Transcript

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SPEAKER

So we've been talking about disadvantage as being concentrated in urban areas. But people on low incomes live in all sorts of places. And we're going to talk now to Home-Start Hampshire in the New Forest which is a charity that works with vulnerable families. And we're going to talk about what it's like for families and the impact on their health of living in rural areas if you're on a low income, something we call rural poverty.

I'm here with Claire. Claire is one of the coordinators for Home-Start Hampshire in the New Forest. Claire, can you tell me first of all, what health issues do you see people facing in the New Forest if they're on a low income.

CLAIRE WOOLDRIDGE

So from the New Forest point of view we're quite a large area. And one of our biggest issues is social isolation for families. So we do have families that really struggle. They may not have any transport. And this can lead to problems with health care, just accessing health care.

So sometimes just getting to the doctors, getting to the hospital can be massively difficult in terms of taxis. Having to order taxis, which can be very expensive, particularly around here and actually there's quite a shortage of taxis. And public transport buses not very many buses running things like that.

Another issue it can be housing. So some of the housing can be very, very expensive round here in the New Forest. Some of our house prices are similar to London, and have gone up due to the pandemic. So just finding an affordable rental property.

Some of the properties I visited have damp and issues like that, which I'm sure probably other properties experience as well. We have a lot of landlords who've put in heaters which cost lots of money rather than standard boilers. So families are often paying more for their gas and electricity, which is on the increase. And therefore, they can't heat their homes as much, which can again lead to health issues.

SPEAKER

Can you now give us a couple of examples of families that you've worked with and how Home-Start Hampshire has helped what difficulties they've needed support with.

CLAIRE WOOLDRIDGE

We have a family who actually the children are living with grandfather. And again, the grandfather had no car, no transport. So just for him to get the children some of which did need medical appointments, they had to get on two buses to get to those appointments. Again, struggling financially, and the buses can be expensive. So needing help with those.

Another family that moved into the area, we have this quite a lot where with the council housing. To get a larger house they might have to move a long way, maybe an hour to an hour and a half, and then they don't know anyone. They've lost their social networks. So in this case actually the family decided to go back to a smaller house but in an area where they had support because that isolation was so bad for them.

SPEAKER

And Claire, can you tell us what sort of impact do you think those difficulties had on the children in those families. What impact on their health do you think that's happening.

CLAIRE WOOLDRIDGE

For me the biggest impact I see on Children's Health is through their behavior. And I'm sure all know that behavior of children is them showing their emotions or frustrations often. There's a reason behind the behavior.

So I see a lot of children who are kept in nowadays, and often families I don't feel are going out so much. It can be because of the behavior of the children. They're actually afraid to take the children out because their behavior can be so bad, that fear, that worry of judgment.

And so often when I'm visiting families they're using probably screens a lot more to control behavior, and the children are getting quite frustrated and very emotional. And one of the lovely things if we can get those children out to playgrounds and out to group is to see them running around. And you can see that happiness and that joy in them getting out, running around, having support from other adults so that the parents aren't quite so anxious and supporting those parents. And that can then lead to issues of anxiety within the family home. Unhappiness with them in the family home.

SPEAKER

So living in a rural area, how does that impact on people's jobs and access to income?

CLAIRE WOOLDRIDGE

So a lot of our families have the difficulty that work in the New Forest is very seasonal. We're very tourist-reliant. And the majority of our tourists are coming through from April to October. So some of the jobs actually are only six months jobs. And therefore families can only get work for that summer season.

SPEAKER

That's. Great. Thank you very much, Claire. It's a real insight.