The Child Poverty Monitor is a new annual publication for the Children’s Rights Alliance. The Child Poverty Monitor will document, analyse and report on child poverty in Ireland. The Monitor will track Government progress on reducing the number of children trapped in poverty, showcase best practice solutions and spotlight key areas of concern across issues including food poverty, income adequacy, education inequality and the high cost of living.
Poverty pulls children back from opportunities to reach their full potential. Instead of focusing on what resources or supports a child needs to thrive in life, the focus becomes on what is needed to just survive. The longer a child stays in a cycle of consistent poverty, the greater the negative impact on their outcomes. Long-term exposure to economic vulnerability impacts on children’s outcomes across a number of domains including their physical and mental health, educational attainment and socio-emotional well-being and can result in them having self-esteem, which can lead to mental health difficulties in later life. These outcomes are not inevitable. Investment, national and local actions can reduce the impact of poverty and support children to reach their full potential.
Enhancing our understanding of the drivers of economic vulnerability and poverty is essential to the development of policy solutions to reverse the tide.
