Baby Basics UK: 800 babies and children supported by scheme to tackle bed poverty in South Yorkshire

The Star, Sheffield

Over 800 children and babies have received a bed, cot or moses basket in a matter of months in a new project to tackle bed poverty in South Yorkshire.

Transcript

00:00We're hearing stories, or we were hearing stories, of eight-weeks-old sleeping in bouncy

00:06chairs, two-year-olds sleeping in baths, people sleeping on floors, children sleeping on sofas,

00:12children sleeping on mouldy mattresses, broken beds, so being able to just make sure that

00:17they've got that really basic need met is really, really important.

00:22The idea of this project is that it's about, one, the delivery of a tangible bed to a family

00:27in need, but it's also, in delivery of that bed, helping to build trusted relationships

00:32with statutory partners, so that be midwives, health visitors, social workers, and it's

00:37all about improvement in health equality, and we want to make sure that our children

00:41in South Yorkshire, those nought-to-five-year-olds, have the best start in life, and in the early

00:45years, in those first five years, your brain develops faster than at any other point in

00:49your life, and without sleep, that brain can't develop in the way that it needs to.

00:54I think some of our stats really, really shock people, so when we talk about the fact

00:58that one in ten babies born in Sheffield in 2023 received a Moses basket from Baby Basics

01:03Sheffield, that's a huge number, and that's a shocking statistic, and in 2024, that shouldn't

01:09be happening.

01:10I think the other thing that can really shock people is that the families that we support

01:15are often working families that can't make ends meet.

01:18My hope and prayer at Baby Basics UK is this project that we're modelling here in South

01:22Yorkshire can actually be replicated in other areas of the country.

01:30So the Beds for the Babies project is a pioneering scheme that we've funded and developed through

01:36the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority right across South Yorkshire to make sure

01:39that every single child under five in South Yorkshire has a guaranteed safe place to sleep,

01:43so be that a bed, Moses basket, or a cot, we deliver those through Baby Basics and make

01:48sure everyone's got a safe place to sleep right across South Yorkshire.

01:51My job is to help people right across South Yorkshire, and working with brilliant charities

01:55like Baby Basics we get to help families right across the region.

01:57We've now delivered over a thousand beds right across the region, about 490 of those were

02:02Moses baskets, so for the very smallest babies when they go home from hospital, having that

02:06support, the safe place to sleep that they need, so I've been really proud to be able

02:09to do some of this work.

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