To mark UN International Day of the Family on 15 May 2010, One Family and EBS Building Society are inviting everyone in the country to celebrate families by hosting a Big Night In. Big Night In is a new fundraising event in aid of the askonefamily national helpline, which supports people who are parenting alone or sharing parenting.

Speaking about Big Night In, Aidan Power, Head of Marketing at EBS Building Society, said: “This year, EBS is celebrating 75 years serving Irish people and their families. Family is and has always been at the heart of EBS throughout those years. In recognition of the ‘EBS family’ which now has over 450,000 members, we decided to partner with One Family to celebrate International Day of the Family on 15 May. We are calling on you to spend some fun quality time with your family whilst at the same time raising money for the askonefamily helpline which supports people who are parenting alone or sharing parenting.” Power continues, ”EBS offices all over the country are promoting Big Night In and asking people to register on www.bignightin.ie. People are holding all types of events – from games nights to karaoke nights to storytelling evenings – the list is endless. I hope families across Ireland will take part in this great excuse to have fun at home on 15 May.”

To host a Big Night In and to raise money for the askonefamily helpline, simply log onto www.bignightin.ie to register your event. The website has a helpful list of ideas and themes for your evening. When you register your event, you’ll be able to download invitations which you can then send to your family and friends, inviting them to your Big Night In on 15 May and asking them for a donation to attend. Once you’ve hosted your Big Night In, you can submit photographs from your night through the webpage and you will automatically be entered into a fantastic prize draw to win €1000 from EBS Building Society.

Commenting on Big Night In Karen Kiernan, Director of One Family, the national organisation for people parenting alone and sharing parenting, said: “We have been associated with International Day of the Family for a number of years and in the past we have marked the day with our clients. But we are now delighted to have EBS on board to help us raise awareness of the positive aspects of such a day and to raise much needed funds for askonefamily through this new initiative. I would encourage everyone to get involved on 15 May – there is also the added attraction of the chance to win €1,000 from EBS Building Society by simply sending in a photograph from your event so that you can be entered into the draw.”

For further information on ‘Big Night In’ log onto www.bignightin.ie

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For further information contact:

Hilary Fennell, Communications Manager, One Family 01-6629212 /087-2359515
Suzanne Sullivan, Q4PR, 01-4751444/ 086-379729

Photo caps back to front and left to right -

Big Night In 2  – Louie Lyons, Hilary Fennell – One Family Communications Manager, Rosie Scully, Aidan Power – Head of Marketing EBS, Tilly Lyons

Big Night In 3  – Gary Scully, Hilary Fennell – One Family Communications Manager, Aidan Power – Head of Marketing EBS, Laura Birmingham, Rosie Scully

Notes to editors:

UN definition of the family: “any combination of two or more persons who are bound together by ties of mutual consent, birth and/or adoption or placement and who, together assume responsibility for, inter alia, the care and maintenance of group members, the addition of new members through procreation or adoption, the socialisation of children and the social control of members”.

For more information on UN International Day of the Family see

www.un.org/esa/socdev/family/IDF.html

About One Family:
One Family is Ireland’s leading organisation providing specialist support services for people parenting alone and sharing parenting. Services include parenting and skills training, counselling, parent mentoring and a national helpline askonefamily which can be reached on 1890 66 22 12 or www.onefamily.ie

Candy Murphy, One Family Policy & Research Manager said “Given current and projected very high levels of unemployment which are putting extreme pressure on our education and training systems coupled with the serious inadequacies in our childcare system, especially after-school care, we believe that the proposed changes will mostly result in the movement of lone parents from one welfare support to another.”

Murphy continued “We see little evidence that the proposed changes will help move parents off social welfare and in particular into well paid work that will lift families out of poverty. A national survey of people on the One-Parent Family Payment conducted by One Family in conjunction with the Dept of Social & Family Affairs clearly showed that parents want to move off welfare but are hindered by structural barriers.

“We are also concerned that a sub-group identified through the research of older parents with poor health and low education levels need a high level of support to progress to good jobs, we don’t believe these reforms will be able to deliver on this.”

Key to any improved outcomes will be access to education and training and One Family has been working with a number of agencies to develop a specialist training programme that will support parents who are distant from the labour market to be able to progress. This New Futures programme has been positively evaluated and One Family is working to mainstream this proven programme throughout Ireland over the next year.

Karen Kiernan, Director of One Family said “we look forward to the opportunity to discuss our research, our specialist programmes and other support required with the Minister at his earliest convenience in order to ensure that the implementation of the new policy is informed by our day to day experience of working with parents and our in-depth knowledge of the real issues they face.”

See here for Reply to Parliamentary Question tabled to the Minister for S&FA April 10

For further information please contact:  Hilary Fennell, Communications Manager, One Family 01 6629212, 087 2359515

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One Family has been providing specialist family support services to people parenting alone and sharing parenting for 38 years.  Services include parenting and skills training, counselling, parent mentoring and national information supports.

Candy Murphy explained, ‘Child contact centres provide a safe, neutral and welcoming environment where regular contact between parents and children that do not live together can be supported and developed in a range of situations.’ 

Specialist contact centres for children and families involved in marriage and relationship breakdown are currently largely unavailable in Ireland although common in many other countries, including Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The report shows that, based on international provision, Ireland could require 37 such centres throughout the country.

‘During the course of the research we consulted parents, legal professionals and family support workers and there is overwhelming support for such services. They are particularly vital in situations where there are high levels of conflict between parents, where a parent has had little previous contact with his or her children, or where there are concerns over the safety of the child,’ continues Murphy, ‘contact centres can ensure a child’s safety whilst supporting a child and their non-resident parent to develop a positive and enduring relationship which can in the vast majority of cases move on to more ‘normal’ contact arrangements within a reasonable time period.’

