Applications double for child poverty support packages with Yorkshire Children's Charity this winter

Ms Farrington said she finds “people are so blissfully unaware of the impact of having the most basic essentials”.

She explained that “some of the schools that we work with see their attendance 60 per cent lower when it rains all because kids don’t have winter shoes”.

The charity, which Ms Farrington set up three years ago, exists to help children who are at a disadvantage in life due to disability, ill-health or financial circumstances.

It also organises leisure experiences for young people facing hardship, and runs the Great Yorkshire Build initiative, bringing together contractors and suppliers to deliver state-of-the-art facilities to schools catering for children with special educational needs and disabilities.

This Christmas, the Yorkshire Children’s Charity found applications for its Winter Support package doubled.

Staff worked with more than 150 schools to deliver 10,000 items of bedding, warm coats and shoes.

It also provided more than 6,000 Christmas presents to families who would otherwise go without.

Sharon Carmichael, from Biggin Hill Primary School, Hull, said: “The children who received Christmas presents came back after the holidays happy and confident to tell staff and their peers that Santa had brought them some Christmas presents and share what fun they had with them.

“One even told us it was so good to be on the nice list this year and not the naughty list.”

Four out of five schools that the Yorkshire Children’s Charity worked with have said attendance has improved after the support packages.

All of the children the charity helps have an additional impact on them beyond poverty, from homelessness to domestic violence and child abuse.

“We had some children that ticked every single criteria,” Ms Farrington explained.

“It’s really hard for people to comprehend what these kids have been through, and what they’ve seen and what they’ve experienced in their very, very short lives.”

Around half of the children also have additional needs, who often require extensive care and expensive specialist equipment.

Ms Farrington said: “There is without any question that North-South divide.

“Children in London and Birmingham have a much higher chance of pulling themselves out of poverty.

“There are much more job opportunities for them than there are in the regions.

“Yorkshire is such a complex region when you look at it in terms of where those pockets of deprivation are, which then directly correlates to those opportunities those kids have.

“If you’re living, for example, in Hull it’s really difficult to change that cycle of intergenerational poverty, because job opportunities are few and far between.”

Ms Farrington’s comments come as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s annual UK poverty report found one in three children in Yorkshire and the Humber live in poverty.

It warned poverty levels could even rise if economic growth is not accompanied by employment growth.

According to its modelling, the JRF said none of the nine English regions are likely to see a fall in child poverty over the four years to January 2029, with five regions – including Yorkshire and the Humber – even possibly seeing rises.

The Leeds South, Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough and Bradford West constituencies all have over 40 per cent of children in poverty, while Bradford East, Leeds East and Rotherham have two in five youngsters trapped in poverty.

While shockingly, the number of emergency food parcels delivered by the Trussell Trust network of food banks in Yorkshire and the Humber has increased by 157 per cent since 2018-19.

A Government spokesperson said: “No child should be in poverty – that’s why our ministerial taskforce is exploring all levers available across government to give children across the United Kingdom the best start in life, while our Plan for Change will raise living standards across the country.

“As we fix the foundations of the economy, we’re increasing the Living Wage, uprating benefits and supporting 700,000 of the poorest families with children by introducing a Fair Repayment Rate on Universal Credit deductions to help low-income families and make everyone better off.”