By Marie Southall, Director of Partnerships and Public Affairs, Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales and the Catholic Education Service
Catholic school leaders are increasingly stepping in for overwhelmed public services, handling issues related to physical and mental health, immigration, housing, transport and more — and what they are seeing is children living in poverty.
At the end of last year the 2,155 Catholic schools in England and Wales were asked about the extent of the child poverty they were witnessing, and the results were eye-opening. The cost-of-living crisis has meant instances of children arriving at school without having had any breakfast, and sometimes in insufficiently dry clothes due to high energy costs.
Over 90% of our schools have reported encountering families which are struggling with the cost of living, and 70% have noted worsening conditions. This is the reality of our sector educating 51.5% more pupils from the most deprived backgrounds than state-funded schools, according to the Government’s Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index (IDACI).
Catholic schools also tend to be located in urban areas, in towns and cities where deprivation exists cheek by jowl with great affluence.
England’s state-funded Catholic schools have historically served immigrant communities, and nearly half (47.2%) of the 817,784 students are from ethnic minorities, compared with a state sector average of 38.7%. Our school workforce is also more ethnically diverse — of the 47,312 of employees in England’s Catholic schools 24.6% are from ethnic minority backgrounds, compared to a 16.2% national average.
Free School Meals
What the survey showed is that our schools and parishes are going above and beyond to support families. Help with school uniform and its costs is offered by 94% of schools responding to the survey, as are breakfast clubs. However, many pupils’ parents are ineligible to apply for Free School Meals due to immigration status or being in low-paid casual or temporary employment. Further reform of the eligibility for Free School Meals can solve this along with streamlining the application process, and awareness-raising initiatives.
Being part of a wider family of parishes and charities helps. Catholic Care, in the Diocese of Leeds, provides residential homes for children unable to live with their own families, a family style of living based on a stable and supportive environment. This is in addition to a team of educational psychologists who work in schools and with families as part of the diocese’s school and family social work service.
Caritas Salford, the diocese’s social action charity, supported over 2,700 children and young people last year through social work, counselling and therapy initiatives. Recognising the more than 200,000 pupils affected by parental incarceration, Catholic charity the Prison Advice Care Trust (Pact) runs services for visiting families in more than 60 prisons across the country. Other charities such as the St Vincent De Paul Society provide safe and caring holidays all over England for children in need of a break from family problems such as unemployment, illness, bereavement or relationship breakdown.
The two-child benefit cap
The Government’s own data states that 1.6 million children live in households which are affected by the two-child benefit cap for Universal Credit and Child Tax Credit. This cap exacerbates financial strain and disproportionately affects Catholic communities, where larger families are common.
The Bishops have called for the abolition of the two-child policy since its introduction in 2017, highlighting the moral imperative of valuing all children equally. In challenging times, and amid falling birth rates, the cap can prompt families to make difficult decisions about having new pregnancies rather than rightly valuing every new life as a blessing.
Mental health
A strong connection between poverty and mental health issues was reported in our survey by 88% of schools. Supporting the whole person is a key part of Catholic education. Our pastoral care includes school chaplaincy services, which have seen a significant increase in demand in recent years.
This resourcing and respect for faith is reflected by 10% of curriculum time being ring-fenced for Religious Education, involving the study of Judaism, Islam and Sikhism and world views for much longer than in most secular schools, and which is also supportive of community cohesion. Partly as a result, Catholic schools are significantly more ethnically diverse.
Inspired by Catholic Social Teaching, our students are also activists on behalf of others. Some at Cardinal Newman Catholic School, in the Diocese of Arundel and Brighton, helped secure a school-based mental health counselling pilot project in the Brighton and Hove Council area, following a decade of related mental health campaigning with the local NHS. The Government’s policy commitment to roll out this initiative on a national scale is to be commended.
Overall, there are several policies in the Labour Party Manifesto at last year’s election which promise to help reduce child poverty, and it referred to working with faith communities specifically on this issue. We hope that the Government will draw from the experiences of Catholic schools and charities to address the root causes of poverty and develop policies and strategies that will enable all children and families to flourish.