education to all the students irrespective of their origin. The act focuses on the following important areas in the education institutions: achievement, teaching, leadership & management, and lastly behavior and safety. Lastly, the act calls for equitable allocation of resources where it gives parents of poor two year old children 15 hours of unpaid for early childhood education per week. The act also provides for the allocation of loans to students in higher education (Department of Education 2012, p.1). The Lambeth child poverty reduction strategy 2011-2014 is the most recent o the government’s policies and strategies of reducing and eventually eliminating child poverty in the Lambeth. This strategy was initiated in a strive to reduce the poverty levels in Lambeth which has among the largest population of children and people living in poverty. According to the latest statistics, 59.1 % of children and young people living in Lambeth live under severe conditions of poverty. As an effect of these shocking statistics, most of the inhabitants of Lambeth live out of tax credits and out of work benefits which are issued by the government. The policies have their own strengths, which determine why the eradication of child poverty campaign has been effective. They still have their own weaknesses, the reason as to why the targets of 2004 and 2010 have not yet been met. The strong points of the policies are that they provide a boost of labour and skills to the economy hence rejuvenating it, the institutional organization of the implementation further boosts its efficiency and decentralization of the policy formulation institutions has provided a chance for the finite problems in the society. Among the weaknesses of the policies above include: problems associated with the implementation of the policies due to lack of commitment by some stakeholders, lack of proper analysis of the problems while drafting the policies hence foregoing some unforeseen problems and financial problems which are associated with the implementation of the policies and at this point bearing in mind the financial crisis. This is partly the reason as to why there has been a lot of fuss in the media criticizing the failure of the policies to reach their target (John Rowntree Foundation, 2012, p.1). On giving a statistical view of the situation, a fifth of United Kingdom’s children are still living in severe poverty conditions which raises an eyebrow as to the urgency at which the weaknesses of the policies have to be addressed (Shephard 2010, p.1). Taking a look at the Conservative government that was in power before the Labour party came into power, the following can be identified as the issues which led to the constant rise in child poverty. First of all, the government did not acknowledge that child poverty existed although the statistics proved otherwise. This meant that the government did pool any efforts to try and eradicate the vice which was affecting a very large number of children in the United Kingdom. This is contrary to what the Labour Party did as it accepted that the problem did exist and made the historic pledge to eradicate it by the year 2020 (Kirton 2009, p.19). The Beveridge Lecture by Tony Blair confirmed the party’s position and his words have been used over and over again in the quest to eradicate child poverty in UK. Secondly, the conservative government did not put any appropriate policy into place to fight child policy. The financial support which was being given to poor families did not work as it did not ensure that the children had access to the important services like education and health care which would ensure that were not disadvantaged. As a result of this, the New Labour party’s government spent heavily on the social services like education and health which would mean that the children have the chance to reach their aspirations with minimal inhibition. The Conservative government also failed to address the level of unemployment in the country which led to the growth in child poverty in the country. As identified earlier, unemployment is the major cause of child poverty in the country. The employment terms were not ill which translated to some working parents not being able to provide sufficiently for their families. In conclusion, it can be identified that the United Kingdom has a problem of child poverty. The Labour government has made a tremendous progress in trying to solve this pertinent problem which disadvantages children from poor backgrounds. The first step in solving any problem is acknowledging its existence which the labour party did in the historic declaration of eradicating poverty by the year 2020. As opposed to the Conservative government which did not establish any legal and policy frameworks to tackle the problem, the Labour government has over the years crafted green and white papers, parliament acts and child poverty strategies, all of which strive to ensure that the government lives up to its dream of eradicating poverty by the year 2020. A strategic approach which the government has employed over the years is to tackle the individual problems via different acts. The education act and the teaching white paper of 2011were specifically established to tackle the problem of education for all. Education is the barrier which dictates the level of success of one’s aspirations in a life time. By the government providing quality and affordable education to all the children, their future is secured since they have the chance to develop their abilities (Department of Education 2012, p.1). The health act of 2010-2012 is another of the specific acts which was meant to ensure that quality and affordable health care is affordable to all. The medical child care services which are offered free or at low cost to parents by the government have ensured that all the children have an equal chance of succeeding. All in all, the Labour government has not yet reached its goal as at now. By the year 2010, the government had planned of halving the number of children living in poverty. However, the government fell short of this number by a substantial amount. In order to ensure that the target of reaching the target 2020 successfully, the government has embarked on putting up specific strategies for instance the Lambeth child poverty strategy which is specific to the child poverty need at Lambeth. The high rate of inflation and the financial crisis has lowered the level of efficiency of the various programs set by the government. However, the government is on the right path in tackling child poverty and is one of the governments in the world which can be credited for its efforts to eradicate child poverty. References Department of Education, 2012. The Importance Of Teaching – The Schools White Paper 2010, Viewed on 20th June < https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/standard/publicationDetail/Page1/CM%207980> Department of work and pensions, 2012. Child poverty, Viewed on 20th June < http://www.dwp.gov.uk/policy/child-poverty/ > End Child Poverty, 2008, Our Campaign, Viewed on 20th June < http://www.endchildpoverty.org.uk/keepthepromiseevent > Fitzgerald, D & Kay, J. (2008) Working together in children’s services. Abingdon: Routledge. Frost, N.& Parton, N. (2009) Understanding children’s social care. London: Sage. Hendrick, H,2008, Child welfare and social policy. An essential reader. Bristol: Policy Press, pp.107-125 John Rowntree Foundation, 2012, Can Current Policy End Child Poverty In Britain By 2020?, Viewed on 20th June < http://www.jrf.org.uk/publications/can-current-policy-end-child-poverty-britain-2020 > Kirton,D.2009, Child social work. Policy and practice. London: Sage. Lambeth Child Poverty Reduction Strategy, 2011. Lambeth Child Poverty Reduction Strategy, Viewed on 20th June < http://www.lambeth.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/226DC07F-C600-479A-854D-9546726E24F8/0/ChildPovertyStratetgy201114.pdf > Lister, R, 2005, ‘Investing in the citizen-workers of the future’, in Hendrick, H. (ed.) Child welfare and social policy. An essential reader. Bristol: Policy Press, pp. 449-461. Oppenheim, C. 2009, Don’t Neglect Child Poverty, The Guardian, Viewed on 20th June < http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/08/child-poverty > Shepherd, J. 2010, Child poverty: study shows fifth of UK youngsters severely affected, The Guardian, Viewed on 20th June < http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/oct/15/fifth-uk-children-severe-poverty > Subdhan, A, 2008, UNHCR & Child Abuse, Young Decision Makers, < http://ydm.engagementcentre.ca/articlebank/page30/page30.html> The National Archives, 2012. Health and social act 2012, Viewed on 20th June < http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2012/7/contents/enacted/data.html Waldfogel, J. 2010, Britain’s war on poverty. New York: The Russell Sage Foundation Read More

