Research Reports
As our organisation and grant-making grows, our ambitions for research have grown too. We are committed to conducting rigorous research across the many areas our work touches, drawing on our understanding of the challenges that children and young people face. We use this research to draw attention to serious issues and gaps in support, something that we are focusing on across our 2025-30 strategy.
We are able to conduct meaningful research due to our access to, and commitment to, high-quality data. Some of this is created through our application processes, which enable us to responsibly and securely capture data about families and young people experiencing poverty and crisis. We use this internally, to deeply understand our work, and share it anonymously with organisations such as 360Giving, to contribute to sector-wide insights and mapping.
We are privileged to have built up a network of families and frontline workers who, with their permission, are regularly invited to participate in regular and one-off research projects. These focus on key themes such as the lived experience of poverty, barriers to education, low living standards, and mental health; an example includes our annual State of Child Poverty report, which typically achieves over 1,000 responses from frontline workers. A one-off project, Growing Up in Poverty, was recently undertaken directly with families, highlighting the importance of fully understanding the issues from multiple perspectives.
All of our research can be found below, and is often featured across key media outlets, including print, radio and television. As part of our 2025-30 strategy, we are intending to undertake more research directly with children and young people, to build their voices into the centre of our work. Visit this page again for frequent publications of reports and blogs which highlight this research.
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State of Child Poverty 2024
Right now, families across the UK are being pushed to the brink. Our latest report, The State of Poverty in 2024, reveals the harsh reality of what it's like to grow up in poverty today. This year, we heard from just over 1,000 frontline professionals working with approximately 150,000 children. They reported that 58% of these children live in destitution, and their responses outline the appalling standard of living that these families face in 2024.
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Boarding Chances for Children Report 2023-24
This year, Buttle UK have supported 55 students across the 2023-24 academic year to attend boarding school, amounting to £729,793 of funding for our Support for Boarding programme. We have seen 15 students complete their GCSEs, A-Levels and vocational courses this year. Read on to see the overview of the report and to download the full report.
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Impact Report 2023-24
The cost-of-living crisis has continued to drive households struggling to meet the costs of basics, such as gas, electricity, and food, into further hardship. Our 2023-24 Impact Report explores the diversity of our grants and the families we support.
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The Stark Reality of Growing Up in Poverty: Insights from Buttle UK’s Latest Report
In June 2024, Buttle UK concluded an extensive project to explore the lived experiences of children, young people, and families grappling with extreme financial hardship. Our new report, "Growing Up in Poverty," reveals a harrowing picture of life under severe financial strain exacerbated by the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.
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Buttle UK: Ethnicity and our Grant Making Report
As a part of our ongoing Equity, Diversity and Inclusion work, we have completed an in depth piece of research mapping our applicants and grantees for our Chances for Children grants against the England, Wales and Northern Ireland Census data released in 2022.
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Boarding Chances for Children Report 2022-23
This year, Buttle UK have supported 75 students across the 2022-23 academic year to attend boarding school, amounting to £880,201 of funding for our Support for Boarding programme. We are thrilled to announce that this year’s boarding cohort’s GCSE results were above the national average. Read on to see the overview of the report and to download the full report.
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Impact Report 2022-23
As the cost of living crisis continues, families need our support now more than ever. From choosing between heating and eating, even children going to school being seen as a luxury, this year's report continues to show the imperative work we do and the real changes our grants make.
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State of Child Poverty 2023
As the cost of living crisis remains ever prevalent across the UK, we have surveyed over 1200 frontline workers who collectively support over 200,000 children and young people. The findings are stark, with a significant increase in children living in destitution and or some school is becoming a luxury they are struggling to afford.
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Boarding Chances for Children Report 2021-2022
In the 2021-2022 academic year Buttle UK granted £874,971 towards boarding school fees, funding 102 children. We are thrilled to present this year's Boarding Chances for Children report.
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Surviving Estrangement – Estranged Young People Co-Produced Report
In this report, we worked with a group of young people to interview other young people and frontline workers, capturing young peoples’ direct, raw experiences as they struggled through the pandemic and into the cost-of-living crisis.
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Impact Report 2021-22
The findings of our 2021-2022 Impact Report reflects upon the changes to grant giving made since the end of the pandemic, though we still see the remaining effects of Covid-19 that our families and young people are facing. Plunged into a Cost-of-Living crisis, this year's report really shows how vital our grants are.
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State of Child Poverty 2022
As we begin to transition out of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Cost of Living Crisis is hitting the poorest families the hardest. This year, for the State of Child Poverty 2021-22, we have surveyed over 1000 frontline workers who collectively support 60,000 children and young people.
