Workshop kickstarts ambition to take coordinated action on poverty in Cheshire and Merseyside
Tuesday, 18 March 2025
Members of the Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership came together at the latest partnership meeting to deliver an interactive Child and Family Poverty workshop, in response to a recent report commissioned on the current state of child and family poverty in Cheshire and Merseyside’s nine local authority areas.
The report – ‘A rapid situational analysis on child and family poverty in Cheshire and Merseyside’ – found that the percentage of children and young people currently living in relative low-income families is higher than the rest of the country; a staggering 100,300 young people in our subregion.
The aim of the workshop, held in Liverpool, was to bring together partnership organisations to discuss turning the report’s findings into impactful, coordinated action to meet the region’s ambition of no child in Cheshire and Merseyside living in poverty.
Chair of the Health and Care Partnership, Cllr Louise Gittins, opened the event – welcoming leaders from local authorities, NHS, voluntary and community organisations and emergency services.
Attendees listened to a presentation from Hannah McMullan, Youth Voice Lead at Youth Focus North West, on their work supporting and facilitating young people to share their views and lived experience with decision makers. She applauded the volume of existing initiatives already working in this field, and said:
“We aren’t here to reinvent the wheel. We want to connect the dots across the existing work that’s taking place, to strengthen the youth voice in Cheshire and Merseyside.”
Dave Bradburn, Director of Public Health for Wirral and Cheshire and Merseyside’s Lead Director of Public Health for Children and Young People, followed with an overview of the Child and Family Poverty Framework, how it aligns with the core principles of the partnership, and the importance of coming together as a system to get behind this agenda.
He described the framework as a practical and flexible guide to bring system partners together and support the work already being done across the subregion, commenting:
“Whilst there are many examples of excellent practice already in place, the figures show that what we are doing at the moment clearly isn’t sufficient – we need to coordinate, connect, and amplify the work that is being done at a local level.”
Attendees then took part in three interactive workshops led by Eustace DeSousa – an independent Consultant in Public Health working with the Champs Support Team, Anna Nygaard – Head of Inequalities and Strategic Partnerships at Sefton Council, and Isla Wilson – Chair at Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. The workshops focused on:
- System Leadership and Advocacy
- Maximising household income
- Supporting children, young people and families
The participants shared ideas for meaningful actions that can be taken as a system to address levels of poverty and the inequalities in health and wellbeing this causes for children and young people in our communities. Workshop leaders presented feedback on themes such as working across boundaries, advocacy as a large collaborative system, ensuring children’s voices are heard, and sharing learnings and upskilling between partner organisations.
Professor Ian Ashworth, Director of Population Health for NHS Cheshire and Merseyside, said:
“Organisations from across our Health and Care Partnership have come together today and shown their commitment to making tangible change for children and families in our most impoverished communities.
“The poverty report is not just data on a page – it is the catalyst for real, impactful system-wide action to help to tackle poverty and the health inequalities this brings.
“We heard some excellent ideas and suggestions today, including steps to increase access to free school meals and healthy start vouchers, and working with the government to support residents to get the financial resources they are eligible for.
“Across our nine boroughs, the Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership is already engaging in initiatives to tackle child poverty that affects 100,300 under-16s across our patch, and to make sure that services are fully accessible to family who need them. I look forward to hearing more about the learnings and progress at the next partnership meeting in May.”
To find out more about our ambitions, you can find the child and family poverty report, as well as a joint statement issued by partners across Cheshire and Merseyside, on the Champs Public Health Collaborative website.
Our system approach to alleviating child poverty has also been featured in this NHS Confederation article: Alleviating child poverty – a shared endeavour: the critical role ICSs can play in the government’s child poverty strategy.