Child Poverty - Everybody's Business
Bedford Borough Council / Central Bedfordshire Council
The Moon Watcher team were able to encapsulate
the very real issues encountered by a young family and produce a sensitive, thought provoking film that could be used with a range of partners to stimulate and promote discussion about the impact of poverty on children’s lives.
Katie Theodore, Commissioning Assistant Director, Integrated Services, Bedford BoroughCouncil.
"Child Poverty - Everybody's Business", a documentary film commissioned to raise awareness and challenge perceptions of child poverty. Its aim was to help anyone working within both of the local authorities to understand the important role they can play in recognising an individual's aspirations and enabling and empowering families to achieve them and to move on from poverty.
The production team chose to feature the story of a young couple struggling to bring up a family on benefits after they both lost their jobs. Through their story the film shows how poverty can have a profound impact on children, young people and their families, often making it harder for children to keep up at school, adding to emotional well-being and physical health problems and even leading to social exclusion.
The film was developed along with a discussion guide to help viewers better understand the messages within the film and to champion a long term goal to reduce child poverty, particularly in Bedford Borough which is considered to be an affluent area, but has pockets of some of the highest levels of deprivation in the UK.