Free Webinar

Keeping Children Safe from Poverty 

Monday 18 October 2021

Register now!

Children can thrive and be healthy when they have what they need to develop well. To treat all of Australia’s children fairly, we need to ensure every family has enough money to cover the basics and a secure roof over their heads.

According to the latest data, approximately 774,000 children or 1 in 6 Australian children aged 0-14 years live in poverty. This figure is way too high for a wealthy country, which was rated as having the highest levels of individual wealth in the world in 2021.

While income poverty creates deep disadvantage for children, research finds that child poverty is multidimensional – impacting not only essential material goods, but undermining children’s opportunities now and in the future, and often undermining their relationships.

For instance, kids growing up in poverty too often go to bed or school hungry; they can feel left out if they can’t afford to join a local sport team or go on school camps; they may be living in an overcrowded home where there’s no quiet place to do homework and they worry about their parents.

In this webinar we’ll hear more about poverty from the perspective of children, and how we can work together to keep children and families safe from poverty, with:

• Dr Sharon Bessell from the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australia National University, who will share her fascinating research into child poverty (based largely on consultation with children and young people themselves)
• Angela Rondo from Thriving Families Nambour who will share her experience in supporting families at the local level, including through the ‘Our community, our families, our children’ initiative which was recently recognised with a Queensland Child Protection Week Award.

This webinar has been organised as part of Anti-Poverty Week. Please visit the website at www.antipovertyweek.org.au to learn more about how you can support the campaign.

For an introduction to the topic being covered in this webinar, view the ANU’s short video, Rethinking Child Poverty: https://youtu.be/oK6zCSbFK0c