Children are going without lunch, but behind hungry children there are hungry parents

Posted on January 25, 2024 by geofoodie

I collaborated The Bread and Butter Thing and The Food Foundation on a survey with households with who have children in year three and above who do not receive free school meals. Respondents are parents who are members of TBBT food club. The results show that children are missing out on lunch because they fall through the cracks in Free School Meals provision or their parents are just above the (extremely) low earnings threshold. What is more, the number of parents within this group who are missing out on meals is even higher. The results are below.

Households where at least one child is in year 3+ and is not registered for free school meals.

Households with a child in year 3 or above not registered for FSM (n=734)	Yes	No, but worried	Either skipping or worried
I would like my child to have FSM
Child goes without lunch at school some days	15.5%	42%	57.5%
Child eats a smaller lunch at school some days	31.5%	30.6%	62.1%
Child eats a less healthy lunch at school some days	30.5%	21.9%	52.4%

Children are having to go without food or eat smaller meals because they can’t access free school meals

Household with a child in year 3 or above not registered for FSM	Yes
Parent struggles to feed children at the weekend (n=734)	36.9%
Parent skips at the weekend to make sure children have food (n=734)	62.5%
I would like my child/children to receive FSM (n=529)	85.3%

Parents are doing their best to feed their families but go without food.

Comments from parents who say they are skipping meals include:

My child is home-schooling at the moment, and yes, we do skip some meals daily due to being short on food, but unfortunately, your child has to be in school to receive free school meals I’m working to get him back I to school but will be a bit of a wait due to him having some problems that need diagnosed so he can receive help he needs in school.
I have 5 children and my husband lost his job in Feb 2023. We have been unable to access Universal Credits as the system is too complicated as I cannot attend all the appointments because I am self-employed childminder and always have children with me. TBBT had been a lifesaver in helping me to provide healthy food for the children but by Monday packed lunches are bare minimum of whatever I can find leftover for them. Some of my children are on school meals as they prefer this and they are always paid as I prioritise food for them they don’t have many luxuries other children have but TBBT has helped me ensure they have a good diet. I have been able to make huge panfuls of vegetable soup with the quantity of vegetables and banana bread which had become a staple in our home but free school meals would be such a blessing. I often skip meals if there isn’t enough of one meal or I’m bogged down with work and juggling everything to make sure the children have their needs met.
The threshold for getting free school meals is so low that even though I do not have much money after bills, I don’t qualify. I am on a low wage due to disability and struggle to make ends meet a lot of months.
I am just over the income threshold so don’t qualify for free school meals. This is financially difficult as when you work, there is very little help. I am so grateful to the bread and butter thing as this makes all the difference. My kids would never go without food as I would never allow that to happen but it would be such a help to receive free school hot meals. Usually, we do 2 days pack lunch and the rest we pay for hot dinners, this keeps the cost down a little.
Because I claim legacy benefits, I’m not entitled to free school meals even though my income, according to universal credit, would qualify me. No matter how much I plead with the council, they don’t help.
I work part-time and receive universal credit top-up. I wish my child was eligible for free school meals. I make sure she has fresh fruit and a sandwich every day, but I can’t afford much else.
Because I receive working tax credit, I do not get any help with rent or meals. It would be better not to receive it (working tax credit) because it’s costing over £100 a week for school dinners for my 2 teenagers.
Both parents work, although one is a part-time worker, to avoid nursery costs. We don’t receive any benefits as over the wage limit but pay a mortgage, 1 car which is needed for work, and every other household bill we pay. All bills are covered, so no debts but little left from 2 wages for food.

Who gets Free School Meals?

All children in key stage 1 (reception, year 1 or year 2) in England who attend school (e.g. are not home-schooled) receive free school meals (FSM) regardless of household income. Those in year 3 or above do not automatically receive free school meals; instead, they must qualify and register to receive them. Children who are home-schooled also do not receive them. Qualification is based on household income, benefits receipt, and registration in a government-funded school. For those on Universal Credit who have applied for FSM after April 2018, the household income must be less than £7,400 a year (after tax and not including any benefits received). If the household income increases above the threshold in the future, but the household income still includes some Universal Credit contribution, children remain eligible until they move to the next phase of education (e.g. from primary to secondary school). Before 2018, there was not an income threshold for Universal Credit claimants. Importantly, having a sibling receive free school meals does not automatically qualify a second child’s (often younger) eligibility.

