TWO-THIRDS of social workers are concerned about families being unable to provide food for their children, new research has found.

Figures from Food Is Care uncover food poverty and insecurity on a scale that the campaign group said it had never seen before.

More than 70 per cent of social workers interviewed by the group said that families they work with are compromising on the quality of their food to save money, while 55 per cent said that families are skipping meals.

Eighty-four per cent said that the vulnerable children and families they work with rely on foodbanks and 52 per cent reported that food poverty and insecurity had dramatically worsened over the last year.

One social worker, who did not wish to be named, told the survey: “I have been horrified to become aware of the number of people in work but needing to use foodbanks because they can’t keep warm and eat. What a way to live.”

Dominic Watters of Food Is Care called for professional bodies to make food insecurity central to their practice guidance.

“The fact it is taking a single dad from a deprived council block and not the policymakers to request this change is in itself a demonstration of the discrimination poor people experience,” he said.

Social Workers Union general secretary John McGowan said that an emergency response is not enough to address a long-term crisis.

He said: “Amid a pandemic which has brought the hidden struggles of many to the fore, the time is right to make that case for the right to food to be realised by all.

“Food poverty used to be an abstract concept to a lot of people. Now it has ceased to be something that affects only a handful of people but unfortunately is the reality of life for millions.”