Guest blog: What works to prevent and tackle poverty stigma?

Poverty is not only about money. It is also about how people are treated, and how they feel when they need support. Our YouGov report, Lifting the lid on poverty stigma in Wales found that one-in-three adults in low-income households in Wales report experiencing poverty stigma ‘always’, ‘often’ or ‘sometimes’.

Stigma can create shame, fear and sadness. Over time, it can harm mental health and wellbeing. It can also stop people from seeking help, because they expect judgement.

To help close a gap in evidence on “what works” to address poverty stigma in policy and public services, the Wales Centre for Public Policy (WCPP) commissioned the Poverty Alliance and the Scottish Poverty Inequality Research Unit (SPIRU) to carry out a rapid evidence review on ‘what works to prevent and address poverty stigma?’

But an evidence review alone rarely creates change. To turn this evidence into local action, the Wales Centre for Public Policy led Voices of Swansea: Challenging Poverty Stigma Together - a place-based process, bringing together findings from the evidence review with local insights from policymakers, practitioners and experts-by-experience to co-create evidence-informed actions for working towards a stigma-free Swansea. This will inform Swansea Council’s Tackling Poverty Strategy and implementation plan.

 

What the international evidence says works

The most effective way to tackle poverty stigma is to reduce poverty itself. That means increasing incomes and lowering living costs for those on the lowest incomes. However, the limited financial resources and powers of the Welsh Government, and even more so of Welsh local government, mean that new investments in large scale cash transfer programmes are largely out of reach, though there are debates under way about the possible devolution of social security from the UK to Welsh Government.

In the current context of limited resources and powers, a focus on the psycho-social dimensions of poverty – such as poverty stigma – may be an effective way of reducing the harms of poverty and supporting people out of poverty. Recognising this, challenging poverty stigma is central to Objective 4 of the previous Welsh Government's Child Poverty Strategy.

The review highlights three key ways of ‘stigma-proofing’ anti-poverty policy and practice:

Remove stigma from access to support

Stigma can be removed from access to support by making processes seamless, universal and sensitive. Automation and “passporting” can reduce the need to repeatedly prove eligibility. Programmes such as Child Poverty Action Group’s Cost of the School Day and Children North East’s Poverty Proofing the School Day, show how simple, universal approaches such as breakfast for everyone, access to emergency or recycled uniforms and reducing the cost of things like clothing and school trips can make a real difference.

Deliver services with dignity and respect

Cash-first approaches can support choice and autonomy, rather than restricting people to in-kind support. The evidence also shows that welcoming spaces and non-judgemental advisors can reduce stigma. For example, an independent food hub in north-east England was styled like a community space, instead of a foodbank, to help make accessing help feel more normal, everyday and acceptable, and encouraging more people to seek support when they need it.

Change language, culture, and systems

Meaningful involvement of people with lived experience helps services avoid unintended harm. Even small shifts in wording and framing can change engagement with support. For example, when access to affordable housing is recognised as a human right, it reframes help as an entitlement rather than a form of charity.

 

Turning evidence into action in Swansea

To mobilise the evidence for policy and practice, WCPP worked in partnership with Swansea Council and a team of Swansea-based Community Researchers to bring together local policy makers, practitioners and experts-by-experience to understand, prevent and address poverty stigma at the local level in Swansea. Initially, a group of Community Researchers conducted focus groups with 46 local residents to understand where, how and why poverty stigma shows up for people.

 

What Community Researchers heard in Swansea

The community research found that poverty stigma affects the daily lives of people experiencing poverty in Swansea through systems, spaces and relationships:

• Early experiences mattered. People described childhood moments that created hurt that lasted into adulthood. That can fuel shame, mental health difficulties and social exclusion.
• Families also carry pressures. Parents try to shield children, often at personal cost. Young people can feel guilt, even hiding disappointment to protect their parents.
• Media and online spaces can intensify self-stigma. Social media can amplify pressure to maintain unrealistic lifestyles, especially around holidays such as Christmas. Traditional media can reinforce stereotypes that people may internalise.
• Services and systems can unintentionally add to stigma. People described complex forms, repeated assessments, and having to retell difficult stories. Unwelcoming buildings, or visible security, can send signals that people are not trusted.
• Systems can blame rather than support. People facing work incentive traps, and the trade-off between earning and reduced benefits, may be unfairly labelled as lazy when making rational decisions to protect their livelihoods.
• Stigma can be compounded by other forms of discrimination based on migrations status, disability or race. For example, asylum seekers may face heightened stigma, including racial abuse, when using designated travel vouchers on public transport.

 

Eight priority actions for Swansea

In June and July 2025, workshops brought lived experience, practitioners and decision-makers together. Participants engaged with the community research findings and the international evidence gathered by the Poverty Alliance to prioritise eight actions for addressing poverty stigma in Swansea, and what would be required to make these priorities a reality in Swansea. These actions are grouped under three themes from the rapid evidence review:

Removing stigma from access to support

1. Improve data sharing across departments to streamline access.

2. Eliminate repetitive assessments through better integration.

3. Invest in community spaces that offer multiple services.

Delivering services with dignity and respect

4. Provide universally free poverty stigma training, focused on service design and delivery.

5. Keep services convenient and accessible, including in-person options.

6. Explore ways to better support groups most likely to experience poverty stigma

Changing language, culture, and systems

7. Increase lived experience involvement in designing and evaluating services.

8. Simplify and reframe language in forms, letters, and communications.

These actions will now be considered by Swansea Council as part of its ongoing work to promote inclusion, belonging and dignity for people experiencing poverty and hardship.

The research conducted by Poverty Alliance was crucial in setting out what the international evidence says on ‘what works’ to address poverty stigma, and provided a basis for policymakers, practitioners and experts-by-experience to think about how addressing poverty stigma could look in Swansea, and crucially, the realities of delivering services in a stigma-free way in a local context.

The findings from both Poverty Alliance’s rapid evidence review and the community research, and how they have combined to inform Swansea Council’s forthcoming 2026 Tackling Poverty Strategy are further explored in WCPP’s ‘Voices of Swansea: Challenging poverty stigma together’ report.

Although grounded in the Swansea context, the insights presented here are largely applicable to local authorities and public services far beyond.