Feeding Futures: Why Losing HAF Funding Would’ve Been a Recipe for Disaster

Celebrating the Renewal of HAF Funding

After all of our work with HAF teams, we’re breathing a sigh of relief to see that funding for the Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme has been renewed for another year. This decision ensures that the invaluable work done by local councils, grassroots organisations, and social workers can continue to make a lasting impact on children and families who need it most.

Why This Matters So Much

The renewal of HAF funding is not just a win for coordinators and organisations, but for the thousands of children (there is no currently way to know how many children used these services across the UK) who rely on these activities for nutritious meals and enriching experiences. Without this support, the consequences could have been dire:

• Families already struggling with food insecurity will feel additional pressure as the meals from school are no longer available
• Children could have missed out on crucial developmental opportunities, including physical activities, social interactions, and access to learning experiences that are often taken for granted.
• Proper food and nutrition contributes to healthy youth population

These are scenarios no one wants to imagine—but are being threatened every year as the central government continues to punt the decision and provide funding one year at a time instead of multiple year cycles. (We could write for days on how implementing longer funding cycles encourages better service delivery and may ultimately reduce the need for service delivery in the long run)

Plinth insight

At Plinth, we’ve seen first hand just how challenging it can be for HAF coordinators to manage the evaluation and monitoring requirements while working with a network of grassroots organisations. Even more challenging they're left without the knowledge and data they need to make better decisions for the next school holiday time.

We've put together what we've found from our Plinth sample to add some concrete numbers to what would have been lost if HAF funding wasn't renewed:

Across all HAF programmes with Plinth, 11,344 children on free school meals were supported, which means:

By collecting this data, we're able to see not only how crucial HAF funding is supporting the most at under served children but how much support it provides.

Looking Ahead

As we celebrate this renewed funding, we’re reminded of the incredible potential of the HAF programme to create lasting change. At Plinth, we’re proud to play a role in supporting this mission and all the create work HAF teams do but, feel the need to warn central government that if funding were to cease they'd be taking away a social programme that is more effective than they even know.

If you’d like to learn more about how Plinth can help your organisation manage the demands of HAF, reach out to Jess