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Boarding Chances for Children report 2020-2021
In the 2020-21 academic year, 107 pupils were supported by Boarding Chances for Children. We are delighted to present this year’s Boarding Chances for Children Impact Report.
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Impact Report 2020-2021
The findings of our 2020-21 Impact Report reflect the adversity and challenging circumstances that our families, children and young people have been facing and the important difference a grant from Buttle UK can make.
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State of Child Poverty 2021
The State of Child Poverty 2021 report tells the story of the ongoing impact of COVID as witnessed by frontline services that support an estimated 36,000 vulnerable children and young people.
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Evaluation of our grants for children affected by domestic abuse
Over the last two years, thanks to generous funding provided by the National Lottery Community Fund and Comic Relief, we have been able to provide an increased number of grants to children impacted by domestic abuse in the West Midlands. This has also provided us an opportunity to understand the role that Chances for Children grants have for agencies supporting this group.
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A Year of COVID-19
A report on the impact of the pandemic for children, young people and families already on the brink.
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Impact Report 19-20
2019 – 2020 saw some big achievements at Buttle UK. We worked with almost 1,000 frontline workers, from nearly 500 agencies, to distribute over £1.5 million in Chances for Children grants, reaching more than 2400 children. We supported 147 children and distributed £788,892 through our Boarding Chances for Children programme.
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The State of Child Poverty 2020
Buttle UK have today published 'The State of Child Poverty 20' - a unique insight into the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic inside the homes of some of the most vulnerable families in the UK.
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Support for Boarding
We have been supporting boarding places for young people for nearly 70 years. The children we support through boarding are disadvantaged by limited parenting capacity and often at risk of family breakdown. Specifically, we will offer support to children who have been assessed as meeting the relevant criteria of facing severe family, social, emotional or health problems.
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The impact of poverty on child mental health
A Buttle UK survey of over 1,200 child support workers reveals the alarmingly common occurrence of experiences that put children at increased risk.
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Back to School: An unequal education for children in poverty
Our unique study of frontline child support workers shows how children of less well-off families face multiple issues in fully accessing the state education that is available to them, and are being further disadvantaged at the very start of life.
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What it is really like for children growing up in poverty in the UK in 2019 – Part 1
A Buttle UK survey of over 1,200 child support workers
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Evaluation of the Buttle UK Anchor Programme November 2017
The report presents the findings of the evaluation of Anchor, a Buttle UK programme that supports children in London who have been affected by domestic abuse with funds from City Bridge Trust.
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The Real Face of Child Poverty in the UK in 2017
This report sets out to investigate the current reality of living on low incomes in the UK today. It highlights the changing profile of those that are disadvantaged and the level of insecurity and uncertainty that they face, backed up by data and analysis collected by Buttle UK.
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Turning Points Report
Turning Points is an economic impact assessment that demonstrates the rationale behind Buttle UK’s Chances for Children appeal, which aims to raise £10 million over the next five years with the longer term aim to raise £20 million, to fund an increase in the number and size of Buttle UK’s grants. The study assesses the impact this increased grant giving programme will have on three of society’s most vulnerable groups.
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Crisis Points Report
We have been working with nkm (Mayhew Harpers Associates Ltd), a leading research consultancy in administrative data, since February to analyse 10 years worth of data from our database. This represents 125,000 grant applications made to us from 10,000 referral agencies. In the process we have come to recognise just how unique and valuable this data really is.
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Connect Project Evaluation
Buttle UK has been providing financial support for children and families for over 60 years. We make grants to around 10,000 families a year, typically providing up to £300 worth of household goods (e.g. cookers, beds, washing machines) for families who are struggling both financially and in other areas of their lives. This helps fix an immediate problem, allowing a child to have a hot meal each day, go to school in clean clothes or get a proper night’s sleep.
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The State of Child Poverty 2020
Buttle UK have today published 'The State of Child Poverty 20' - a unique insight into the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic inside the homes of some of the most vulnerable families in the UK.
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Internal research capturing the reach and extent of our grants, including key demographic data published in 2024
Here are quotes directly from families, shared with us in interviews and surveys for our Growing Up in Poverty Report in 2024. We use our platform to share their powerful words and voices, drawing attention to the serious issues they face.
“I’d love to be able to afford to replace broken things - like my tumble drier, my oven, the hob, the bath, without having to take away from essentials like food and clothing and toiletries but I just can’t. I can barely get by on what we have month to month, I have no means of saving for when things like these get old and stop working”
“We feel impoverished and degraded trying to access basic needs for our family. We are getting by without luxuries but now we classify food as a luxury! This is so disheartening and makes us miserable”
“My daughter tries to give me her birthday money to pay my bills. A ten-year-old shouldn’t be aware of that level of need that I should be able to provide for her”
