We are working with Swansea Council along with public sector practitioners, academics, experts by experience and community groups to develop local, evidence-based solutions to tackling poverty stigma in the area.
Poverty stigma amplifies the effects of material hardship and makes it harder for people to escape poverty. Our policy briefing demonstrates that poverty stigma is associated with poor mental health, social isolation, and reduced take-up of benefits and other support services, and the YouGov survey we commissioned last year revealed the scale of the issue in Wales, with 25% of adults experiencing poverty stigma ‘always’, ‘often’ or ‘sometimes’.
Our wider work on poverty stigma aims to support public services and policy makers in Wales to better understand poverty stigma, how it affects their communities and find ways to reduce it. There is growing awareness of this issue among the public sector in Wales and some local governments, such as Swansea Council, have committed to taking proactive steps to tackle poverty stigma.
However, currently there is a lack of evidence about ‘what works’ to prevent and address poverty stigma and how that evidence can best be applied through policy and practice in a particular locale.
We have commissioned a research team to conduct research into experiences of poverty stigma in Swansea and the role of local public services in both contributing to and preventing stigma. The research team will work with local experts by experience to co-produce the research project in collaboration with Swansea Council. The goals of this project are to help public sector partners in Swansea to:
- Understand and learn from lived experiences of poverty stigma in Swansea – where it comes from, how it shows up in people’s daily lives and their experiences of public services, and how it affects people.
- Understand the role of local public services – both in contributing to and reducing poverty stigma, whilst also building on any existing efforts that are already working well to tackle poverty stigma in Swansea.
- Learn from research and promising practice elsewhere – to explore what international evidence says about tackling poverty stigma and how these lessons can be applied to policy and practice in Swansea.
- Co-create a local vision and action plan for tackling poverty stigma – to guide Swansea Council’s Tackling Poverty Strategy and broader efforts to combat poverty stigma in Swansea.
It is envisaged that through this work we will produce a research report, a practical guide and a community summary which will be made publicly available in 2025.
The findings will be shared to inform Swansea Council’s Tackling Poverty Strategy and implementation plan. Learning from Swansea will also be shared with other local governments in Wales, with the Welsh Government and through the WCPP Poverty Stigma Insight Network.
If you would like to know more about this project, or any of our other work, please contact us on info@wcpp.org.uk