Eat,Sleep,Learn,Play!
Programme Summary
Eat, Sleep, Learn, Play! is a crisis grant programme designed to support children and
families in the most desperate need. It directly provides them with household
essentials, such as a child’s bed, a cooker or educational books and toys. The
programme will help us evidence the effects of severe poverty on children and
inform our calls for policy change.
Child Poverty in the UK today
The UK is the fifth richest country in the world, but there are 3.5 million children growing up in
poverty and 1.6 million children in severe poverty1. 100,000 babies are born into severe poverty
each year. Families are struggling to live on low incomes and children are deprived of basic
necessities. We know there are children who sleep on cold floors for want of a bed, or who don’t
have any quality educational books or toys. This has a direct, negative impact on their learning and
development and is a barrier to involvement in schools and communities, leading to social
isolation.
We are particularly concerned that welfare support for vulnerable families with newborns has
fallen over recent years causing a significant strain on their household income. Families with young
children are already at greater risk of poverty than families with older children. Cuts to things like
Sure Start Maternity Grants, Health in Pregnancy Grants and Tax Credits at a time of rising living
costs will plunge more families into poverty. Access to crisis support such as the Social Fund is not
meeting the increasing need of vulnerable families due to a lack of resources and consistency in its
implementation. Save the Children is acutely aware that poorer families are paying more for their
goods and services such as fuel bills (due to prepayment meters) and they struggle to access
affordable credit so buy necessities at hugely inflated interest rates. The result of this is that the
basic needs of children are often left unmet.
Sam, aged 12, said “There are four of us me, Mum, Jenny who
is three and Max who is four months old. Dad treated Mum
badly so we moved into a temporary house. Mum used to
work as a cleaner but couldn’t keep her job when Max was
born. When our cooker broke we had to eat cold food
which made my Mum really sad. A Health Visitor came to
check on Max and Mum. She wrote to Save the Children to
buy us a new cooker. Now we have hot dinners every day. ”
We believe that every child has the right to an adequate standard of living. That is why we run an
early intervention and prevention programme called Eat, Sleep, Learn, Play! across the UK’s most
vulnerable communities. It is carefully designed to respond at a critical time in a family’s life.
1
We define poverty as a family of four living on £15,000 per year and severe poverty as a family of four living on £12,500 per year.
Our focus in the UK
In 1999, the UK government made a commitment to halve child poverty by 2010 and end it by
2020. However, the cycle of poverty continues to affect the childhoods of the most vulnerable
and, unless urgent action is taken, child poverty is expected to rise by 400,000 between now and
2014.
Over 90 years, we have been working in the UK to champion the rights of children. Our
breakthroughs include introducing free school meals in 1933, to ensuring the passing of the Child
Poverty Act in 2010. In April 2011, we achieved a significant policy win when, after our input and
feedback, the UK Government’s Child Poverty Strategy included the requirement to monitor
severe poverty levels and, even in the current period of public spending cuts and austerity, we’ve
secured extra funding to support parents with childcare.
How does Eat, Sleep, Learn, Play! Work?
ESLP! supports children in the most desperate
need, whose parents meet a low income
threshold, are 28 weeks pregnant or have had
a baby or toddler in the last three years, and
are living with a material need within the
home. We provide the family with an
essential item, such as a child’s bed, family
cooker or educational books and toys. We
also conduct a benefits check to ensure their
immediate and longer-term needs are met.
We deliver the programme using a three
pronged partnership with: 1) frontline referral
partners such as Health Visitors who work in
local communities with existing access to
families living in severe poverty; 2) Turn2Us,
an experienced charity helping vulnerable
families access welfare benefits and grants;
and 3) retail partners which ensure products
are delivered and installed.
Partner fills
out an
application
Save the
Children
hotline
Household
item
dispatched
HERE IS
HOW IT
WORKS
Family in
need
Family
transformed
Step 1: Our frontline referral partners assess the family’s eligibility to ESLP! as part of their
comprehensive family assessment and make an application for a material grant.
Step 2: We conduct a phone assessment with eligible families. This includes a benefits check to
ensure families are accessing the financial support to which they are entitled.
Step 3: An essential household item, valued at £200 on average, is awarded to the families and
directly dispatched to the household.
Step 4: After six weeks, we contact the families to assess the impact of the material item and any
change to the family’s benefits package.
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Christina, Project Coordinator from Home Start in Westminster, told us, “When I
first heard about Eat, Sleep, Learn, Play! my heart leapt. The programme would
make an immediate and visible change to a family in need. I meet parents everyday
whose hearts ache because they can’t provide the basic needs for their family. A
mother who suffers from post partum depression may struggle to even warm milk for
her baby. If her cooker breaks it could tip her right over the edge.”
Our project vision
By working in disadvantaged areas across the UK we will ensure:
 Babies and toddlers born into severe poverty and their siblings will have an improved ability to
eat, sleep, learn or play in their home through the alleviation of a family’s immediate material
need.
 Families and children will experience a higher standard of living through increased uptake of
the benefits to which they are entitled.
 Save the Children’s mission to eradicate child poverty will be informed and strengthened by
evidence of material deprivation and its effects on children and families.
Monitoring and Evaluation
The telephone assessment allows us to gather information on a family’s current access to
benefits, the level of material deprivation and the impact that this is having on children within
the home.
 Service satisfaction surveys are conducted with families following initial contact to assess their
experience of our service and ways we can improve.
 Six weeks after receiving the grant we work with families to evaluate the impact of the grant
on their lives and standard of living.
 We contact all referral partners and ask them to complete an evaluation questionnaire on the
programme.
Programme Sustainability
The evidence gathered through the ESLP! programme will provide a very clear picture of material
deprivation in households with young children. We will use this evidence to inform how
governments and local authorities across the UK support families with young children facing
financial hardship. With Government plans to devolve parts of the Social Fund to Local Authorities
in 2013 and the impact of specific cuts in support for families with young children now being felt;
learning from the ESLP! programme could play a crucial role in maximising support for families
with young children living in severe poverty.
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Our future vision and link to poverty work
We have ambitious plans to grow the ESLP! programme over the next five years, we aim to reach
15,000 vulnerable children every year.
This new scale will enable us to carry out in-depth research with families accessing ESLP! This will
help us identify the root causes of severe poverty and practical solutions to alleviating its effects
on children.
We believe that no child in the UK should be born without a warm bed, the right food or the
hope of a good education. We will continue our campaign focus on UK child poverty; ‘It shouldn’t
happen here’ to make sure the government remains committed to the goal of eradicating child
poverty by 2020.
For more information please contact:
Rachel Wrathall ESLP! Programme Officer
[email protected]
Phone: 02920 396 838
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