Railway Children call for further measures to address record-level child poverty rates and protect vulnerable young people from criminal exploitation.
Author: Con Enzler | Date: 17th July 2025
The Better Futures Fund will aim to increase pupil attendance and help children struggling with exclusion, mental health and crime.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves says the fund will give hundreds of thousands of children, young people and their families a better chance.
In addition to their own funding, the government plans to raise another £500m to keep the fund running for ten years.
The decision comes amid growing pressure for the government to do more to tackle the growing problem of child poverty.
While this is a positive step, Railway Children emphasise the need for further funding to help the millions of vulnerable children who are bearing the brunt of recent support cuts.
We are interested to see what mechanism will be used to ensure the fund reaches those children most in need, focusing on long-term solutions that create lasting change for children and their families.
Rob Capener, Railway Children Chief Executive, said:
“Vulnerable young people are at high risk of facing exploitation across the country. This move is a good start in addressing some of the issues that are keeping so many children trapped in a cycle of poverty and exploitation.
“But with the shocking rise in child poverty we’ve seen over the last five years, we’re eager to see what additional measures the government will take to address the huge scale of the issue and give vulnerable children a chance at a better life.”
*Households below Average Income, UK Government, 2025
More than 270 participants took on two iconic mountain challenges this summer, raising an incredible £252,546 to help vulnerable children in the UK, India and Tanzania.
More than 1,000 children learn vital skills at Leeds Station Safety Week. The flagship safety initiative – now in its 10th year – got under way at the station on Monday 15 June and runs to Friday 19 June during Rail Safety Week (15-21 June).
In a recent report, more than 40% of people said they wouldn’t know what to do if they spotted a child at risk at a train station. * That’s a statistic that Railway Children’s new interactive game, Seconds to Safety, is here to change.
Learn about safeguarding and how it relates to child protection on transport networks.
No child wants to survive on the streets. And, through understanding and empowerment, together, we can ensure no child has to.
Julia, 24, grew up as a boy but knew, early on, that the gender she’d been born into was not who she was. Here, she talks to Youth Platform about her journey, and what she wishes she’d know as a ten-year-old boy.
