Poverty Hurts: Providing nourishing food to families

Poverty Hurts: Providing nourishing food to families

The Family Haven received a grant of £2,000 from the Poverty Hurts Fund to provide food and healthy eating support to families during the cost-of-living crisis.

Families who use the Family Haven are often already struggling – living in temporary accommodation, fleeing domestic abuse, struggling with mental health challenges or substance abuse.

Between 1st December 2023 and 1st March 2024, they provided 1,041 meals for adults and children from their centre in Gloucester, enabling families struggling to put food on the table to have healthy, nutritious meals. The impact of these meals went beyond filling hungry tummies, by also enabling life changing conversations.

“One Mum had been coming to the Family Haven centre with her three year old daughter and 6-month-old baby. Their landlord had been failing to address issues in their property and for the last year there had been reoccurring issues with black mould. Mum had tried to clean it but as the root cause wasn’t dealt with, it kept coming back. The baby had health issues and was waiting for an operation, and the problems with the house were not helping her health.

The Family Haven support worker listened to Mum, and gave her information about a local housing support drop in. Mum went along and the council became involved with their case. They deemed the property unfit for habitation. They moved the family in to a local hotel whilst they found them accommodation that is more suitable.

Whilst the family was living in the hotel, the Family Haven gave them support five days a week in their centre, including the use of their washing machine and kitchen so that mum could cook some meals for them to take home, as there are no cooking or washing facilities at the hotel. Mum was very grateful that she could use their facilities as the family would really struggle taking both the children to a launderette. They had no family in the area, and no access to cooking facilities.

The Family Haven provided them with breakfast, lunch, and snacks and gave them a home a cooked meal to have in the evening for £2.50 a day. They have now been moved and are settling in a new home.”

July 2024

Learning about food and nutrition

Alongside providing meals, The Family Haven also used the Poverty Hurts grant to support 30 families to learn how to cook low-cost, nutritious meals such as macaroni cheese, Quiche, homemade fishcakes, lentil casserole and stuffed peppers. The families were able to take home everything they made, reducing the financial impact of buying food. 84% of the families attending said that they had improved their knowledge of healthy eating: "The big learning was how to make a healthy lunchbox for my children and also to learn new recipes!"