ED5016: Social Policy Impact on Children and Families: Child Poverty

This essay provides a comprehensive analysis of child poverty policies, particularly focusing on the Child Poverty Act of 2010 and its effects on children, families, and practitioners. It delves into the context of social policy, highlighting the act's aims to address relative, absolute, and persistent poverty. The essay examines the legal duties imposed on governments, the controversies surrounding the policy's implementation, and its strengths and weaknesses. It applies the social constructionism theory to understand the impact of poverty on children's health, wellbeing, and educational outcomes, supported by real-life examples and research findings. The analysis covers the international framework of child rights and the implications for practitioners, concluding with recommendations for policy makers to ensure children's access to education and address malnutrition. The essay utilizes multiple references to support its claims.

Running head: SOCIOLOGY
Sociology
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction
The context of the social policy is how the society responds to the social problems.
Any of the governmental enactments that tend to affect the wellbeing of the people that
furthermore incudes the regulations, the law , the executive orders and the decision of the
court is a social policy (Wickham et al. 2016). The context of the social policy is a big
concern since it tends to affect the society and the behaviour of the human and also their
importance for their practise of the social work (Mansour and Megan 2019). In the year 2010,
the act of the child poverty was passed with the enacted of the cross party support. Some of
the main or the major issues that this particular social policy of the child poverty aims the
relative poverty, combined low income and material deprivation, the absolute poverty and the
persistent poverty. This poverty act furthermore imposed governmental legal duty to move
towards the condition of the children and the infants (Bradshaw 2016). The thesis statement
of the essay argues with the fact of the various views regarding this are of the policy, the
child poverty in the context of the research reports and the governmental publications. The
essay furthermore demonstrate my personal understanding related to the purpose of the
assignment as per the structure of the assignment.
Discussion
The act imposed some of the major legal duties over the governments for moving towards the
targets by the ear 2020 as follows.
The condition of relative poverty – This is for the 10% of the children or the infants living
below the low income families. For the aim or the purpose of this particular target, the low
incomes is being illustrated as the net or the total income level that is below 60% of the
regular statistics.

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The condition of the combination of the material deprivation and the low income - This is for
less than 5% of the children for living in the material deprivation and the low income
families. For the purpose of this particular target, the context of the low income is being
defined an equivalised net income that is below 70% of the regular statistics (Main and
Bradshaw 2016).
The condition of absolute poverty – This is for less than 12% of the children for living in the
absolute low income families. For the purpose of this particular target, the absolute lo income
is being defined as the equivalised new income that is below the 6-% of the base year
amount.
The social policy act also required the government to produce the strategy of the child
poverty within one year. Before the development and the implementation of the act, the
strategy and the aims related to the act was being delayed beyond the timeframe and has
furthermore suffered from various of the shortcomings.
The child poverty act 2010 is the act of the parliament of the United Kingdom for
setting some of the realistic targets that are related to the eradication of the child poverty and
for making the provision regarding the child poverty (Marsh, 2019). The act showcases the
children as the victim of the society that has been destroying their health and the status of
wellbeing. Some of the major controversies and the potential issues that are related to the
policy includes the lack of the proper implementation of the child poverty policy thorough
out the world. According to some of the reports and the research, most of the countries have
been using this law to showcase their achievement of the sustainable development of the
millennium goals, which in short is not true (Minkovitz, O'Neill and Duggan 2016). The
strength of the policy is that it aims towards the eradication of the poverty and the
malnutrition among the children for the promotion of the effective health and the wellbeing.

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The weakness of the policy is the lack of the proper implementation of the policy and the law
through out the world. Till the data the poverty and the lack of food has been one of the
critical issue for the increasing health disparities, death rates among the children population
of the world. The following chapter will highlight one of the essential theory that is the social
constrict theory of the children in the policy of discussion.
The theory of the social constructionism in the context of the poverty of the children
states that gathering and people produce real world’s own organization, and similar data is
the result of the specific social elements (McGuinn 2016).
There lies a difference among the restorative regarding the ailment and the social
constructionist idea regarding the ailment. In case of the restorative calling, the ailment is
basically a natural condition which is general and perpetual, furthermore being social
constructionists that characterizes sickness as one of the social essential factor regarding that
condition.
In this theory, the chances of the social development regarding the wellbeing
underscores control ways of the socio social part for dealing with the physical, impartially
quantifiable wonders. According to the research done by the sociologists, there lies an
extensive system for the understanding of the real discoveries regarding the improvement in
this idea. The theory outlines under three of the major subheadings which are the social
development regarding the experience of ailment, the social significance regarding te
sickness and the social development regarding the therapeutic learnings.
The context of the poverty has a very devastating effect over the poverty and the
children, some of the highlighted factors that are the effects or the impact of the child poverty
law or the policy of 2010 are the targeted notion of the poor health status, the experience of
the metal health issues, the low sense of the well being, the under achievement at the school,