A claim for FSM is made through local authorities and is typically instigated by parents. However, some local authorities, such as Sheffield, have introduced automatic enrolment[1]. Furthermore, the national food strategy recommendations call for automatic enrolment in FSM. In March 2023, Harriet Harman asked the Secretary of State for Education (Nick Gibb) what discussions the DoE has had with the Department for Work and Pensions on introducing automatic enrolment for free school meals to eligible children. The secretary of state responded that there are no formal assessments concerning the number of pupils that would become eligible for FSM through automatic enrolment and no plans for automatic enrolment. He did indicate that FSM take-up was estimated to be 89% according to benefits data[2].

[1] See this webinar discussing Sheffield’s autoenrollment scheme. https://youtu.be/MVRs7Qw_9a0?si=KRpC8907S-S1CrS8

[2] https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2023-03-14/165185/

What is The Bread and Butter Thing?

The Bread and Butter Thing (TBBT) is an affordable food club. It is not a food bank. It works with volunteers from 115 local community organisations across 23 local authorities located in the North of England to provide low cost, healthy food to people who are not in food crisis but are vulnerable to it. These are people who may be skipping meals or who are just about making ends meet. They may be struggling and stretched, but usually not destitute. Alongside the food, TBBT works with other organisations to help build people’s capability to live their best life by reducing barriers and improving their access to and utilisation of the resources they need. Unlike food banks, the food is not free, and the local volunteers come from the community of people who use the services.

According to the Food Standards Agency Food and You 2 survey (wave 6) conducted in the autumn of 2022, the number of people who use food clubs, sometimes also known as a food pantry or social supermarket in the UK, is larger than the number who use foodbanks. In England, about 4.8% of the total adult population, or about 2.23 million adults, used a pantry or food club between Autumn 2021 and Autumn 2022 (compared to 4.6% or 2.14 million foodbank users). These services operate in all regions of the UK. The largest single provider of such services is TBBT. In addition, there are at least 100 franchise branches within the Your Local Pantry network started by Stockport Homes and Church Action for Poverty, and Feeding Britain identifies 348 affordable food clubs within their network (although it is unclear what overlap there may be tween Feeding Britain and Your Local Pantry). It is likely that there are additional food clubs operating independently of these organisations. However, there is no clear data available for finding them. Only TBBT can directly communicate with service members because they work in partnership with local organisations rather than the franchise model used by other networks.

Despite the uptake of these services, relatively little is known about those who use them. The analysis presented is based on data from a survey conducted by TBBT, which has a membership of more than 72,000 households using their service. Survey details are as follows.

Total who opened survey text= 21,886
Total who answered survey =2917
Total who responded with a child or children in year 3 or above = 2671
Survey dates: 16-17 Jan 2024. Method text survey
Survey Population: Members of TBBT food club.
Confidence interval: +/- 2%

The current state of food insecurity in the UK and why we should stop asking “what can people do?”

Posted on July 28, 2022 by geofoodie

I was invited to participate in yesterday’s BBC Radio 4 show Money Box Live. The show included people struggling to make ends meet and worried about what the autumn and winter will bring as the cost of living increases. Front-line service providers talked about what they see on the ground. It was an interesting show with a strong reminder of the struggle that people face. The guests told their stories with dignity, truth and openness. These stories are not, sadly, unique. I have heard them before. We are a wealthy country, yet this is where we are.

This is in a context that is illustrative of our current situation. Dad’s House, which is one of the interviews, is a bit worried about how they will meet the increased demand and continue to provide the great range of community support that is so needed. On the other hand, today’s news reported that the owner of British Gas, one of if not the UK’s major household energy providers, posted billions of profits and are paying dividends to shareholders. One of the interviewees told us, with clear anxiety, how difficult he was finding it to feed his family and how his energy bills have exploded in the recent months and are only set to increase further in the autumn and winter. This is appalling.

