Summary

• Author: Meyer, Stefan; Fresno, José-Manuel; Bain, Skye
• Pages: 7-7

Target Group Discussion Paper Children living in precarious family situations

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1 Summary

Children in precarious family situations remain at risk of destitution throughout Europe and

face barriers to accessing basic rights. Public policies and services in Member States are,

slowly and at different speeds, adapting to these emerging situations of precariousness by

expanding coverage of universal mainstream services as well as devising targeted

interventions to reach out to the most deprived.

In the context of the European FSCG, this study enquires into one of the four defined target

groups (TGs), specifically children in precarious family situations. Based on 28 Country

Reports, it reviews the access of children from this TG in five policy areas: nutrition,

education, healthcare, housing, and ECEC. The definition of the TG is discussed as a

combination of factors involving household composition, economic fragility, and social risk.

Children with severe and multiple disadvantages risk not being detected und er sector-

focused i nterventions, or else th e latter might not be abl e to provide the much needed

integrated respon ses. In effect, this leads to situations where children with severe and

multiple disadvantages do not fi nd the professional assistance they ne ed. The TG is then

pragmatically defined and broken down into four sub-groups which are present in different

degrees in EU Member States. These are: economically deprived children, children in

single-adult households, children left behind by EU-mobil e parents, and Roma children.

In general, the TG faces a number of barriers in both equal access, equal t reatment, and

equal outcomes. Economically deprived children have consistently worse indicators in

terms of educati onal p erformance and health outcomes. Some children of single-parent

households, specifically those that are poorer and with low work intensity, suffer a greater

risk of exclusion and cannot access or afford services. So-called ‘left-behind’ children might

be exposed to social strain and abandonment, which is not compensated for by the

economic advantages of remittances. They are not yet on the radar of social policy

responses. Roma children face multiple deprivation due to both social exclusion and

discrimination. However, the severity of the situation varies widely across Member States.

The policy responses in Member States are diverse. Mainstream services are readjusted to

reach out to the most deprived; and specific targeted support schemes are set up, such as

subsidised school meals, special desegregation strategies in schooli ng, integrated

community-outreach heal th interventions, social housing and rent subsidy schemes, and

enforced incentives to participate in early childhood care. Local context matters, but a

common European debate on policy options emerges.

Beyond the sectoral approaches, integrated responses are most effective. The Country

Reports identify common patterns, namely a combination of guaranteed minimum income

(GMI) schemes, personalised social services based on case management, and locally

integrated service innovation in co-production with ci vil society and private actors.

EU Funds play a role in financing services for children in precarious family situations, which

is decisive in some countries. Country Reports describe a wide area of interventions focused

on children, with mixed results. Delays in execution and administrative burdens are

common. Experiences in implementation hint at necessary improvements. Among th ese

are: a combination of hard and soft intervention, with joint ESF and ERDF funding

complemented by a flexible FEAD approach; the need to better integrate operational

priorities into national policy frameworks, in order to complement them rather than

compensate for their deficiencies; the advantages of stable, larger-scale interventions; the

advantages of co-design of policies and co-responsibility in implementation with civil

society actors; the requirements of value-for-money and evidence-based intervention

design; and the opportunities to foster systematic peer-learnin g across the EU.