CCI were asked by Financial Inclusion Team (FIT) at the GCC, to collaborate to further our understanding of child poverty across the city of Glasgow. We wanted to create a clear picture of what child poverty look like in 2019 – 2021.
Child Poverty in Glasgow 2021
Date
10 April 2022
My Role
Design Thinker, Graphic Designer.
Client
Project Type
Print Design, Design Research.
Creating a accurate picture of child poverty across Glasgow
The problem
Glasgow didn’t have an accurate picture of child poverty, so the city couldn’t begin solving the problem… if we didn’t know the scope of the problem.
What I did
- Collaborated with FIT senior officers and CCI design lead to gain an understanding of what data we had available. To began to understand the scope of the wicked city problem,
- Breaking down the numbers with the data scientists to understand what the data was telling us for all 23 wards of Glasgow,
- Developing stories narratives from the data, to give insight to the senior officers and to show that the numbers are people life’s and not numbers on a spreadsheet,
- Designing the reports that highlight the outcomes of the first phase of the research stage and the insight that the CCI found by using a design-led approach.
Research and insights
- As a team we began with research to understand the subject – through desk research, client interviews and workshops we gained the knowledge we required to start understanding the questions the Financial Inclusion team wanted us to answer with data,
- 26% of children in the city are living in relative poverty,
- Average households with children experiencing relative poverty are living £115 per week below the poverty line,
- We understand that almost 2/3 of children experiencing relative poverty in Glasgow come from a single parent household,
- These statistics show that there is a lot of work to do in order to achieve the Scottish governments targets and the CCI are looking to co-design solutions in response.
The impact
- The ward report with accurate numbers from all 23 wards of Glasgow that highlights child poverty before and from the impact of COVID-19,
- Awareness that this is not a numbers issue, we can’t reduce this problem by funding,
- We need to fundamentally change the culture around poverty to make an impact,
- The Child Poverty in Glasgow Report 2022 is the only local authority in Scotland and the UK to have a clear picture of Child poverty before and during the pandemic.
Lessons learned
- To look at the bigger picture and not to get stuck in the fine print,
- Developing a strong relationship with the data scientists to further my understanding of what I was looking at which lead to better insight,
- Designing a common language with other departments earlier in the beginning of phase one of the research so that we didn’t miss communicated.