Dear

This has been a difficult week for all of us engaged in anti-poverty work. The announcement of cuts to benefits for disabled people and the fear of further cuts to public services to come are terrible news for those who know the damage this will wreak for already struggling families. 

In this context it is important to take every chance we have to highlight the impact of poverty on families and make the case that tackling poverty is not only vital for individuals but also for society as a whole. There are a couple of opportunities to do just that coming up:

• On Thursday 27 March the Government will be publishing their Household’s Below Average Income Data which will give the overall figure for the number of children living in poverty in announced. The End Child Poverty Coalition and Child Poverty Action Group are planning a stunt to take place in Westminster on that day.

• The All Kids Count Campaign which calls for scrapping the two-child limit is planning to raise this again on the anniversary of the implementation of the policy. The official date for this is 6th April, which is a Sunday. So, the plan for working on this on Friday 4 April.

If you and/or families you are working with would like to get involved in these campaign activities please get in touch as soon as possible.

London Challenge Poverty Week 

Many of you will have received an email from me earlier in the week letting you know that 4in10  will not be co-ordinating London Challenge Poverty Week this year. We have had an excellent run of it over the past seven years and I am hugely proud of our collective efforts through the campaign. However with limited resources (like everyone) we have had to weigh up how to put what we have to best effect and with the Government’s child poverty strategy about to be published we feel we need to devote our energies to using the opportunities it will provide to give new focus to our campaigning work to improve the lives of London’s children. If you have any questions about this or would like to find out how to take part in Challenge Poverty Week England and Wales drop us a line. 

Give Help Get Help

Whenever we are out and about across the city talking to those living on low incomes one of the things we still hear most often is that people did not know what support was out there for them when they faced difficult times. The Give Help Get help directory on the 4in10 website was set up during the pandemic as a response to this and many of your organisations services are listed there. However it is only any good if the entries are up to date. Therefore we are asking everyone to check the listing for their organisation and let Maddie know if there are any updates. 

Best wishes

Katherine, Emily and Maddie  

Calls to Action

• Action for Children are asking people to sign an open letter to ministers to remove the two-child limit and the benefit cap.
• London Sport have launched their 'More Ball Games' camapign which aims to remove outdated and restrictive ‘No Ball Games’ signs that stifle play, physical activity, and community connection across London. Sign the petition here and read this Guardian article about the campaign. 
• Praxis have launched a campaign asking people to send an email to email the Ministers responsible for child poverty telling them 'to protect EVERY child from poverty'
• Trussell are asking people to write to their MP to urge them to call on the Prime Minister to rethink the plan to cut social security. 
• Whizz Kidz are currently looking for wheelchair users aged 16-23 to join their Youth Board. 
• The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Poverty and Inequality is launching a call for evidence to examine the disproportionate impact of poverty and inequality on disabled people. 

4in10 Events: free training, information and advice and networking opportunities

A new deal for young people? Lessons from VRUs and ambitions for young people’s futures

2nd April 2025, 11:00am-12:30pm

Online - free

Join us online to consider both the social and political landscape of youth support. How do we protect young people from involvement in violence by looking upstream at the particular needs and vulnerabilities that young people across London face?

Niven Rennie, a leading expert on interventions that work for and with young people draws upon his experience in the police force, as well as the former Director of Scotland’s Violence Reduction Unit and Chair of the Hope Collective in drafting an important report ‘Violence Reduction Units at a Crossroads – A Positive Future?’

Child Poverty Free Community Events - Croydon

9th April 2025 from 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM

In person - free

4 in10 is hosting an in-person two-hour event for current or prospective members of London's Child Poverty Network.

The purpose of this event will be to provide local organisations across Croydon with up to date information on the context of child poverty across the borough. We will highlight growing or emerging challenges as well as provide an overview of the training and support that 4in10 provides and our current activities. There will also be an opportunity to meet or catch up with local organisations in the network; finding out who might be working on similar issues in neighbouring communities. 

We are extremely grateful to our friends at Croydon Voluntary Action (CVA) for hosting us and to Steve Phaure and Shalina Alabaksh at CVA for supporting the planning of this event. 

Training and Events

• CASE Social Exclusion Seminars: Living a Differentiated Childhood: Children and families’ experiences of poverty and material deprivation within the UK’s Asylum Support system with Dr Ilona Pinter (CASE/University of York). Wednesday 26 March 2025 12:00 - 13:00 Venue: SAL 3.05, 3rd Floor Conference Room, Sir Arthur Lewis Building, LSE, 32 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London WC2A 3PH. Register here.

