Discrimination against parents in schools must end

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Discrimination against parents in schools must end –

One Family calls for a national policy

Media Release, 26 July 2012

Following the exclusion of a young mother from secondary school in Tipperary, the negative findings of the Ombudsman for Children in this matter and the unrepentant response from the former principal involved, One Family calls on Minister Quinn to provide a national policy on school age parents.

One Family Director Karen Kiernan explained: “It is extremely unfortunate that 40 years after the establishment of our organisation, Irish society is still being shocked by the discriminatory and judgmental actions of a minority. It is time that publically funded schools are no longer permitted to practice such damaging discrimination and we call for a national policy on young parents and post-primary education. Research indicates that young parents can become distanced from education more easily than other young people. This can then negatively impact on their ability to provide an adequate income for their family in the future.”

Kiernan continued: “Without knowledge or reference to any particular case, young people can become pregnant in a number of ways and not always consensually or with their full knowledge. An awareness of the sensitivity of young people’s sexuality, practices, crisis pregnancy and needs as parents are required by schools and teachers in order to support all students.

“Whilst we welcome the fact that the Minister does not support the actions of the principal involved in the Tipperary case, it is time to ensure this cannot happen again to another young parent.”

One Family works to support women and couples through unplanned and crisis pregnancies; we provide specialist parenting supports for people parenting alone and sharing parenting of their children; we support lone parents into education, training and employment; we provide a national helpline to one-parent families. More at www.onefamily.ie

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Contact: Karen Kiernan, Director, One Family.   T: 01 662 9212             M: 086 850 9191

Minister Burton considers One Family requirement for lone parents to work part-time

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Requirement for lone parents to work part-time is being seriously considered by Minister Burton

Media Release, 2 July 2012

At the launch of One Family’s Annual Review and Graduation, One Family got an opportunity to publicly critique recent cuts aimed at lone parents and Minister Burton got to hear, first hand, stories of triumph over hardship from some of the 150 lone parents who were graduating from One Family Welfare to Work Programmes.

Minister Burton announced that the requirement for lone parents to be required to work part-time, rather than full-time is being seriously considered, if they are moved off the One Parent Family Payment and onto Job Seekers Allowance when their youngest child is seven.

‘This is a positive and necessary move as it is completely unreasonable to expect lone parents to be available for full time work, particularly given the lack of provision of childcare and afterschool care in Ireland,’ says Karen Kiernan, One Family Director.

One Family also used the opportunity to re-iterate the recommendations from its Ten Solutions campaign to the Minister. Ten Solutions are all about delivering some of the supports needed to enable lone parents to have Smarter Futures – to help them out of poverty, off social assistance and into quality, sustainable jobs.  These solutions may not require a lot of money but they do require public services and policy makers to think and behave creatively so that we can deliver more appropriate and effective services.

For the full Ten Solutions see https://www.onefamily.ie/wp-content/uploads/Ten-Solutions-final.pdf

For further information or to arrange an interview with a spokesperson:

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