If you missed our webinar with Dominic Watters on ‘How food system transformation is middle class and why this needs to change’, you can now read a briefing of the key points and wider discussion.

Dominic, also known as Single Dad SW, is a single dad living in poverty and food and fuel insecurity in London. His estate is a ‘food desert’ in the Garden of England, and he and his daughter survive off free school meals, Universal Credit and pay-as-you-go gas and electricity meters. Dominic is an increasingly sought after voice on these issues, and has become a campaigner and speaker. He is the author of Social Distance in Social Work: COVID Capsule One and has appeared on BBC Newsnight, Sky News, and the New Statesman to name a few.

A few key points from the briefing;

• ‘Food poverty’ and ‘food insecurity’ are not the same things: Food insecurity is the living experience of food poverty, which in itself has an impact on a person’s whole wellbeing and ability to engage in society. It can make someone unable to function, let alone flourish.
• Ad hoc inclusion of people with living experience of poverty and food insecurity can be a catalyst for change. BUT it shouldn’t be that organisations can bring out their ‘person with lived experience’ and then send them on their way, while decision makers continue without them.
• Researchers and institutions need to look at how they can build sustained and sustainable relationships with living experience, and how that knowledge exchange can be mutually beneficial and mutually valued.
• We need to understand that we are all interconnected – people living in poverty and food insecurity are in the same world as people who aren’t, and so there needs to be more focus on trying to understand ‘our shared world’ and the inequalities and insecurities that persist within it.

Read the briefing here or watch the webinar here.

You can also browse our back catalogue of webinars here