• CYMPH are holding a lunch and learning webinar Words Matter: Improving mental health by ending verbal abuse, Mar 26, 2025 12:00 - 1.15
• Money Guiders Network are hosting an event called 'the Psychology of Money' on Tuesday 29 April 10.00-14.00 IN PERSON in London N7 with Stian Reimers – professor of psychology with 2 decades of experience researching financial behaviour and exploring how people make decisions involving money and QSA trustee – understand your own relationship with money, how to understand other people’s relationship with money and how to use this knowledge to give better money help. Even if you don’t consider yourself a direct money guider – you are very welcome to come. 
• The HEAR Network and Refugee Council, in partnership with Superhighways are providing digital and tech Advice Days! These are designed to get assistance with digital tools, tech troubleshooting, or just enhancing your online skills. These advice days are exclusively for members of the HEAR Network and Refugee Council and are being held on March 27th and April 24th.
• Voluntary Action Islington are hosting the next in their series of Local welbeing network meetings:
  • South on Tue 1 Apr 2025 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
  • North on Wed 2 Apr 2025 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
  • Central 9 Apr 2025 10:00 AM - 12:30 PM
• Superhighways are hosting a bring your own tech day on 28 April. This is designed to support small charities and community groups struggling with issues with the desktop computers, laptops, tablets, smart phones and other devices they are using to run their organisations

Reports, Data and Resources

• Action for Children have published their 'Paying the Price' report which sets out research commissioned from Public First to model policy scenarios for reaching a set of ambitious child poverty reduction goals. 

• Trust for London's chief executive Manny Hothi has written an article called 'Social justice feels stuck – how can we fix it?'
• Trussell have written an article called 'Almost one in five people receiving Universal Credit and disability benefits used a food bank in the last month'
• CPAG have written two articles:
  • Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill - A welcome start
  • Cuts to disability benefits would undermine government plans to tackle child poverty, warns charity
• Z2K have written a commentary giving their 'View on the Health & Disability Benefits Green Paper ' 
• Resolve Poverty released a conference bulletin ahead of their event last week, full of informative articles.
• The Big Issue have written an article 'End two-child limit on benefits to lift 600,000 kids out of poverty, Labour told: 'We're in a crisis'
• 4in10's Emily Barker has written a blog looking at 'The tragic relationship between child poverty and homelessness in London'

Jobs and Trustee Vacancies

Funding Opportunities

City Bridge Foundation

City Bridge Foundation has launched a new ten-year funding policy called Standing with Londoners. This focuses on changing the systems that keep people marginalised, while also addressing the issues communities face right now. They plan to launch the first  new funding programmes in autumn 2025.

Ellis Campbell Foundation

Since 2020 the Foundation’s objective has been to build youth power and leadership systemically, through youth led opportunities for marginalised young people outside Greater London. 

They have various different funds which have different deadlines and an mounts.

The Woodward Charitable Trust

Each year the Trustees of the Woodward Charitable Trust set aside funds for summer play schemes for children from disadvantaged backgrounds between the ages of 5-16 years.

Trustees only fund programmes that run for a minimum of 2 weeks, 10 full days or 20 half days across the summer holidays. 

This year's fund is open from 24th February 2025 until 12 noon on Friday 4th April 2025.

SYP Trust

SYP Trust aims to bring about positive change where it is needed in the lives of children and young people in London.

Through its grants it aims to:

• Reach children and young people who may be disadvantaged due to their physical or intellectual capacity, citizenship status, race, health and life expectancy, sexual orientation or previous criminal activity.

• Reach children and young people who fall between the gaps of high and low attainment and privilege, who are often left without access to opportunities and whose potential is frequently overlooked.

• Encourage organisations to be flexible and creative in their approach, to be bold and try innovative and untested ideas that have the potential to have meaningful impacts and bring young people into their leadership and decision making.

First stage applications for their June 2025 funding round are open until the 31st March 2025 

You are welcome to pass this newsletter onto your networks. We welcome new members and although much of what we do is available to members and non-members, members are the first to know and get first chance to book training and so on.

As well as your reports, news and data, please send us information about small local grant givers, discounts and vouchers available, new support services, in fact anything that might help alleviate the impact of poverty in small ways and support other organisations to do their work. We will continue to demand systemic change but hope that these tips will be of immediate use. Anything you can share send it our way!

Check your entry on the 4in10 database of all voluntary organisations changing and challenging the impact of poverty on London’s children and their families. Let us know of any errors or changes you would like and please tell us about any organisations we may have missed.

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