Pod Bites: Child hunger during the holidays

After the Welsh Government announced plans to end Free School Meals support during the holidays, we caught up with Katie Palmer, from Food Sense Wales, about the implications and the work being done to nourish children, promote healthy living and provide social learning experiences outside of term time.

For additional context surrounding the issues: 

• Wales became the first UK nation to guarantee free school meals for eligible families during the school holidays in 2020.
• The vouchers were funded until the end of the May half term holiday but not extended since
• Welsh Government says it was a "time-limited crisis intervention" in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and that there are other support schemes for struggling families.
• Welsh Local Government Authority's Food and Fun programme will be available to children across all of Wales' 22 local authority areas during the summer holidays
• Four councils have come out and said they would fund holiday payments
• The Welsh Government came under a lot of criticism for this from opposition in the Senedd

You can find more of our podcasts here

If you like our monthly podcasts join us for 5-8 minutes every week to hear our reactions to breaking news events in the world of food policy - just search for The Food Foundation on Apple/Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can also ensure you don’t miss any of our Quick Bites webinars by signing up to our newsletter