The interviewer, like so many do, asked me at the end, “What can people in this situation do?” I knew she was going to ask this question. I was encouraged not to be ‘political’ and just provide advice that households might be able to utilise. I understand where this comes from. There is a clear desire to be helpful and to give people encouragement.

And there are practical things individuals can do. My advice is: Ask your neighbours if they have any tips for how to manage. If you are part of a food club, ask others who are part of that. Share what you do with them. In my research experience, the people living at the sharp end have developed brilliant budgeting strategies and crisis management skills that are effective within the constraints imposed by the wider context and where they live. They know what it is like and have the answers. We should listen to them as they are the experts.

These strategies will help with the stretching, but people and money can only stretch so far. There is only so much elasticity. If the gap is too wide, the money won’t reach and the people will break. This is happening now. I fear for the winter.

When discussing wider contextual changes or ways to intersect with opportunities, that is where academics, service providers and industry experts can provide advice. Martin Lewis is an excellent example. Some of what he says will be relevant, and some won’t. Just take from his toolbox and tell your friends.

The point of this blog post really is to interrogate that question just a little bit more.

This question always makes me uncomfortable because I see it as individualizing what is now largely a social-political-economic problem. It somehow implies that people should be doing more to make their money stretch in this time of a cost of living crisis.

What I want to say in response to this question is:

Push back. Write to your government representative. Join a union if you can. Support the unions if you can’t. Organise one if your sector does not have one. This collective engagement is the opposite of individualization. If we collectively demand better wages and better working conditions, our lives will improve because that will become normal. If we stay quiet or divide ourselves, things will only get worse. Don’t believe the hype. Trickle-down does not ever work and failure is more common than success in business. Very few are actually, truly self-made. Believing you will be the one to succeed where others have failed is highly unlikely. Good on you if that happens, but in a socially just society, it should happen anyway if you have aspiration and drive, regardless of what wages are being paid. So why not live a better life along with your neighbours than suffer on your own? There are clear examples of people achieving individual success in places where the safety net works as it should and where wages and services are sufficient (see for example Sweden).

Individualisation is a neoliberal tactic and, as such, is just as ‘political’ as statements about collectivization. But individualization has become normalised and is perceived as a-political. It is absolutely not. Individualisation is also harmful. It breaks people down and isolates them. It makes them vulnerable to crisis. It creates division and then imposes hierarchies that stigmatise and cause shame. This settles into people. It makes them physically ill and contributes to a further cycle of food insecuirty.

Collective action, mutual support, and community are not the same as state control of everything. It is not communism as far-right cheerleaders would have us believe when they tell us we must sacrifice for the ‘common good’. There is no freedom in hunger.

I always find it ironic that those who dogmatically subscribe to neoliberalism make the arguments about sacrifice and common good. What they are saying is go it alone–survival of the fittest, where the fittest are those who have the most money. Most of whom were born into this wealth. I don’t see those who are advocating this stance making any meaningful sacrifice. Instead, they make more money while those who can bear it least carry all the risk and sacrifice (remember dividends while people starve).

Let us stop asking that question–what can people in those circumstances do? In the current context it is not appropriate. Let us instead ask what needs to change? How is the system creating the conditions of hardship and want? What can we collectively do about it? We are a wealthy country. We have the resources.

You are someone’s world: Neurodiversity

Posted on November 26, 2021 by geofoodie

‘To the world you may be one person; but to one person you may be the world.’
Dr. Seuss

The University of Sheffield Geography Society runs a campaign in November seeking to highlight issues students may face around mental health. This year they asked me to participate, so I am sharing my experiences of Dyslexia.

