GO against child poverty

Family Support

In September 2014, the GO team was founded in Malines. GO stands for family support. The purpose of this team is to provide comprehensive and intensive support to families with children who have lost touch with society because of a myriad of problems.

The city council gave 'carte blanche' to two officials to look for a way to provide intensive and generalised support to families with children to ensure that no child is left behind in Malines Children's City. These officials were Mathias Vaes, department head of Social Affairs at Malines Public Centre for Social Welfare and Peggy Bischop, department head of 'Youth and Family' at the police zone Malines-Willebroek.

Impact

The breathing space given to the team to conduct social work 'pur sang' pays off: almost all 122 families intensively and integrally supported by the team saw an improvement in their living situation.

Malines is ambitious: "In its administrative agreement, the new city council formulated the ambition to halve family poverty by the end of the legislative period. "We want to have a plan ready in the autumn. This will include the best parts of the Go team work. For sure, that will be the backbone of our plan," Bart Somers concludes."