My role is to look at welfare and particularly to look at income maximisation within households
and to reduce inequalities, and poverty being one of them
So the model that's being delivered is very much based on the health setting model was
that we embedded a worker within schools.
So we tried it in one school for free for 6 months and the results of that were extremely positive
So we then looked to rolling that model out to it then being in a cluster in a group of
schools in Edinburgh.
Any of the children who go those schools their parents or carers can access that service as well
as staff able to access that service as well because one of the things we are very aware
of lower paid staff within council settings can be struggling and be in in-work poverty.
So they as much were able to access that service too.
The secret to it is relationships: it's building up a relationship with the staff from the
headteacher right down to the cleaners that everybody is aware of what the service is
and how they can access it.
It was very much of a self-referral system as well as some appointments as well if they felt
that that was helpful but there was flexibility there.
And the success of it working around the relationship was if they got invited to the Christmas party.
But they very much worked on the relationships and were able to see that embedded.
They also worked with the staff in terms of attending parents' evenings for example or
any events like Christmas plays that were going on for example they were able to go
along and publicise the work they are doing with the parents as well.
We have one family for example who we were able to gain £18,000 for
This family came to the advisor under the remit of wanting to claim free school meals
and weren't able to access them, could the advisor help them and that advisor was able
to open up the conversation, build up the relationship enough to find out what was really
going on and what was really going on was that individual was unable to claim benefits
due to language barrier and so we were able to assist them in claiming for housing benefit,
for council tax rebates, prevent homelessness due to debt due to rent arrears and also assist
them with furniture for example as the house had no furniture in it and the children were
sleeping on the floor So they were able to do as much as they could gain the free school
meals as well and the total for that family was £18,000 and that just started as an application
for free school meals so it is about opening up that conversation
As a whole, we have worked with, in the first 10 months, 61 families and we gained £275,000.
On average that's about £4,500 per family.
So the key partners we used to provide the income maximisation, ourselves around the
table (NHS Lothian), Public Health Practitioner, the Council, the 1 in 5 programme, as the structure
and the framework that allows us to get into schools if you like and also our third sector
organisation Community Health Advice Initiative, CHAI, who provide advice services as well
as housing advice
I think it is an model that is very effective, I think it targets families specifically and
families we have targeted are certainly families who would not have normally attend advice services
I think in terms of sustainability we are in a place of moving into another stage of
this project where it is not just about looking at financial gain but it's about looking at
long-term prevention of poverty and moving families out of that's about adding in family
support and employability services so that we are working as a whole family unit taking
an holistic approach.
Kids aren't just about kids , they are about their parents, they are about the whole unit
and I think that taking a whole unit approach is really, really important and as an NHS
provider, taking a partnership approach allows us to meet all those needs, because as an
individual organisation we can't do that and for the individual families they get a full
package rather than bits that they have to try and grasp in different places.
We're actually bringing a package to them which actually meets their needs and makes a difference