South Tyneside Council chiefs launch targeted new way of tackling child poverty issues

Shields Gazette

Council chiefs in South Tyneside have unveiled a new child poverty strategy to mitigate, reduce and prevent the issue - the first of its kind in the North East.  It comes as data shows South Tyneside is one of the most deprived communities in the country.

Transcript

00:00I mean, just from a South Tyneside perspective, I mean, reducing child poverty is a key mission

00:04for us here in South Tyneside. And our child poverty strategy is going to be the first

00:09in the region. I mean, we are an area where deprivation is extremely high, we're the third

00:13of all young people actually living in poverty. And what we are doing to, what we want to

00:18do in South Tyneside is to eradicate child poverty. So our strategy is our first step

00:23towards that. And I mean, it also links in with the North East Combined Authority, with

00:28their four key missions. So you know, it's about working solely as a region, sorry,

00:34solely as a local authority, but also from a regional perspective.

00:39Paul, have you got anything to add?

00:40Yeah, I mean, totally agree with what Tracey's just said there. I mean, the thing about it,

00:46where we've got to be proud in South Tyneside, that we are the first. And the thing we do,

00:51and we don't just do the talk, we do the walk. And that's why, you know, we are putting together

00:59like a strategy. And it's not just a short term, we will, you know, it is a strategy,

01:05which is we will keep monitoring it. And, you know, for five years, we'll, you know, we'll

01:14come back and see that what we did put in place has, you know, has kind of worked,

01:20you know, I mean, it's, and we won't be waiting for the five years, we'll be working on it

01:26constantly.

01:27What's important as well for us in South Tyneside, this actually builds on the work

01:30that we've actually been doing over the last five years, where we had our poverty commission,

01:35we had two anti-poverty summits, we had our child poverty summit in October.

01:39You know, so we had our partners around the table. So the feedback that we got from them,

01:43has actually worked into our strategy. You know, you have to bear in mind, we can't do

01:47this alone, we have to work in partners because the magnitude is so high. So from a South

01:52Tyneside perspective, you know, we are working together as partners with our agencies and

01:57delivering on our child strategy.

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