The research was funded by the Family Support Agency and is the second major piece of research undertaken by One Family looking at important unmet social issues in Ireland affecting people parenting alone and sharing parenting.

Karen Kiernan, Director of One Family, explained that ‘currently there is very little provision of contact centre services which means that family law courts and judges have very limited choices on where to send parents and children who have difficulties managing contact. Contact centres would relieve stress on children, and parents would really benefit from knowing that their children are safe and supported during these difficult times.’

Candy Murphy concluded, ‘Without contact centres that can provide specialist supports for parents and their children, more children will lose touch with their parents, particularly their fathers, and more children will miss the opportunity to develop positive quality relationships with a parent with whom they do not live. We very much appreciate the co-operation and support we are receiving from the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs Barry Andrews T.D. and his Department to progress the study’s recommendations. We look forward in the future to the provision of pilot contact centres in Ireland and the subsequent roll out of this much needed service throughout the country.’

The following are available for interview:

• Candy Murphy, Policy Manager, One Family and author of the report, 01 662 9212, 087 293 3180
• Declan Keaveney, father who contributed to the report, (contact Hilary Fennell below for Declan)
• Nadia Dorcey, mother who contributed to the report, (contact Hilary Fennell below for Nadia)
• Karen Kiernan, Director, One Family 01 662 9212, 086 850 9191

Hilary Fennell, Communications Manager, One Family 01 6629212, 087 2359515

Summary and full report available here:

Summary – Supporting Child Contact: the Need for Child Contact Centres in Ireland

Full Report – Supporting Child Contact: the Need for Child Contact Centres in Ireland

Presentations available here:

Candy Murphy, Policy Manager One Family, PP presentation

Anne O’Kelly, Director Cloona Child Contact Services Belfast, PP presentation

One Family has been providing specialist family support services to people parenting alone and sharing parenting for 38 years.  Services include parenting and skills training, counselling, parent mentoring and national information supports.

Minister Hanafin’s kite-flying on lone parents must be grounded

Candy Murphy, Policy & Research Manager of One Family said: ‘while we continue to welcome the development  of effective supports for lone parents aimed at reducing the unacceptably high rates of poverty and social exclusion in one-parent families, we would like reforms to be grounded in good policy and evidence. We remain very  concerned at any proposal to introduce mandatory work requirements for lone parents particularly in the current economic climate and in the continuing absence of adequate child care and other supports.

‘Recent national research conducted by One Family found that 84% of lone parents in receipt of the OFP (one-parent family payment) are working, seeking work or are in education or training and that the main concern for parents is trying to balance their work and family life.’

‘The difficulties experienced by lone parents in balancing work and family life are exacerbated by the continuing and growing number of poverty traps facing lone parents and One Family believes that the focus of government policy should now be on addressing such traps and in continuing the development of effective education and training programmes for lone parents involving the ongoing cooperation of state agencies and NGOs, including One Family. ’

Karen Kiernan, Director of One Family said: ‘we look forward to continuing our dialogue with the Minister and her officials and we believe that an upcoming international study tour that we are leading to Nordic countries will yield valuable information on how best to develop effective policies in relation to one-parent families. Sweden and Denmark have low child poverty levels, good outcomes for children and high labour market participation for women including lone parents. It is important that any policy change in Ireland is evidence-based.’

Kiernan concluded: ‘it is also of immense concern to us in One Family that the proposed policy changes are being driven by a view that some parents are not forming live-in relationships primarily because of their social welfare supports. We are not aware of any studies in Ireland that bear this out and in our opinion such a view does not adequately take into account the changing nature of family life in Ireland where a growing number of one parent families are separated or divorced and sharing parenting.’

‘Information we have from the Minister’s department is that people in receipt of the One-Parent Family Payment tend to be on it for relatively short periods of time. It would be interesting to know how many people are on the payment and for how long as in our 37 years of working with people parenting alone our experience is that they want to move on as soon as possible.’

Candy Murphy , Policy & Research Manager with One Family said:

‘While we welcome the increase in the Qualified Child Allowance we very much regret that it is at the expense of an overall cut in child benefit. The reductions in welfare rates announced today on top of existing cuts in the form of the Christmas bonus and the loss of the early childcare supplement will increase poverty and will also worsen the already almost insurmountable poverty traps experienced by lone parents. We are especially concerned that lone parents in low paid jobs will face increasing difficulty remaining in the workforce given continuing high childcare costs ’

She went on to say that:

‘We trust that the government will work with organisations like One Family to ensure that lone parents on welfare have access to the full range of education and training opportunities and to assist lone parents to develop their skills and qualifications in preparation for the economic upturn that the Minster assured us today is on the way.’

Karen Kiernan , Director of One Family said:

‘We are very concerned to see no indication that additional supports will be put in place to deal with the growing incidence of family breakdown as a result of the recession. Calls to our helpline have been up over 20% this year directly due to economic stresses and One Family are working with very limited resources to support such families and to minimise the stress on both parents and children.’

One Family has been providing specialist family support services to people parenting alone and sharing parenting for 37 years.  Services include parenting and skills training , counselling , parent mentoring and national information supports.

For further information please contact:

• Hilary Fennell , Communications Manager 01 662 9212 , 087 235 9515
• Candy Murphy , Policy Manager , 01 662 9212 , 087 293 3180

• Hilary Fennell, Communications Manager 01 662 9212, 087 235 9515
• Candy Murphy, Policy Manager, 01 662 9212, 087 293 3180

• The latest EU-SILC figures for 2007 show that 20.1 per cent of people living in one-parent households are consistently poor compared to 5.1 per cent of the general population.[3]  Overall the figures indicate that at least