2023 Shortlist | Edinburgh School Uniform Bank
Edinburgh School Uniform Bank
Winner – Improving Impact: Charities with 0-3 paid staff
About the Charity
Edinburgh School Uniform Bank provides free uniforms, footwear, coats and school essentials to children and young people attending state schools in Edinburgh. The charity’s packs improve attendance, boost self-esteem and support parents and carers with the cost of the school day. It has supported pupils in 110 schools in the past year.
Charity number: SC047524 | www.EdinburghUniform.org
Education and Youth Services | Scotland – Edinburgh and the Lothians
0-3 paid staff
What the Board Achieved
There is greater awareness since the pandemic of the education attainment gap associated with poverty. As a small clothing charity, Edinburgh School Uniform Bank does not claim to reduce that attainment gap, but its services do directly impact school attendance, helping to get more students through the door and into an environment where they may be able to access education support and other services. The uniform bank is usually able to respond to requests for support and put together the necessary items within just a few days, despite needing to source items for children and young people across 30 unique sizes and 13 different uniform colours across Edinburgh. It provides more than 1,500 children with new clothing and 500 more with pre-loved uniforms each year, has earned numerous awards for its achievements, and regularly receives feedback praising the charity for its fast, high-quality service.
However, a conversation with one school changed the way the board perceived the success of the charity’s service delivery. Although it was located in one of the most deprived areas in Edinburgh, the school did not often utilise the ESUB because the service was too slow to meet its needs in a meaningful way. When students were unable to access the appropriate footwear, outerwear, or uniform items that prevented them from attending school, waiting a few days for their requests to be fulfilled was not good enough. On the day that ESUB was conducting its outreach visit, its own headquarters had experienced flooding due to torrential rains. The same storm had caused nine children to miss school that day – seven were out of school because they did not have a dry coat to protect them during the storm and two were absent because their shoes had fallen apart in the wet conditions.
When ESUB asked the school what it would take to support its students and enable everyone to attend even in terrible weather (ensuring that clothing was not a reason for their absence), the school suggested providing coats to each of its students. The charity had never attempted to provide support to a school on that level before, and with its own warehouse flooded, it could not even access its own stock of coats. Thinking outside the box, the charity enlisted two community partners to help it source 400 coats and set up an event at the school to distribute them; 350 coats were claimed in under 45 minutes. When snow fell in January that school year, not a single child at the school was absent because they didn’t have a coat to wear.
At the same time, ESUB was experiencing its own crisis. Its warehouse was declared unsafe due to the flooding, it had to rescue its stock and relocate to new premises, the situation made it difficult to utilise its regular volunteer base, and it had just realised that its exemplary service to 1500-2000 children each year was falling far short of meeting the needs of the estimated 10,500 school-age children living in poverty across Edinburgh. However, the success of the coat drive at one school was inspirational and motivated both the board and the staff team to re-evaluate ESUB’s services and try something completely new. The board went into action developing a new strategy, supporting the staff team in transforming the charity’s operations, working with community partners and creating a programme that empowered schools to distribute resources more quickly to their students, according to immediate and evolving needs.
Through a rapid process of listening, researching, learning and reacting to the needs of the schools working across Edinburgh, ESUB was able to launch a ‘shoe shop’ experience in another primary school where students and their parents struggled to find appropriate affordable footwear. ESUB provided a foot gauge and trainers in every size necessary for primary school students. When the PE teacher sought out the school’s Pupil Support Officer for advice on obtaining trainers for a student who was attempting to learn ball skills in wellies (the only footwear she owned), he was blown away by the school’s ability to source a pair trainers for the student on the spot. Schools in disadvantaged areas are more likely to have new children joining their ranks regularly who are experiencing poverty, domestic violence, temporary accommodation, kinship care and other difficult situations – and they often have very little. The needs of these students, and others, can now be met instantly, without delay, to ensure that clothing and uniforms are not a barrier to them accessing education and participating in school activities.
In reducing the number of bespoke, individual clothing or uniform packs that it distributes, the charity is freeing up staff and volunteer time and enabling them to focus on creating the school programmes and community partnerships necessary to moving forward with the new strategy and service the clothing and uniforms that best meet their needs and empower them to better support their students, the board is also focusing on monitoring the impact of its new strategy, and participating schools have committed to providing the data and feedback required to understand the wider impact of this new approach.
