[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"$f50qusr7jny3l":3,"$f10b3rz2z388kj":16},{"id":4,"author_id":5,"category_id":6,"is_featured":7,"title":8,"slug":9,"content":10,"link_text":6,"link":6,"content_overview":6,"published_at":11,"seo_title":8,"seo_description":12,"image":13,"attachment":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15},"01jsc8fn7vy9t79v02d7f19mvc","9cdbdd6d-4900-4646-a012-d3e67a5ee788",null,0,"Aberlour's response to the Scottish Government's Child Poverty Delivery Plan 26-31 consultation","aberlours-response-to-the-scottish-governments-child-poverty-delivery-plan-26-31-consultation","\u003Cp>Aberlour is the largest Scottish only children’s charity. Delivering more than fifty services across Scotland, we work with disadvantaged, marginalised and discriminated against children, young people and families, providing services and support in communities around the country. We help to overcome significant challenges families face, such as the impact of drugs and alcohol, growing up in and leaving care, poor mental health, living with a disability, or the impact of poverty and disadvantage. \u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>We aim to provide help and support at the earliest opportunity to prevent problems becoming intractable or spiralling out of control. We are committed to Keeping the Promise and to realising the human rights of all children and young people. This means working every day to make rights real for the children, young people and families we support and being unwavering in our ambition to ensure all of Scotland’s children have an equal chance regardless of their start in life.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>We welcome the opportunity to respond to this consultation to outline what we believe must be Scottish Government’s key priorities for reducing child poverty and making progress towards child poverty targets in 2030\u002F31. We recognise and welcome many of the actions Scottish Government has undertaken to focus on reducing child poverty over previous child poverty delivery plans, most notably the introduction of the Scottish Child Payment which has undoubtedly contributed to improving the lives of low-income families across Scotland. However, it is also true that we have not yet seen a significant shift in levels of child poverty or real progress towards reducing the numbers of children growing up in poverty \u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Child Poverty Delivery Plan 26-31 will be vital for setting out a clear route map that will enable government and partners across public, third and the private sector to help realise this ambition. Whilst we recognise there are challenges in reaching this goal, we believe it is still achievable if the Scottish Government prioritises clear targeted actions and investment and by working across government to use all available levers to improve the lives of our most disadvantaged children and families. This must also include working collaboratively with UK Government colleagues where devolved and reserved areas of policy interact.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In addition to our own response, Aberlour has contributed to and endorses the response to this consultation of the End Child Poverty coalition.\u003C\u002Fp>","2025-03-31 14:26:07","Read Aberlour Children's Charity's response to the Scottish Government's Child Poverty Delivery Plan 26-31 consultation","media\u002F01JSC8FN3EPZWNCKF56CR675H1.jpg","docs\u002FAberlour Children's Charity's Response to the Child Poverty Plan 26-31.pdf","2025-04-21T13:26:59.000000Z",{"id":17,"blog_author_id":5,"blog_category_id":18,"is_featured":19,"title":20,"slug":21,"content":22,"content_overview":6,"published_at":23,"seo_title":20,"seo_description":24,"image":25,"created_at":26,"updated_at":26},"01m45vtvk0pdb1y7c1cqv76edp","1",false,"Panic and Promises Won't End Child Poverty","panic-and-promises-wont-end-child-poverty","\u003Cp>We live in a world that seems to spin faster every day, where all the dials are turned to 11 all the time.  \u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The headlines crash from one calamity to another as our political leaders rush to promise emergency action while their opponents demand even more urgency. \u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It is noisy, tiring and a few hours later, when the news cycle spins to another red alert, the last one, whatever it was, is most often forgotten. \u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For years now, child poverty in Scotland has been routinely described as a national emergency demanding emergency action. It is and it does but, with more than one in five children still growing up in poverty in Scotland today, is it time to ask if the language of emergency and crisis is helping?  \u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Perhaps it only encourages more haste but less speed, a birling carousel of taskforces and committees, policy papers and special reports, but too little measured and impactful action? Are we even checking if the blizzard of promises and commitments is being delivered before starting the snow machine again? \u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>What if the endless planning and process is actually slowing us down? What if somehow all the talk is delaying implementation of practical, tested, and effective measures to improve the lives and secure the life chances of the 210,000 children growing up poor in one of the wealthiest countries in the world? \u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Because we already know what works. We have known for years.  \u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Of course, there are no magic bullets, no simple solutions to the complex social issues that have blighted our poorest communities for decades. Child poverty, like Scotland’s drugs crisis, another national emergency, is embedded in longstanding economic trends that have stripped far too many of our neighbourhoods of jobs and hope. \u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Those trends will not be reversed overnight but, in the meantime, we should not let perfect be the enemy of good. As Challenge Poverty Week begins today, the biggest challenge is to see the wood not the trees, to recognise and appreciate what is already working and build on it. \u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>There are things that we know ease the impact of poverty on young lives; that have been trialled, tested and measured; that inch their families from peril to safety; that give them new strength, confidence and a path to a more secure future. So why not have more of them? \u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>These are services that our charity and others are delivering every day, hand in glove with our partners in social work, health care and education. These are services delivering real, measurable success, making children safer, healthier and happier today and improving their chances tomorrow. \u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Intensive family support, for example. The clue is in the name. It is the opposite of easy. Any family’s journey back from the very edge of crisis is one of hard yards and no shortcuts. \u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Our teams arrive to work, shoulder to shoulder, with families on the point of collapse, with children often on the edge of care. Ensuring those babies and young people are safe is always the priority but, after that, keeping them with their families is the driving force because that, all research suggests, is the best way to stabilise childhoods and secure futures. \u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Intensive family support means doing whatever it takes to keep children safe and families together. It can rebuild broken relationships; improve parents’ confidence in themselves; create new connections in communities; and help build firmer financial foundations with advice on welfare rights, maximising incomes and problem debt. \u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Any investment in intensive family support and other specialist services, for pregnant women and new mums, for example, is more than returned in thriving families, stronger communities and money saved. Resource is better spent on intensive support keeping families safely together, than managing their separation through a lifetime of crisis-led state intervention.  \u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Our two Mother and Child Recovery Houses, in Falkirk and Dundee, for example, offer recovery spaces for pregnant and new mums with a history of substance use, allowing them to recover while staying safely with their babies. This helps keep families together and children at home, improves their futures and saves millions of pounds in avoided care costs. \u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This is true child protection and the big question is not whether we can afford to roll out these services across Scotland but if we can afford not to?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\u003Cstrong>Justina Murray \u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003Cbr>\u003Cstrong>Chief executive of Aberlour Children’s Charity \u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp> \u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\u003Cem>This article was written for the Daily Record and published on Monday 5th October 2026.\u003C\u002Fem>\u003C\u002Fp>","2026-10-05T00:00:00.000000Z","Aberlour Children's Charity CEO, Justina Murray, explains what must be done to end child poverty in Scotland. We know what works and we've known for years. ","media\u002FRS873_0E5A9135.jpg","2026-10-05T11:05:26.000000Z"]