Briefings and Good Practice

As part of this work programme the Northern Housing Consortium (NHC) will be producing a series of briefings around ‘What Housing does’, these briefings will cover themes around:

• Communication and Engagement – which will include housing organisations approaches and how they are giving young people a voice, and different ways of communicating/engaging, via social media, youth forums/councils etc
• Housing – hearing views of children and young people of their housing experiences, either in a family setting or individual tenancies – what support is in place around accessing the right accommodation and sustaining tenancies, and/or addressing issues in current accommodation.
• Education – how are housing providers working with local education institutions, what focus is there on early intervention, do you have the right balance, what are the gaps? Any developments around holiday provision to address food poverty over school holidays and beyond.
• Employment, Skills and Training – role of housing providers in supporting young people in obtaining skills and training, preparing them for work and employment and apprenticeship opportunities. What are housing providers doing to support young entrepreneurs, improving aspiration and confidence – following on from the current work being done around this.

The briefings will include:

• Case studies of different approaches adopted across the different themes
• Young peoples’ experiences
• The case for housing providers and the impact this is having, including partners involved and any parliamentary activity/engagement
• Further details to follow.

Tackling Food Poverty – Holiday Hunger & Poverty Proofing

NHC are working in partnership with the North East Child Poverty Commission, Children North East and Voices Northumberland to look at a more collaborative approach in tackling ‘holiday hunger’.

Food banks are reporting an increase in their use over the school holidays, as families with children who get free meals at school need to find money for food to feed them whilst school is out. There is real concern about this ‘holiday hunger’.

The meeting, held in the North East in June 2014, invited LAs, housing providers, food banks, third sector agencies and others with expertise and interest in food poverty to explore the current situation re ‘holiday hunger’ in the North East, and identify possible ways to help address it. The aim of the meeting was to:

• share information on food poverty affecting children
• map initiatives which address ‘holiday hunger’
• agree practical things organisations can do to help

The learning and discussions from this meeting will be shared with the NHC wider membership, NHC are keen to hear from members around what’s happening in their own regions and any work being done in tackling holiday hunger.

Download our free briefing, School holidays and wider impact, here.

Healthy Living is a new innovation unit within the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences at Northumbria University. Their research focuses on public health interventions, including school and community breakfast clubs, nutrition within school and the workplace, and the associations between nutrition, cognition ,and physical activity. Members have collaborations with both universities and organisations around the world. 

The unit have recently published two papers around breakfast clubs, the first paper is new research presenting a qualitative model for breakfast behaviours, working with Lynn Donkin and John Blackledge from Blackpool Council, Louise Harvey-Golding and Prof Greta Defeyter have.

The second by Dr Pamela L Graham and Prof Greta Defeyter from Healthy Living have published a new research paper in collaboration with Prof Riccardo Russo from University of Essex on the advantages and disadvantages of breakfast clubs according to parents, children and school staff.

Both papers forms part of a research topic on the impact of school food consumption on children’s cognition, educational attainment and social development. Both papers can be accessed here.