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having the employment difficulties, experiencing of the social deprivation, the feeling of
unsafe and the experience of the bullying and the stigma at the educational institution
(Stewart and Obolenskaya 2015).
Picture – The international framework of the Child rights
Source – (Woodhouse 2017)
The figure above illustrates the international framework regrading the children rights
towards the promotion of the health and wellbeing of the children. According to the universal
declaration of the human rights, the children have the full and their inalienable right towards
health and wellbeing.
In the context of the impact of the policy over the practitioner and the services it is
evident that the policy has led them to promote the essentiality of the health and the

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wellbeing of the infants and the children. The practitioners furthermore includes the services
like the free health check-ups, food and disease for the children suffering from malnutrition.
According to the research, the health camps and the training programs for the mothers and the
would be fathers are some of the essential steps that can be taken by the governmental
agencies and the practitioners towards effective implementation of the policy in the poorer
states of the nation in the world.
According to Knight (2017) some of the real-life examples includes the impact of the
poverty over the mental health of the children. The children who resides in the poverty have
more tendency to feel a failure and have sense of hopelessness regrading their future than
their more affluent peers. More than 67% of the children residing in Hartlepool and
Sunderland of United Kingdom are suffering from poverty and have more significant risk
towards the development of the mental health issues. Reports and the research by Dreyer et
al.(2016) stated the scenario where children often attend the school and face punishments for
missing uniforms, but still continue to visit the school not for education but for the mid day
meal. According to Ratcliffe (2015) the repeated packaging up of their livelihoods and
movement of the home has become an annoying and worrying part of the life for some of the
children which had been growing in the poverty at Britain. The development and the actions
towards the implementation of the policy has thus resulted in somewhat changes in the
structure of the poverty and the statistics of the child poverty ration through out the world.
Conclusion
Thus it can be concluded from the above essay that the impact of the policy of the
child poverty over the children, families and the practitioners have been manifold in nature.
Some of the urgent issue and the challenges for the children that the policy makers need to
address is the ensuring of the fact that each and every child receive free and compulsory

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education till the compulsory education level. They should furthermore address the fact that
the children through out the globe must not face any malnutrition as per the right to life and
right of safe and wellbeing. Some of the alternative ways that the policy makers can adopt
includes the strategies for the eradication of the poverty from the countries which are under
developed.

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Reference
Bradshaw, J. ed., 2016. The Well-being of Children in the UK. Policy Press.
Dreyer, B., Chung, P.J., Szilagyi, P. and Wong, S., 2016. Child poverty in the United States
today: introduction and executive summary. Academic pediatrics, 16(3), pp.S1-S5.
Knight, B., 2017. Rethinking Poverty (p. 184). Bristol: Policy Press.
Main, G. and Bradshaw, J., 2016. Child poverty in the UK: Measures, prevalence and intra-
household sharing. Critical Social Policy, 36(1), pp.38-61.
Mansour, J. and Megan, A. (2019). Child Poverty: The United Kingdom Experience. [online]
Academicpedsjnl.net. Available at: https://www.academicpedsjnl.net/article/S1876-
2859(16)00028-0/pdf [Accessed 27 Apr. 2019].
Marsh, S. (2019). British children living in poverty 'could hit record high' – report. [online]
the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/feb/20/british-
children-living-in-poverty-could-hit-record-high-report [Accessed 27 Apr. 2019].
McGuinn, P., 2016. From no child left behind to the every student succeeds act: Federalism
and the education legacy of the Obama administration. Publius: The Journal of
Federalism, 46(3), pp.392-415.
Minkovitz, C.S., O'Neill, K.M. and Duggan, A.K., 2016. Home visiting: a service strategy to
reduce poverty and mitigate its consequences. Academic pediatrics, 16(3), pp.S105-S111.
Ratcliffe, C., 2015. Child poverty and adult success. Brief, Urban Institute.
Stewart, K. and Obolenskaya, P., 2015. The coalition’s record on the under fives: Policy,
spending and outcomes 2010-2015. Social Policy in a Cold Climate Working Paper WP12.
London: Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.

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Wickham, S., Anwar, E., Barr, B., Law, C. and Taylor-Robinson, D., 2016. Poverty and child
health in the UK: using evidence for action. Archives of Disease in Childhood, 101(8),
pp.759-766.
Woodhouse, B.B., 2017. “Out of Children’s Needs, Children’s Rights”: The Child’s Voice in
Defining the Family. In Children's Rights (pp. 107-127). Routledge.