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FAMILY MATTERS
The public’s perception of child poverty
has been
thrust into the spotlight over the last few weeks
with a recent government survey suggesting that
the public see strong causal links between drug
and alcohol use and poverty. Ian Duncan Smith
further discussed this point on in a speech at the
end of January stating:
‘For a poor family where the parents are
suffering from addiction, giving them an extra
pound in benefits might officially move them over
the poverty line. But increased income from
welfare transfers will not address the reason they
find themselves in difficulty in the first place.’
He goes on to argue that:
‘Worse still, if it does little more than feed the
parents' addiction, it may leave the family more
dependent not less, resulting in poor social
outcomes and still deeper entrenchment. What
such a family needs is that we treat the cause of
their hardship – the drug addiction itself.’
Although it may be quite likely that an individual
child with parents addicted to drugs or alcohol
will grow up in poverty, this does not mean that
drug or alcohol addiction is a cause of child
poverty in the majority of cases. We note in our
response to the government’s child poverty
consultation that only a fraction of the 2,300,000
children currently living in poverty will be living
with a parent with a drug or alcohol problem.
Unfortunately this kind of public statement
may lead to confusion and a conflation of
addiction and poverty in the minds of many
readers and risks further stigmatising some of our
families most on the margins.
We welcome the government’s efforts to further
understand the wider determinants of child poverty
and the impact that parental health (including drug
and alcohol use) has on that child. However the links
between poverty and addiction are complex and the
extent to which it should be included in any
multidimensional definition is unclear.
It is important that any measure seeks to
review not only public opinion but also the vast
body of available research and evaluations into
child poverty, while maintaining the central
measure of household income as the biggest
determinate of poverty.
Joss Smith is director of policy and regional
development at Adfam, www.adfam.org.uk
Media savvy |
Family matters
March 2013 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| 7
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
MEDIA SAVVY
WHO’S BEEN SAYINGWHAT..?
It is offensive to see people criminalised and imprisoned for using
stimulants many politicians admit to having used, especially when
countless experts and ceaseless inquiries found drugs such as cannabis
and ecstasy less harmful than alcohol. It is one more reason for the
disconnect between politicians and the people who put them in power.
Ian Birrell,
Guardian
, 19 February
The horror story of cruelty and neglect in Mid Staffs arrives as a ready-
made justification for this government's fragmentation of the NHS. You
don't need much political nous to detect Jeremy Hunt and his press
softening up the public for the idea that the private sector now taking over
many NHS contracts will better prevent such outrages in future.
Polly Toynbee,
Guardian
, 7 February
For far too long the [health service] debate in England has been comically
simplistic. Tony Blair framed the argument during his second term in power
as ‘reform versus anti-reform’, as if there were only one available change to
the NHS – the one that he happened to advocate. David Cameron copied
precisely the same language in justifying his current upheaval.
Steve Richards,
Independent
, 6 February
Some MPs and lords have had their offices funded by healthcare
companies, some have been paid thousands to attend speaking
engagements on behalf of firms that are now bidding for NHS business.
Parliamentarians have been allowed to vote on reforms that they stand to
benefit from, astonishingly an action that is permissible at national level
but unlawful within local councils… For now our health service is in the
hands of Tory Jeremy Hunt, a man who co-authored a 2005 book backing a
‘denationalised NHS’, and the outlook is horribly Orwellian and bleak.
Sonia Poulton,
Sunday Express
, 17 February
For some, lifelong methadone is necessary, for others, methadone in
combination with rehabilitation and recovery in its many formats should
be available and should be treated with the expertise and dignity offered
with all other health and care interventions.
Roy Robertson,
Guardian
, 20 February
The constant cry from Labour, the public sector unions, local authorities
and many commentators is that the cold-hearted Coalition is engaged in a
‘slash and burn’ policy that will end in the wholesale destruction of the
welfare state…The truth is that this is utter nonsense. In fact, Britain’s
monstrously swollen state still devours almost half the nation’s output.
Alex Brummer,
Daily Mail,
25 February
Now here’s something to warm the heart. A bunch of medics from Liverpool
have set up an organisation called ‘Street Doctors’, where they go out and
teach gang members how to staunch and sew up stab wounds. The obvious
downside to this pioneering initiative is that we will probably, as a
consequence, be left with more living gang members than would otherwise
have been the case. They do not seem to have thought about that.
Rod Liddle,
Spectator
, 12 February
Payment by results does not reward organisations for supporting people to
achieve what they need; it rewards organisations for producing data about
targets; it rewards organisations for the fictions their staff are able to
invent about what they have achieved; it pays people for porkies.
Toby Lowe,
Guardian
, 1 February
POOR PERCEPTIONS
The links between poverty and addiction are
complex and should not be over-simplified,
says
Joss Smith
‘This kind
of public
statement
may lead to
confusion
and a
conflation
of addiction
and
poverty...
and risks
further
stigmatising
some of our
families
most on the
margins’