The Best Start Foods card helps young mothers and families to ensure they get access to fresh fruit, vegetables. This Social Security Scotland benefit was promoted by the voluntary organisation Edinburgh Community Foods, this week, as part of World Food Day on Wednesday this week :.
The Best Start Foods card is a prepaid card issued by Social Security Scotland to help pregnant women and families with children under three years old buy healthy food:
Help share this to raise awareness of this benefit,
Fife Community Food Forum met at Overton Community Centre in Kirkcaldy on Wednesday the 6th of November.
Volunteers and staff attended from all 7 locality areas and were given the opportunity to learn more about community growing from Peter Duncan the allotments officer. Abigail McCall from Nourish Scotland then spoke about the Public Dinners consultation and plans for pop up events in Methil and Rosyth in early 2025. Presentation on Public Diners is attached t this e mail.
The event come to a conclusion during conversations over a bowl of soup and a visit to the marketplace stalls to gain information about training, funding opportunities and support available.
More about the forum please contact Stephanie Gardiner -cs@fife.gov.uk
More information on Public Diners Abigail McCall Meet the Nourish Staff – Nourish Scotland
Free webinar re child infancy food insecurity
Dr Emma Hunter (Robert Gordon University), Emma Smith and Mike Burns (Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership) exploring food insecurity in infancy.
There will be discussion on emerging evidence on the experiences of food insecurity during financial crisis in families with infants and young children and the current approaches to support them.
More information and registration ➡ https://lnkd.in/eeRybQfE
A reminder that due to backdating rules, anyone who claims Pension Credit before the 21st of December and received an award will also receive the fuel payment this winter. Please continue to encourage Fife residents over state retirement age to complete a benefit check and claim for any entitlements before this date.
Although full impact data is not available yet, there has been encouraging engagement with the Pension Credit campaign so far. Visits to the Our Fife website spiked on the campaign launch day and for the months of September and October and there has been a 43.3% increase in new users of the site. For the same timeframe, 467 benefit checks have been completed where at least one person in the household is over State Retirement Age.
There are currently a few consultations that may be of interest.
Scottish Government consultation- a universal definition of "Care Experience"
The definition "care experienced" is linked to accessing a range of support including financial support such as Care Leaver Council Tax Exemption, The Care Experienced Students Bursary, Kinship Care Allowance and access to funded Childcare places to name a few.
A consultation is now live on Developing a universal definition of ‘care experience’. The purpose of this consultation is to seek views on the need for a universal definition of ‘care experience’ and what the potential impacts of this could be.
Views were sought from stakeholders on the effectiveness of Help to Save as a key savings product for low-income working people, encouraging uptake within the target group, and providing the best value for taxpayers. Consultation open until 22nd January 2025. Help to Save Reform - GOV.UK
Across the UK, millions have used Buy-Now, Pay-Later (BNPL) products, which can be a helpful way of managing finances from month to month. However, without regulation there are risks. The government has published a consultation setting out its plans for regulating the BNPL market. These plans aim to ensure people using BNPL products receive clear information, avoid unaffordable borrowing, and have strong rights when issues arise. The government’s approach will maintain access to a popular product while adding safeguards. The Consultation is open until 29th November 2024. Regulation of Buy-Now, Pay-Later: consultation on draft legislation (October 2024) - GOV.UK
Please get in touch if you would like to know more about any of the updates this week,
Contact: Sheena Watson
Email: sheena.watson@fife.gov.uk
