Introduction

Welcome to C4EO's e-learning resource on Child Poverty - part of our remit to gather and share local, regional and national evidence of what works to improve outcomes in services, especially for the most vulnerable children, young people and families.

Tackling child poverty is important to everyone who is concerned with improving outcomes for children. Poverty is closely linked to all the Every Child Matters outcomes - it affects children's health, their safety, their ability to achieve and to make an active contribution to social and community life. Poverty not only affects children's lives now, but is also linked to poorer outcomes in later life.

This resource is based on a knowledge review on effective approaches to developing child poverty strategies. The main messages are that effective action to tackle child poverty requires:

• a multi-agency/partnership approach, including sharing data and developing evidence-based practice on child poverty reduction

• maximising family income to alleviate poverty for children and their carers

• narrowing outcome gaps between young people from poor and affluent backgrounds in order to improve economic well being in later life

• actively involving children, families and communities in strategic decision-making about anti-child poverty policy development.

These messages are already informing the policy and practice being developed by many local authorities and partnerships in response to the 2010 Child Poverty Act which requires local authorities to work with partners to analyse the needs of children and families in their area and to produce a child poverty strategy. Tackling child poverty requires a joined-up approach, where Children's Services, other local authority departments and a range of both statutory and non-statutory partners, work together with children, families and communities to alleviate all aspects of poverty.

This resource is part of a range of support available from C4EO. You can find out more about the support available through the 'How we can help' section at the top of this page.

About C4EO

C4EO's unique remit is to 'gather and share' evidence of what works. We therefore hope that you will continue to support us by engaging in regional events, giving us feedback about our data and sharing your local examples of effective practice, to help us to continue to build the evidence base for tackling child poverty.

The authors

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