The headteacher of a Catholic secondary school in Tyneside is working with Citizens UK to lobby the government to improve its voucher scheme for children who qualify for free school meals, but whose families are struggling during lockdown.
David Watson, headteacher of St Thomas More RC Academy in North Tyneside said, “I hear stories about families struggling during lockdown every day and children are going hungry. We need to ensure that all families in need know how to access support and can do so quickly.”
Citizens UK is asking the Government to confirm that schools will be reimbursed if they issue emergency food vouchers and to extend the voucher scheme to cover the May half term and the longer summer break.
He told The Tablet: "The issue puts into focus food poverty in Britain.”
He reported that over the period of closure during the pandemic his school has bought supermarket vouchers worth £16,000 to help around 200 children from 160 vulnerable families. Other schools are doing the same. The problem is nationwide. Three million children from low income families normally receive free school meals, but with closed schools no longer providing a reprieve for children reliant on free breakfast clubs and school lunches, poorer families are at crisis point.
A government scheme to give pupils food vouchers until schools reopen has been beset with problems, with many parents unable to download the vouchers or redeem them in supermarkets. According to the Food Foundation, 31 per cent of children entitled to free school meals are still not getting any substitute, leaving more than 500,000 children going without.
The Catholic Children’s Society in the South East has been supporting vulnerable families. “So far, in response to the coronavirus crisis, we have been able to help over 2,300 children (1,400 families) with funding for food and basic essentials,” CEO Dr Rosemary Keenan told The Tablet.
“We are hearing of so many families who are falling through gaps in government support. Foodbanks are overwhelmed and these families are at absolute breaking point.”
She spoke of a widowed mother of two young children who lost her job as a cleaner because of the coronavirus crisis. When her children’s school found out that the she had just £10 left to support her family until she could get back to work, “we were able to alleviate the pressure on this vulnerable family by providing them with funding to buy food for the next six weeks.”
Bernadette Fisher, director of the Brentwood Catholic Children’s Society, reported that it has a Crisis Fund and has been providing supermarket vouchers. The number of families being referred has increased since the schools closed and a special appeal has been launched to top up funds.
Mark Wiggan, Director of Caritas Salford, told The Tablet that its Schools Team is finding that non-working families are facing food poverty, and grateful for the food parcels and vouchers from schools to feed their children.
“There appear to be differences between local authorities about how and when the lunches/food vouchers are being distributed, and some families who are struggling are not eligible for this help,” he said.
There are also numerous examples of schools “going above and beyond to support families”. He said: “One of our schools has completed a ‘Tesco big shop’, using school funds, for a family who literally had no food to last them over a weekend until they were able to get to the foodbank on the Monday.”
A Caritas social worker supported another school’s efforts by delivering food vouchers to 23 vulnerable families, ensuring they had access to food in lieu of school meals, and doing a doorstep welfare check with the children at the same time.
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