Deputy Minister for Tackling Poverty, Vaughan Gething, will today (Thursday, 6th March) challenge public services across North Wales to reduce the numbers of underweight babies and young people not working or in education. .
He will be giving the keynote speech at the Tackling Poverty and Family Support Conference being held at Venue Cymru, Llandudno. Over 70 professionals, including representatives from local health boards, Communities First clusters, Families First projects and local authority anti-poverty champions, will discuss ideas to meet these big challenges.
Speaking ahead of the event the Deputy Minister said:
“The rationale for focusing on these two areas is the clear link between them and the impact on a person’s life chances and opportunity to fulfil their potential.
“It is impossible to address the issue of low birth weight quickly or with a single fix, due to the range of contributory factors that can cause it. But we know that people living in poverty are more likely to have low birth weight babies and that smoking during pregnancy is the single biggest cause. Low birth weight babies are more likely to have health problems, such as delayed physical and intellectual development in early years and adolescence.
“Reducing the number of young people not in employment, education or training (NEETs) will have an immediate impact for those young people and longer term benefit for future generations. The cost of not addressing this issue is not just economic, but impacts on levels of unemployment, under employment, crime, well-being, substance misuse, premature death and early motherhood.
“People at today’s event have a responsibility to help identify these young people and provide or refer them to services best suited to help. I know that there is a widespread recognition of that responsibility. The challenge is how effectively and how quickly that help is provided. Crucially we need different organisations to work together more effectively and place improving outcomes for the citizen at the centre of what we do and how we do it.”
Highlighting examples of projects that are already reaping rewards the Deputy Minister continued:
“Some authorities are already showing innovation in the way they are working together and bringing different programmes together. We need to see more examples like the joint work between Communities First and Families First in Gwynedd and the joint work being done on Anglesey between Families First and Flying Start. I look forward to hearing how we can achieve even more for families across Wales.”
