One Family launches 10 Solutions campaign to help get lone parents back to work

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One Family – 10 cost neutral suggestions for helping lone parents back to work

Media release, 19 April 2012, One Family, Ireland’s leading organisation for one-parent families, announces its ‘One Family-Ten Solutions’ campaign which provides ten cost neutral strategies to assist lone parents back into work or education. This follows Minister for Social Protection, Joan Burton’s, statement that she won’t stop lone parent payments when the youngest child is seven unless she receives a commitment in the next Budget on affordable childcare.

‘We welcome Minister Burton’s statement on the need for affordable childcare, and we have nine other suggestions for getting lone parents off welfare and back to work,’ explains Stuart Duffin, One Family Welfare to Work Manager.

One Family campaign suggestions include:

Flexibilities: lone parents who move to Jobseeker’s Allowance should only be required to seek work for 15 hours per week during school hours. This would help address many of the child protection concerns around seven year olds being left on their own. Flexibilities also take into account a lack of childcare or transport, having to cope with a child with a disability or a separation or a bereavement, and so on.

Education and Training: development and promotion of a wide range of part-time, modular education and training from all public providers. A range of programmes need to start later and finish earlier to allow parents to look after their children.

Progression Opportunities: Ensure equality of opportunities for lone parents in the work place. Permit One-Parent Family Payment recipients to participate in all activation programmes. Support the promotion and upskilling of lone parents.

Besides the ‘Ten Solutions’ campaign, One Family is also offering to host a cross-party, inter-agency Task & Finish group to evaluate and recommend practical options which will ensure accessible, affordable models for the delivery of child and after school care services across the State.

Stuart Duffin continues, ‘If these suggestions for a joined-up welfare to work strategy for lone parents are not adopted, child poverty will rise by the end of this Dail. We need to take a step in the direction out of poverty and welfare dependence; not an approach which limits lone parents’ chances and quality outcomes for their children.’

For the full Campaign see http://bit.ly/IWn9eG

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For more information contact:

Hilary Fennell, Communications Manager, One Family  T: 01 662 9212  M: 087 2359515

Stuart Duffin, Welfare to Work Manager, One Family T: 01 662 9212 M: 087-0622023

One Family,Ten Solutions – cost neutral solutions to help lone parents back into work & education

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Stuart Duffin, One Family, Welfare to Work Manager, was at the 66th Labour Party Conference in Galway over the weekend promoting One Family’s course of   action in response to Budget 2012.  All 750 copies of the paper, One Family – Ten Solutions – Smarter Futures were taken and read. One Family is advocating cost neutral administrative and management approaches which would facilitate those parenting alone back into work and education. There is overwhelming support for our stance on flexibilites; that is, that lone parents who transition to Jobseeker’s Allowance should not be required to be available for fulltime work but rather for 15 hours per week during school hours. This should mitigate many of the child protection concerns and parental caring responsibilities that have arisen around 7 year olds being left on their own. A series of flexibilities or exemptions are required as per the UK and many other countries to allow for a lack of childcare, lack of transport, a child with a disability, separation, bereavement, etc, This is a first step in a journey to ensure that lone parents and in particular children in lone parent families do not suffer disproportionally in the current economic climate.

See the full document here Ten Solutions

For more information on flexibilities for lone parents who are in receipt of Jobseeker’s Allowance.

Look here

Here is some relevant Census 2011 data on Lone Parents in Ireland:

1 in 8 people in Ireland live in a one-parent family,  567,311 persons out of a general population of 4,588,252.

1 in 4 (25.8%) families with children in Ireland is a one-parent family, 215,315 lone parent families out of 834,266 families with children.

Over half a million people live in one-parent families in Ireland, 567,311 persons

13.5 per cent of one-parent families are headed by a father, 29,031 lone fathers as opposed to 186,284 lone mothers.

1 in 5 (21.7%) children live in a one-parent family,351,996 children in one-parent families, out of a national total of 1,625,975 children

Ian Dempsey Launches Family Day 2012 for One Family

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Press Release

ONE FAMILY & EBS LAUNCH FAMILY DAY AND ANNOUNCE DETAILS OF THEIR FAMILY DAY ART COMPETITION AND A PICNIC TO BE HOSTED IN DUBLIN’S IVEAGH GARDENS ON SUNDAY 13 MAY

IRISH BROADCASTER, IAN DEMPSEY CALLS ON FAMILIES ACROSS IRELAND TO CELEBRATE FAMILY DAY

5 April 2012 – To mark International Day of the Family, One Family, Ireland’s leading organisation for one-parent families, and EBS are inviting all families in Ireland to attend a Family Day Picnic and a free day of fun and entertainment in The Iveagh Gardens from 11am – 5pm on Sunday 13th May 2012. Those who can’t make the picnic can hold their own event or enter the Family Day art competition by logging on to www.familyday.ie.

