Challenge Poverty Week – 7 to 11 Oct 2024

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It’s Challenge Poverty Week. As well as highlighting the injustice of poverty, the aim of this week’s activities is to show that collective, compassionate action can create solutions.

Each day this week, we’re highlighting the solutions that are being created by SFC-funded university research.

University of the Highlands and Islands – help into employment

Abriachan is a scattered rural community of about 130 people set high above the shores of Loch Ness.

In 1998 the community bought 540 hectares of forest and open hill ground and set up the Abriachan Forest Trust. Since then the land has been run as a social enterprise and used to create employment, improve the natural environment and promote wellbeing.

The trust has a long history of outdoor education for marginalised young people through Forest School programmes and specially tailored employability, entrepreneurial and life skills training.

The Centre for Living Sustainability at UHI Inverness is using SFC’s University Innovation Fund for research that supports young people in documenting what they have learnt through taking part in Abriachan Forest Trust activities. The Centre’s findings have led to specific recommendations to support youth entrepreneurship. The Centre is also using its research to advocate for broader implementation by other land-based community projects.

University of Stirling - Food for Thought

Understanding food and mealtimes in their social context can be incredibly important in helping children feel nurtured, have a sense of belonging, and feel connected to others. How meal times are structured, and the way food is served can be of special significance to looked after children.

The University of Stirling led new research to inform and support a ground-breaking project for foster carers and residential staff involved in the day to day care of looked after children and young people.

Food for Thought uses food as a medium for providing empathetic and responsive care and support. It has shifted attitudes and practices towards food in care environments to the therapeutic rather than just the nutritional in Scotland, the UK and overseas.

This has put the child and its needs at the centre of food routines and practices, and so supported children in care to flourish in a supportive environment.

University of Glasgow - Making every pound count

Research carried out by the University of Glasgow’s Just Cities and Societies Cluster demonstrated the link between families receiving social security benefits and debt to public sector organisations such as local authorities.

Over 30,000 children in Scotland were affected by school lunch arrears alone. The research cluster’s findings were influential in the Scottish Government’s decision to wipe out existing school meal arrears, a move that had significant benefits for struggling families.

The cluster’s research into Universal Credit revealed new financial risks that deepened and extended poverty, and increased the risk of destitution. One example was the excessive costs charged to call the national helpline. Research findings directly influenced a policy change to make the helpline free to use.

Thanks to its researchers’ shared commitment to highlighting inequity and inequality, the cluster is inspiring important steps towards easing the very real, day to day hardships experienced by people living in poverty.

University of Dundee - Language in play

Children bought up in poverty have a greater chance of being late talkers and subsequently having difficulties in developing language skills.

Unless this is caught early and something done about it, the consequences can stay with someone throughout life and affect their health, their relationships and their achievements in education.

Doing something about it was the focus of a successful partnership between the University of Dundee and early years specialists at Fife Council. The result, Early Language in Play Settings, is a screening tool based on observing children at play, a setting in which preschool children can best show their capabilities.

Trials showed the technique was reliable and could be used consistently by different practitioners. Early Language in Play Settings was launched across all Fife Council early years settings in 2018-19. Educators have told the research team that it helps them identify children needing support and choose the right interventions.

University of Edinburgh – Keeping homes warm

Storing renewable energy in batteries and discharging it as heat is a low-cost alternative to traditional ways of keeping homes warm.

Developing this technology and getting it into people’s homes involved overcoming many scientific and commercial challenges. This was achieved here in Scotland through a groundbreaking partnership between the University of Edinburgh and East Lothian based Sunamp UK. The partnership first began in 2009 with an SFC innovation voucher.

Sunamp thermal batteries have been integrated into a pioneering heatshare project in 36 retirement homes in Midlothian and linked to a smart control system. The system scans for the cheapest fuel tariffs and switches between gas and electricity supplies to meet demands for heat in the most cost-effective way.

Sunamp has worked with housing associations across the UK to install heat batteries into 1,500 properties. People who previously experienced fuel poverty have since reported significant improvements to their quality of life.