How you can help before the election
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The 2024 General Election will be taking place on 4 July. During the current election campaign, you might have the chance to speak directly with candidates on your doorstep, on the street, on the phone or online – see more below to find out who your prospective candidates are.
This is a great opportunity to tell the people who will make up the next parliament what is most important to you and want you want them to do about it.
If you share our vision of a society where no child’s life chances are limited by their social or family circumstances, here are three issues we think are important that you could use as a starting point in conversations with candidates in your area.
Tackling child poverty
- 81% of children who went into care for the first time after 2011 were living in a household that was deprived (ONS 2022).
We believe that a lot can be done to do this – for example by increasing child benefit allowance, scrapping the two-child cap and increasing universal credit. We also would want the Government to do more to reform access to housing, education and manage the cost of living.
Support social workers
- 83% of councils said they were experiencing problems recruiting children’s social workers, and 72% retaining them (Local Government Association survey 2023).
We believe there should be better support for those working as children’s social workers. The Government should be funding more training and professional development across the sector.
We urgently want the Government to do more to attract people into the profession and help shift public perceptions of social work, similar to what has been achieved with teaching. A national campaign should be run, that addresses the negative views held around social workers and frames the job as desirable and well respected.
Better support for care leavers
- Care leavers make up 25% of the adult homeless population (Drive Forward Foundation 2023)
Better schemes should be offered to care leavers, with greater support from their local authorities and changes made to housing and other benefit policies to protect young people from homelessness. Care leaver should become a protected characteristic and those leaving care should be supported until they are 25.
Find the prospective candidates in your constituency
There are lots of candidates running to be MPs in the upcoming General Election on 4 July. You can find out who the candidates are in your area by clicking here – https://whocanivotefor.co.uk/ppcs/
Scroll to the bottom of the page and type in your postcode to find your constituency.
If you have any questions please get in touch – communications@thefrontline.org.uk