Today FM offer media support to Family Day and, speaking at the launch, broadcaster Ian Dempsey explained: “Family Day is an annual celebration of the diversity of families and family life across the world.” He added: “Families come in all shapes and sizes and Family Day is a day for everyone to celebrate their family, no matter what its make-up, and to think about what family really means.”

At the Family Day Picnic there will be lots of free events for families to take part in including family sports day activities, children’s entertainment, face painting, arts and crafts workshops as well as storytelling sessions. For those who don’t have time to prepare a picnic there will be a food village on site for the day serving a range of quality refreshments.

EBS have partnered with One Family for three years to mark International Day of the Family. Speaking today Aidan Power, Head of Marketing and Communications EBS, said: “EBS is delighted to be partnering with One Family to celebrate International Day of the Family for the third year in a row. Over the years it’s been great to see so many families take part and mark the day in some way. This year we’re also asking people to enter the Family Day art competition. It’s simple – all you have to do is draw your family and drop your entry into your local EBS office or post it to One Family. I hope everyone celebrates the day in some shape or form and I’m looking forward to seeing many of you on the 13th of May.”

You could win €500*for you and your family through the Family Day art competition by simply drawing or painting your family portrait. Entries will be accepted from those under 18. Just drop your portrait into your local EBS office or post it to One Family, 2 Lower Pembroke St, Dublin 2 and you will be entered into a prize draw.

If you can’t make it to Dublin then you can hold your own event and register it at www.familyday.ie. The type of family event you hold is entirely up to you and can be held any time during the week of Monday 7th – Sunday 13th May. Organisations may want to organise a family themed arts and crafts project, or a story telling hour or even a formal talk. Families may prefer to have a family outing such as a treasure-hunt, or a family X-Factor competition.

Karen Kiernan, Director of One Family, the national organisation for one-parent families, said: “This year is One Family’s 40th anniversary – and now more than ever, we need your help. Lone parents were badly affected by the last budget and we can hardly cope with the number of calls to our askonefamily national helpline. So, we’d be delighted if people would consider turning their events into fundraisers for our helpline so that we can reach out and help even more people who parent alone or share parenting – and their children.”

*Terms and conditions apply

For further information about how to celebrate Family Day with One Family and EBS log onto www.familyday.ie.

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For photographs of children with One Family, EBS and Ian Dempsey at the launch or further information please contact:

Karen Kiernan, Director, One Family 01-6629212 /086 8509191

Suzanne Sullivan, Q4PR, 086-3797291

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

 

Our New Contact Centre gets loads of press coverage

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We got loads of press coverage for the launch of our new Child Contact Centre service which is great. Here is One Family Director Karen Kiernan on The Last Word with Matt Cooper explaining all about it at 15 minutes into the clip. http://media.todayfm.com/listenback/98/monday/1/popup

Ger Kelly, Childcare & Parenting Co-ordinator One Family, Karen Kiernan, Director One Family, Minister Frances Fitzgerald, Francis Chance, Assistant Director of Children’s Services, Barnardos and Robert Dunne, Project Leader for Barnardos at Quarryvale Family Resource Centre

Over half a million people live in one-parent families in Ireland

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Here are some figures of interest from Census 2011

1 in 8 people in Ireland live in a one-parent family (Census 2011)

  • 567,311 persons out of a general population of 4,588,252.

1 in 4 (25.8%) families with children in Ireland is a one-parent family (Census 2011)

  • 215,315 lone parent families out of 834,266 families with children.
  • We previously reported 1 in 6 families in Ireland were one-parent families from the 2006 census data; however this was counting couples who had no children. Normative conceptions of family presuppose the presence of children and including couples, whether married or not, in the calculation is potentially misleading. Therefore we have calculated the above 1 in 4 figure using a base of all families with children in Ireland.

Over half a million people live in one-parent families in Ireland (Census 2011)

  • 567,311 persons
  • 29,031 lone fathers as opposed to 186,284 lone mothers.

13.5 per cent of one-parent families are headed by a father (Census 2011)

 1 in 5 (21.7%) children live in a one-parent family (Census 2011)

  • 351,996 children in one-parent families, out of a national total of 1,625,975 children.