The vigor to eradicate child poverty by the Labour government was emphasized by Tony Blair, the former Britain’s Prime minister in his Beviredge Lecture on 18th March 1999. In his lecture, Blair emphasized on the need of breaking ‘the cycle of disadvantaged so that children who are born into poverty are not condemned to social exclusion and deprivation’. Education disparities between children born in poverty stricken homes and children from well off families are very visible. This is due to the inherent difference between the education opportunities which are available to children coming from the different backgrounds.

More often than not, children from poor families do not have access to quality education, health services and other essential social services (Hendrick 2008, p.117). This lead to these children being disadvantaged since they are not presented with the same opportunities to succeed. As a continued cycle, these children are not able to provide these same essential social services to their children hence creating a continuous cycle of disadvantaging children hence condemning them to social exclusion and deprivation as put by Tony Blair.

Child abuse exists hand in hand with child poverty. In fact, the two are intertwined. UNCRC (the United Nations Convention on the Right of a Child) is a global agreement aimed to shield the rights of persons below the age of eighteen years. This agreement was passed by the general assembly of UN in 1989 and in 1991, 16th December, the Northern Ireland and the Great Britain accepted to see to it that all children in UK have every right as stipulated in this agreement (Subdhan 2008, p.1). As a signatory, the UK’s government formulates its child acts on the confinements of the fundamental bill of children rights which is provided for by UNCRC.

The close relationship between child abuse and child poverty is derived from the fact that poor children are more prone to situations which expose them to abuse. For instance a poor child seeking to feed for him or herself is more like to get exposed to situations which would lead to sexual and physical abuse. This explains why the government always puts up measures in forms of Legal Acts, policies, white and green papers so as to solve the menace which has continuously affected families and condemned children to a cyclic poverty.

This will come out clearly later in the paper as the various policies, acts and strategies are analyzed in detail. Moreover, in order for the government to end the child poverty crisis, the poverty levels of the families from which they come from must be reduced drastically. This will make it possible for parents to provide to their children As at 1997, the vision of United Kingdom was to half the number of children under child poverty by the year 2020. Taking a critical look at the statistics, it can be concluded that the United Kingdom had more children living under poverty than many of the rich countries of the world.

The need to formulate a joint country’s vision to try and solve the child poverty crisis came into being after statistics indicated that over the last 30 years, the number of children under child poverty had increased drastically. Statistically put, there were 1.4 million children living under poverty in the year 1968 as compared to the 4.3 children living under the same condition in the year 1995. The increase in ratio gives a more precise figure where one out of the children 1:10 lived in poor conditions in 1965 as compared to one out of three 1:3 children who lived in the same conditions as at 1995.

This led to the joint / collaborative policy which is meant to turn around the situation by halving the number of children living under poverty by the year 2020 (Fitzgerald & Kay 2008, p.30). This is notably one of the most psyched up policy in recent years as its cuts across all the sectors of the economy. As a move to ensure that the vision of eradicating child poverty is carried forward by incumbent regimes, a legal act which demands that all the political party’s sign up to the vision of ending child poverty by the year 2020 was established and afterwards passed into law (John Rowntree Foundation 2012, p 1).

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