"BACKGROUNDResearch shows that young people living below the poverty line face multiple barriers to access education, employment, housing, etc. To be poor is a very stigmatizing experience, which affects self-esteem, confidence and personal security. Thus, low income is a strong predictor of low educational performance, lower aspirations for the future and finally social exclusion. The 2013 Annual Growth Survey showed that poverty and social exclusion are major obstacles to the achievement of the Europe 2020 objective of inclusive growth. There is a lack of extensive knowledge on how young people experience poverty in the different member states and much to learn about how the dynamic nature of poverty and youth intertwine. A better understanding is urgently needed for achieving the Europe 2020 goal of “at least 20 million fewer people in or at risk of poverty and social exclusion"". OBJECTIVES, NUMBER AND PROFILE OF PARTICIPANTSYES Forum, the European network of organizations working with and for disadvantaged young people, having members and affiliates in 18 EU member states, led the strategic partnership “Our life. Our voice. Young people and poverty”. We placed young people’s views at the heart of this project to explore their attitudes to poverty and what it means for them to live in families struggling to make ends meet from day to day. By listening to the young people experiencing poverty we wanted to bridge the gap between policy and practice. We provided fresh ideas for both actors in the field of youth services and youth work as well as policy makers on what real support should look like and how to better target resources to disadvantaged young people’s needs.The project partnership involved 6 partners and the YES Forum, as the coordinating organization. We implemented the project in 5 countries, different with regard to welfare system, historical development, and economic performance. We collaborated with partners coming from the UK, Italy, Germany, Finland and Romania, covering different regions of the EU. All participating organizations have had strong experience in delivering services for those experiencing poverty, listening to young people and influencing policy to improve the lives of those in or at risk of poverty. To reach a large audience ranging from youth work organizations, service providers, policy makers and public authorities, we involved another strong European network, active in the field of street work, Dynamo International. Through the activities of the partner organisation in the life-time of the project, we have reached 1.700 young people. Through extensive dissemination activities, as described in detail in the section ‘dissemination’, we reached around 6.500 multipliers across Europe. ACTIVITIES AND METHODOS USEDThis strategic partnership was built on a model established by The Children’s Society, a YES Forum member from the UK. We transferred this method and applied it within the strategic partnership by setting groups of young people with an interest to explore poverty. These groups of 12-15 young people were accompanied by youth workers applying interactive and participatory methods to get an insight into the experience of young people in poverty (IO1). The young people themselves created discussions on different perceptions of poverty and as a result formulated their recommendations against poverty and what real support should look like (IO2). At regional and national events, they met with representatives from youth organizations, service providers, local authorities, and policy makers to discuss their suggestions. The methodology used for engaging those young people who might be hard to reach was also published in a tool-kit for practitioners (IO3). The activities then culminated in the final international conference organized by the YES Forum together with Dynamo International. This event was held in Brussels, presenting the project findings in creative and interactive ways, devised by the young people to reach the various actors working with disadvantaged young people across Europe, ranging from professionals of youth and social work to decision- and policy-makers at EU level.RESULTS, IMPACT, LONGER TERM BENEFITSBy applying this participatory approach the project filled a gap in the discourse around poverty, where often the focus at national and EU level is on statistics and the definition of poverty rather than the day to day experience of young people. Local authorities and those responsible for developing services and policies for young people benefited from our substantial knowhow in including those young people who may not otherwise be engaged in established platforms for policymaking in the youth field (e.g. youth councils, youth organizations)."

The 'MARCH' Network proposes that Assets for Resilient Communities lie at the heart of Mental Health (M-ARC-H) and is dedicated to advancing research into the impact of these assets in enhancing public mental health and wellbeing, preventing mental illness and supporting those living with mental health conditions. Specifically, it will advance our understanding of the impact of social, cultural and community assets including the arts, culture, heritage, libraries, parks, community gardens, allotments, leisure centres, volunteer associations, social clubs and community groups, of which there are an anticipated 1 million in the UK. The network will bring together a Disciplinary Expert Group of researchers with a Policy Group of major national policy bodies, a Patient Public Involvement Group of national mental health charities, and a Community Engagement Group of national organisations. Across three years, our network will unite research with policy and practice to tackle critical questions of research priorities, methods, and implementation in this field; understand and resolve barriers to mobilising community assets; and provide training and support to the next generation of researchers. Specifically, our network will address questions organised in two core work streams (WS): WS1. Cross-disciplinary research and challenges: (a) What evidence is there, from a cross-disciplinary perspective, for how and why community assets impact on public health and wellbeing and the lives of those living with mental health problems, and where are the gaps for future research? (b) How can we use a cross-disciplinary approach to provide meaningful data to different stakeholders and users? WS2. Equity of engagement and access innovation: (a) Who amongst the UK population, demographically and geographically, currently engages with these programmes and how does participation vary dependent on mental health? (b) What are the current barriers and enablers to engagement at an individual, organisational and policy level and how can we develop innovative approaches to enhance engagement, especially amongst the vulnerable? This research work will be complemented by a rich portfolio of impact, engagement and training activities (see 'Impact Summary'). This network aligns with strategic priorities of the AHRC and ESRC as well as having a secondary relevance to the priorities of the MRC (through its consideration of the role of community assets and social prescribing to support medical approaches to mental health), NERC (through its exploration of the impact of green spaces) and EPSRC (through its focus on the opportunities provided by technology for driving research forwards). It has also been designed in response to the Network Plus Research Agenda. In addition to the objectives already discussed in the prior Je-S section, it is responsive to many of the mental health challenges cited in the agenda. For example, the call specification noted that only 25% of people with mental health problems receive ongoing treatment. Whilst there are recognised economic and resource constraints with delivering sufficient mental health services, this Network proposes to focus on the role that existing community assets could play in providing support to a much wider range of people in the UK including those on waiting lists. As another example, the call specification raised that 70% of children and adolescents with mental health problems have not had appropriate interventions at an earlier age. This Network will involve working with policy makers and community organisations to see how research could help overcome barriers to access with the aim of engaging more young people and those who are hard to reach. Overall, the network will seek to understand and support future research into how community assets could be mobilised to encourage more resilient individuals and communities with a greater understanding of and capacity for self-management of mental health.