Reducing infant and maternal food insecurity in the UK

By Sabine Goodwin, Director at the Independent Food Aid Network (IFAN)

The Independent Food Aid Network (IFAN) published a new briefing on maternal and infant food insecurity last week. This report features data collated from frontline IFAN member organisations and highlights cash first or income-focused actions to reduce infant and maternal food insecurity.

Nearly a quarter of IFAN member organisations contributing to an August 2024 survey reported seeing a rise in the number of parents and carers who asked for help to feed their babies from April to July 2024 as compared with the same two-month period last year. When asked how people had accessed their support, 60% of contributing organisations reported helping parents and carers who had self-referred which highlights the reality that potential opportunities for income maximisation support are being missed.

IFAN is calling for local agencies and partners to collaboratively strengthen referral pathways towards income maximisation. It is vital that a cash first response is used when helping parents and carers in immediate need through help and support to increase income and access cash payments or shopping vouchers. It is also critical to promote and invest in local advice services to help embed early cash first interventions. Additionally, IFAN is calling for social security payments and wages to be brought in line with the cost of living, ensuring people have enough money in their pockets for essential costs. And for when an unexpected crisis happens, cash-based local crisis support safety nets should be available to provide immediate support.

——————————————————————-

This article is featured in our 27 November newsletter.

Resolve Poverty will use the information you provide to send you our newsletter by email. We may occasionally send you emails about other Resolve Poverty projects, services and events to pursue our legitimate organisational activities, but we won’t share your personal information; transfer your data internationally; or use your data for automatic profiling. Your personal data will be stored on a secure, password protected database that can only be accessed by members of the Resolve Poverty team. Members of the team are required to adhere to the organisation’s privacy and data use policy. Your personal data will be stored until you tell us you no longer want to receive our newsletter. You have the right to know what information we hold about you and you can ask to see it, amend it or have it deleted by emailing us at contact@resolvepoverty.org.