ENDING CHILD POVERTY STARTS WITH TRUSTING FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES

ENDING CHILD POVERTY STARTS WITH TRUSTING FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES
Area: Clackmannanshire Local Area Dundee local area
Topic: Activities/Events Learning Communities
Audience: Professionals

What if the key to ending child poverty wasn’t more top-down policy, but giving real power to children, families, and communities themselves? 

If we are serious about ending child poverty, we must be serious about sharing power. This event offers evidence, experience, and inspiration for anyone shaping policy, funding, or practice in Scotland.

Register your attendance to this free event Investing in Whole family support: the impact of Voice-led decision making           

 

Where: The Barracks Conference Centre, Forthside Way, Stirling, FK8 1QZ                                                                                   

When: Monday, 9th March 2026, 10.00am – 3.00pm.

 

What Matters to You, alongside community members and funding partners, practitioners and system leaders, invites you to an inspiring and practical event exploring how transferring decision-making power to communities is already creating change and why this approach must sit at the heart of Scotland’s End Child Poverty Strategy. 

          

What you’ll gain from attending

 

  • Hear directly from communities

    Community members from the Make it Happen Fund Panels in Dundee and Clackmannanshire will share how having real control over funding decisions has impacted their lives and communities.

     

  • Learn from national leaders

    Annie McKenzie, Joseph Rowntree Foundation

    Power and Participation: Why inclusive decision-making matters for ending poverty

     

  • Take part in three practical, solution-focused workshops

  1. Getting started: How to transfer decision-making power to local communities

 

  1. Measures that matter: How do we evidence impact on individuals, communities, and system change?

With learning partner Animate and evaluation partner Dartington

 

  1. Accelerating voice-led system change: Norman Gill shares lessons from Transformation Space in Clackmannanshire

 

  • A panel of leading funders will explore the impact of shifting power over funding decisions will mean for them and what funded organisations should be planning for now.

     

  1. Jim McCormick, The Robertson Trust (Chair)                      

  2. Shelley McCarthy, NHS Tayside Charitable Foundation

  3. Morag Neville, The Northwood Foundation                       

  4. Ellie Craig, UK National Lottery Board & SYP Chair

  5. Elaine Wilson, Corra Foundation                                          

  6. Rachel Searle, Foundation Scotland

 

  • A call to action for Scotland’s future: Lynn Hendry, The Hunter Foundation, will outline why the Foundation is calling on the next Scottish Government to hand power to communities, and invite participants to support the  What Matters to You (WM2U) manifesto