Dr Megan Blake, Senior Lecturer in Human Geography, Interdisciplinary Researcher and Food Security Expert

Estimates suggest that one in five people are neurodiverse. This statistic does not mean that one in five people you will meet at university will be neurodiverse. There are a lot of barriers that limit the ability of neurodiverse people to access a university degree. Some of these are structural—how universities measure success and design knowledge acquisition—some are about perceptions of neurodiversity.

I am dyslexic. I have always been dyslexic, as it is something you have when you are born. Dyslexia is a specific learning disability linked to how we process and remember language, how it manifests will be different for different people. I struggle with spelling, punctuation, proofreading, accurate copying, keeping focused in my writing, retrieving words under pressure, right and left, short term memory, calendars, and how I experience time. I don’t have the usual problems with reading comprehension that many dyslexic people do, probably because I had a lot of reading support as a child. I am also a lateral and interdisciplinary thinker, creative, can identify patterns, and think in complex systems. The latter I see in my head but cannot always convert to words, so I draw diagrams.

When I was a child, I felt stupid because I had to go to the remedial reading group, and I could not spell. I was not tested as a child for dyslexia because, at that time, people thought girls did not have dyslexia. So, I was just not intelligent. Except, I was super bright at some things. Later, at university, I was not tested because the tutor thought there would be stigma, and as I was doing well, it was most likely that I had ‘good strategies’. I do, but I also spend a lot longer and become discouraged and exhausted doing things that my colleagues can do quickly and with little effort. Not being tested meant that I did not receive the legally required necessary adjustments for achieving success and a work-life balance.

I have also struggled with feelings of self-worth and imposter syndrome due to the widely held biases that exist. Assumptions that suggest people with dyslexia have no place in an academic setting. Finally, in my early 50’s I was tested, and my long-held suspicions were confirmed. Interestingly, the way dyslexia is diagnosed is through a series of tests. What specifically indicates dyslexia is being very, very good at some tasks and not very good at others. For example my problem solving skills are well above average (in the top 5%), but my rapid naming skills are well below overage (in the bottom 5%). This confirmation has enabled me to get the help I need. I also learned to recognise that because of how my brain functions, I am one of a minority of people who can think in ways that linear thinkers cannot. This difference helps me to solve problems and to be an expert in my field. Dyslexic brains existed before humans developed reading and writing. To exclude people based on this social construction is to ignore what we have to contribute.

My advice? There are some practical things you can do, and I think this works for any neurodiverse person. Start by keeping a diary of what you struggle with or what tasks make you anxious, as well as those things that come easily for you and which you enjoy. This notetaking will help you identify and prioritise those activities that give you a positive feeling. If you find that you have to do those less comfortable activities, try to find out what support there might be. It could be learning a work-around or identifying a piece of software or technology. It might be something as simple as how you arrange your workspace. I encourage you to get tested if you think you may be neurodiverse. Just knowing can be pretty empowering. Find others with the same issues with whom to talk. They can help you identify strategies and help you feel less alone. Finally, remember that your weakness is also your strength. Take pride and celebrate what you bring to the table, and don’t dwell on what causes you to struggle.

Some hints and tips that I have learned are available here: https://geofoodie.org/2019/04/09/dyslexic_academic/

Behind hungry children there are hungry parents.

Posted on November 11, 2020 by geofoodie

Behind hungry children are hungry parents. We know that typically parents feed their children before they feed themselves in the UK. We also know that households that are most likely to be food insecure tend to live in areas where others are also struggling. While enough money to purchase food is important, it isn’t enough. We need solutions that address the immediate need but also solutions that work toward a longer term, socially just resilience.

I was recently invited to participate in a webinar on children’s food insecurity. It was attended by more than 300 people from across industry, policy, community, health, and academic sectors. It was organised by Bernadette Moore and Charlotte Evans of the N8 Food Systems Policy Hub.

Using food systems to address children’s food insecurity.

Rhubarb Farm: Therapeutic Horticulture and the repair of talking to others.

Posted on November 8, 2019 by geofoodie

I have been doing some case study work to see how surplus food is being used by community organisations. One of these is Rhubarb farm. Let me introduce you to them. Continue reading →