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has and will have huge direct health and economic implications as highlighted by the media, but there are and likely will be also a myriad of significant indirect health, social, and educational consequences for children and families. These impacts will likely be most keenly felt on the most vulnerable of CYP - such as those experiencing homelessness while living in temporary or insecure accommodation. Specifically, homeless children under age five (under5s) are not only at greater risk of exposure and transmission of COVID due to overcrowding in substandard housing, but also immediate and long-term impacts on growth, optimal health, and brain development. The COVID-19 pandemic could result in a number of further waves of increased infection incidence and last for 18 months or longer. The longevity and periodicity of the pandemic will therefore not have only short-term impacts but long-term for some children extending across most of their infant life with some children even being born into this pandemic. The Children's Commissioner suggested that there could be more than 210,000 homeless children in temporary accommodation or 'sofa surfing,' and approximately 585,000 who either are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless in England alone. The purpose of this study is to determine the barriers attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic and our associated health services and societal response, experienced by parents of under5s living in temporary accommodation nationally for themselves and their children. First, we will explore perceptions around access to health care services, such as seeking medical review in response to common childhood assessments (e.g. fever, diarrhoea, respiratory symptoms, accidents). Second, we will explore parent/carer perceived ability to support their child in achieving their optimal health outcomes (e.g. nutrition, vaccination uptake, overall wellbeing, growth, reaching full developmental milestones). We will also co-develop an information toolkit with the parents of this vulnerable population and front line (health and social care) workers to address their short-term and long-term needs once the lockdown period ends and there is an effort to return to "normalcy" while at the same time, there is a need to learn from these current experiences in preparation for a possible Winter resurgence of COVID-19, for any future epidemics or pandemics but also to rapidly address the health challenges that these children have encountered during this pandemic.

This research is concerned with child poverty in the UK, and with the links between children's experiences of poverty and their subjective well-being (SWB). It will focus on how resources are shared within families, and how different patterns of resource sharing are associated with child poverty and SWB. A longitudinal mixed-methods approach will be adopted, collecting data from children and families through an ethnography and three waves of a longitudinal survey. This will enable the integration of rich qualitative data with representative survey data, and will help to ensure that children's views are central to how family sharing patterns are understood and measured. The use of longitudinal mixed methods will also facilitate methodological development, as such an approach has rarely been used in research with children. Children aged 10-18 and their families will be targeted, and families across the socio-economic spectrum will be involved so that the nature and impact of different sharing patterns can be explored in relation to socio-economic status. A theoretical model of intra-family sharing and a quantitative tool to assess sharing patterns from children's perspectives will be developed. The Children's Society and Leeds City Council Children's Services will act as partners on the project, and have been involved in developing this proposal. This project addresses a topical issue and has the potential to inform policy and public debates about the nature of child poverty and its association with SWB. Child poverty and the SWB of children are both high on the UK policy agenda. The failure of successive governments to meet the goals of the 2010 Child Poverty Act has resulted in debates about the definition and measurement of poverty, and plans to scrap the Act's targets. This relates to parallel debates about the relative importance of economic factors versus SWB in assessing national performance. The Office of National Statistics was tasked in 2010 with developing national measures of well-being to supplement economic measures of progress. However, international analysis of children's SWB conducted as part of the Children's Worlds study (Rees and Main, 2015) shows that the UK performs poorly, ranked 14th out of 15 countries in terms of children's overall life satisfaction and 9th in terms of their satisfaction with material resources. This research will offer new insights on the extent to which material resources are important for children's SWB, thus contributing to debates around how child poverty should be measured and whether an ongoing commitment to its eradication should be reinstated. The measurement of child poverty in the UK has to date largely relied on household income. This represents an indirect approach to poverty measurement, in that the extent to which household income translates into living standards for individual household members is mediated by factors such as household debts and outgoings, and the needs, preferences and influence on financial decisions of other household members. Previous research has found that adults report going without a range of necessities, and sacrificing a range of their own needs, to provide for children. But children's perceptions of how resources are shared are absent from this research. Partially as a result of this, the links between child poverty and children's SWB have been elusive. However, measuring child poverty directly and based on children's own perceptions of their needs can help to illuminate these links (Main, 2013). Additionally, findings from a survey of 800 14-year-old children indicated that their perceptions of the fairness of how resources are shared in their household can offer even more insight into the links between household poverty, individual material living standards, and SWB (Main, forthcoming). This project will build on this work through an investigation of how resources are shared within families, and the links between this and child SWB.