Tackling child poverty through welfare benefits advice

Credit: Pixel-Shot via Adobe Stock.

30 September 2025

By Elizabeth Cecil and Dushana Pinfield, Events and Communications Manager, TCRU.

As we begin our Healthier Wealthier Families in East London (HWFinEL) project, we’re sharing the research that helped shape it. We’re also now recruiting new parents in Tower Hamlets.

Bringing support to where families already are

In the UK today, 4.5 million children are growing up in poverty. At the same time, around £23 billion in welfare benefits and social tariffs goes unclaimed each year. Families are missing out on vital support that could ease day-to-day pressures, often because the system is complicated, overwhelming or hard to navigate.

In East London, the challenge is particularly stark. In some areas, nearly 40% of children live in poverty. Families raising children with disabilities, larger households, or those facing racial inequalities often carry the heaviest load. In response, we asked: could we bring welfare benefits advice directly to the places families already trust, like health clinics and children’s centres?

Why we did this research

Health and community services are often the first to notice when families are struggling. Parents may not always talk openly about money worries, but professionals can see the impact poverty has on children’s health, nutrition and wellbeing.

The problem is that even when families know they need support, reaching out for advice isn’t always easy. Stigma, long waiting times and confusing referral routes can all get in the way. We wanted to try something different: bring welfare benefits advice to families, rather than expecting families to seek it out.

What we did

We set up welfare benefits advisors inside three everyday settings:

• A children’s neurodisability clinic.
• A children’s centre.
• A community health centre.

Parents who were worried about money could be referred for one-to-one support.

To see whether this made a difference, we used a mixed methods approach, looking at both numbers and the lived experience:

• 174 referrals were tracked for financial impact at one site.
• 55 parents and 12 professionals shared their views across all three sites.

The findings were striking:

• Trust matters – families already felt comfortable in their health and community settings. Having advice available there meant they didn’t have to go somewhere new, unfamiliar or intimidating.
• Not all barriers disappear – for some families, language difficulties and digital exclusion still got in the way. Services need to be flexible and culturally sensitive.
• Money in pockets matters. At one site, 60 families gained an average of £6,898 per year in additional income and support. For many families this means food and clothes for growing children, and greater peace of mind.

Parents told us how the service had changed their confidence and their day-to-day lives:

“Knowing where to find help gave me confidence in what to do now and next.”

“With bulk shopping, the money can go further. We can eat properly and get clothes for summer.”

Why this matters

This study showed that bringing welfare advice into health and community services isn’t just possible, it works. For practitioners and policymakers, a few lessons stand out:

• Trust is the foundation. Families are far more likely to use services when they’re offered in places they already know.
• Make it simple. Easy referral routes keep the service accessible.
• Adapt to families. Translation support, privacy in tight-knit communities and offline options for those excluded digitally are all vital.
• Be realistic. Co-located advice helps families claim what they’re entitled to, but it doesn’t solve the bigger structural causes of poverty.

What comes next

This work was just the beginning. Building on what we learned, we’re now launching the Healthier Wealthier Families in East London (HWFinEL) project. This new study will weave welfare advice into routine health visiting appointments for new parents in Tower Hamlets. By reaching families earlier, at the very start of their child’s life, we hope to reduce hardship before it takes hold.

The scale of child poverty in the UK is daunting, but research like this shows that practical, preventative steps can make a real difference. Families shouldn’t have to navigate complex systems alone. By putting advice where families already are, we can ease stress, improve wellbeing and help give children a stronger start.

At the Thomas Coram Research Unit, we’ll keep building this evidence and working with partners to push for change.

Find out more about the HWFinEL project, or get in touch with us if you’d like to collaborate on tackling child poverty.