Preventing and addressing poverty stigma
Previous research on the lived experience of poverty and social exclusion in Wales conducted by WCPP for the Welsh Government in 2022 identified addressing poverty stigma as a key priority for people experiencing poverty. Partly as a result of this, the 2024 Child Poverty Strategy included addressing the stigma of poverty as one of its five objectives. This prompted us to consider how public services in Wales can be supported to take an evidence-informed approach to preventing and addressing poverty stigma.
Understanding the challenge: The scale and nature of poverty stigma
In 2024, we produced a policy briefing, Tackling poverty-related stigma, which demonstrates that poverty stigma is associated with poor mental health, social isolation, and reduced take-up of benefits and other support services. Alongside this, Lifting the Lid on Poverty Stigma, based on a 2024 YouGov survey we commissioned, revealed the scale of the issue in Wales, with 1 in 3 low income adults experiencing poverty stigma ‘always’, ‘often’ or ‘sometimes’ in the last year.
Understanding ‘what works’: policy and practice solutions
To strengthen and inform efforts to prevent and address poverty stigma at both local and national levels, we commissioned a rapid evidence review examining how poverty stigma has been effectively prevented or addressed in policy and practice in the UK and internationally. The review, conducted the Poverty Alliance and the Scottish Poverty Inequality Research Unit (SPIRU), took a systematic, multi-stage approach to identify, assess, and synthesise evidence across a range of policy areas including housing, food assistance, and education.
Applying evidence in place: Co-producing actions for Swansea
We also sought to establish how this evidence on ‘what works’ to prevent and address poverty stigma could be applied and contextualised through policy and practice in a particular locale. As such, we partnered with Swansea Council and a group of Swansea-based Community Researchers to:
- Understand and learn from lived experiences of poverty stigma in Swansea
- Understand the role of local public services
- Learn from research and promising practice elsewhere
We have published two key outputs from the process in Swansea. The first, Understanding and addressing poverty stigma in Swansea, is a community-led report developed by Swansea-based community researchers. It brings together findings from qualitative research with local residents and professionals from public services in Swansea to understand where, how and why poverty stigma shows up for people in Swansea.
The policy and practice report published alongside the community report, Voices of Swansea: Challenging poverty stigma together, summarises key insights into understanding, preventing and addressing poverty stigma in Swansea. The report is based on a co-creative process which brought together academic evidence, lived experience expertise, and professional and practitioner expertise, to explore policies and practices for creating a stigma-free Swansea. Together, we developed eight evidence-informed actions for change in Swansea across three key areas: removing stigma from access to support, delivering services with dignity and respect, and changing language culture, and systems.
The co-created actions will inform Swansea Council’s Tackling Poverty Strategy and the implementation plan associated with the strategy. All of the actions identified are relevant to varying extents to other local authorities in Wales and the rest of the UK interested in preventing and addressing poverty stigma.
As part of our research in Swansea, we commissioned a series of photographs of people and places around Swansea that were produced in line with stigma-free principles.
Sharing our learning and learning from others: the Poverty Stigma Insight Network
To share our learning more widely, and to learn from others, in 2024 we established the Poverty Stigma Insight Network, a UK-wide network of individuals and organisations who have the shared aim of seeking to better understand, prevent and address poverty stigma. Members include lived experience experts, policy makers, practitioners, researchers an academics. Through the Network, we seek to influence local and national decision-making and practice to address poverty stigma by: using evidence and insight to raise awareness and understanding of poverty stigma, to challenge myths about poverty, and shift the narrative; and to change the attitudes and practices of public services, professionals and other organisations. We do this by sharing ideas, good practice and examples of ‘what works’ and importantly, centring the voices of people with lived experience of poverty stigma, and drawing on their expertise to find solutions.
If you would like to join the Poverty Stigma Insight Network, or are interested in hearing more, please get in touch with info@wcpp.org.uk.
Get in touch
To hear more about our current work supporting public services to address poverty stigma, or if you are a policy maker or practitioner and there is a particular piece of work you have in mind that would be useful, please get in touch with charlotte.morgan@wcpp.org.uk
