Foodbank charity insists parents need more support
PARENTS need help with food and childcare costs during school summer holidays according to Scotland’s leading foodbank charity.
A new survey has revealed almost half of parents are concerned about meeting extra childcare costs and school holiday activities.
And more than one in 10 said they expected to skip a meal over the holidays to ensure their children were fed.
The Trussell Trust has set up a network of holiday clubs to help parents with childcare and food costs during the long summer holidays.
For children who get free school meals the summer holidays puts an extra cost on parents or children go without.
The trust’s survey of almost 1000 parents found 41 per cent worried about childcare costs and 13 per cent said they expected to skip at least one meal over the summer.
The survey found that parents thought the government or councils should provide more help to low income families during the holiday period to relieve pressure.
The Trussell Trust said it set up 14 pilots of its foodbanks this year to help combat “isolation and hunger”. Ewan Gurr Foodbank Network Manager for Scotland, said many parents, already struggling were approaching a crisis over the holidays.
He said: “Families who rely on free school meals during term time can find themselves facing hunger in the school holidays, when there is an extra financial pressure to provide main meals.
“No-one knows the full scale of hunger in Scotland during the school holidays yet, but these figures make one thing clear: many families are closer to crisis than we think.”
He said foodbanks already offer extra support during holidays but that alone was not enough to solve the problem and called on authorities to take action.
He added: “It should be a wake-up call to us all that so many children will have a parent expecting to skip a meal or more this summer so they can feed the family.
“A long-term coordinated solution between government, businesses, schools and charities will have the most impact.”
The trust said it distributed 5000 more emergency food supplies to families with children in July and August last year compared to May and June.
The holiday clubs are set up to meet three objectives, to provide children and families with a nutritious meal.
To offer f un activities for children to keep them active and engaged during the holidays and to offer extra support to ensure parents and children do not isolated.