Presentation to Joint Committee on Education & Skills Barriers to Education Facing Vulnerable Groups: Lone Parents

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  1. One Family

One Family was founded in 1972 as Cherish and provides support, information and services to people parenting alone, those sharing parenting of their children, those going through separation; as well as to people experiencing an unplanned or crisis pregnancy. One Family believes in an Ireland where every family is cherished equally, and enjoys the social, financial and legal equality to create their own positive future. Full information on One Family can be found at www.onefamily.ie.

  1. Introduction

One Family works towards the full inclusion and integration of one parent families into the fabric of Irish society. Parenting alone, and sharing parenting in new complex and blended family forms, is an increasing and emergent social reality. Many parents will parent alone through the course of their lives, either temporarily or permanently. The traditional ‘breadwinner’ model of family life has given rise to most of our social and economic infrastructure and tends to ignore or evade the multiple, on-going demands of lone parenting. The first requirement, therefore, in removing barriers to economic and social inclusion is recognition and acceptance of the realities of diverse and fluctuating forms of family life.

Lone parents are a group who experience multiple disadvantage in Irish society and access to education is part of that. One Family welcomes the opportunity to submit to the Joint Committee on Education & Skills and appreciates your interest in this important issue.

    3. Data and Research

3.1  Demographics: one in five children in Ireland live in a one-parent family while one in four families are headed by a lone parent. There were approximately 218,817 lone parents in Ireland in 2016[1] which is an increase of over 3,500 families since 2011. Almost 90,000 were single; a further 50,496 were widowed, while the remaining 68,378 were separated or divorced. The number of divorced people in Ireland nationally has increased from 87,770 in 2011 to 103,895 in 2016. The vast majority (86.4%) of one-parent families are headed by mothers but many families share parenting of their children. Overall, recent Census data[2] shows there is a steady increase in diverse families in Ireland and this is replicated throughout Europe.

3.2       Lone Parent’s access to Wealth:

TASC’s The Distribution of Wealth in Ireland[3] report indicates that one-parent families are:

  • less likely to own their own home and face significant barriers to owning property;
  • have savings of €300 on average, which is less than 10% of others;
  • have an average net wealth of €30,600 compared to an average figure of €218,700 for all households.

 

3.3       Employment Rates:

Available employment figures[4] indicate that the employment rate of lone parents (aged 15-64) is 58.5%, dispelling any myth that people parenting alone are not working.

The employment rate of lone parents is directly linked to the age of their youngest child, as follows:

  • Youngest child aged 0- 5 years, employment rate is 46.8%
  • Youngest child aged 6–11 years, employment rate is 59.8%
  • Youngest child aged 12-17 years, employment rate is 65.6%.

Therefore as children get older parents are more available for work, this is directly linked to the childcare needs of children.

3.4    Education Participation:

Lone parent participation in education has decreased by approximately 20% between 2011 and 2016[5]. The reasons for this trend can be complex and varied, but One Family consistently hear from parents that barriers to accessing education are significant.

A parent’s availability for education may also be inferred from their availability for employment as above. Both situations share many similarities in that the time and work needed to balance parenting and study/work need to be managed.

3.5   Children’s Well-Being:

It is well recognised that the educational levels of parents have direct impact on the lives of their children with the educational level of a mother in particular having a direct impact on the well-being of her child/ren[6].

The draining away of lone parents from higher education therefore is of particular concern. The CSO notes that “higher educational attainment levels are linked with lower unemployment rates. Those with primary education/no formal education were over four times more likely to be unemployed in Q2 2017 (14%) when compared with those who had a third level qualification (3%)”. [7]

International research similarly shows that despite the complex interactions between parental social, economic and educational positions and conditions, the educational levels of both parents are a significant influence on the life expectations and outcomes of their children. Education is a gateway to more sustainable, quality employment which lifts lone parents out of poverty in the longer term. Educational access enables engagement with society generally, to shared customs, beliefs and behaviours, to marketable skills and professions, and to political engagement. The children of lone parents are entitled to such supports through their parents’ access to mainstream social capital.[8]

3.6  Government Policy:

as far back as 2006, a Government Discussion Paper: Proposals for Supporting Lone Parents, put forward a number of actions to support lone parents. Among these recommendations there was an express objective to “Facilitate participation in employment /education and training in a positive and systematic way” [9].

3.7   Maynooth University Research:

Twelve years later, in 2017 Maynooth University Independent Review to Identify the Supports and Barriers for Lone Parents in Accessing Higher Education and to Examine Measures to Increase Participation[10] arose from a commitment made in the 2016 Programme from Government.

One Family was consulted as part of this review process as a representative stakeholder group. The recommendations of the Review echo One Family’s recent Pre-Budget Submission[11].  The report notes especially that while lone parents have attracted considerable policy attention in welfare, and education and training, with regard to activation measures; much less specific attention has been paid to lone parents in higher education and suggests an urgent need to widen access for these families. The need to improve access to higher and tertiary education has also been highlighted by our colleagues in An Cosán in their recent campaign.[12]

The complexity of the current system of supports was also highlighted in the Review, including the inadequate dissemination of information, guidance and awareness-raising to lone parents regarding the ‘bundles’ of supports that are offered by different government departments and agencies.  The effectiveness of high-support guidance intervention on well-being, career efficacy and employability factors  has been shown in recent research on activation, giving rise to an urgent need to train Intreo case workers in the very complex set of opportunities and barriers facing lone parents .[13]

4  Barriers to Education for Lone Parents

4.1  Work Life Balance:

Balancing parenting responsibilities and managing finances with accessing education is a difficult task, especially so for lone parents, who often do so with half the resources and double the responsibility.

4.2  Lack of pathway to education:

there are well documented additional challenges for young parents who wish to stay in education as well as older parents who wish to return as mature students. There is no clear pathway of progression for parents who cannot readily move from second level to third level education.

4.3 Lack of income to access education:

the income supports that are in place in Ireland are overly complex to access and at insufficient levels to avoid poverty in many cases. One example is that the age of a child generates a barrier to support. Currently, if a child is over 14 yrs, transfer to BTEA is compulsory when a lone parent has moved onto Jobseekers Allowance. As a result of this forced transfer, access to a SUSI maintenance grant is denied to these parents.

4.4  Housing:

Ireland is experiencing a housing crisis with most homeless families being one-parent families. If a family is living in insecure housing they are very unlikely to be able to enter or maintain participation in education. Some financial housing supports are specifically unsupported in conjunction with some educational supports and so access to education depends on housing tenure. This is both unfair and illogical.

Such barriers often result from uneven and contradictory systems of support, such as the clash between being in receipt of Rental Support on the one hand, but excluded by virtue of receiving that support on the other – for example the SUSI grant.

4.5  Childcare:

the challenges for parents in accessing affordable, high quality childcare for their children is well documented. It is extremely difficult to access out of school care as well which may be required for educational participation.

4.6  Inclusion:

single mothers are the most socially isolated people in Ireland[14] and particular efforts must be made to recruit and maintain them in education.

 5. Recommendations to remove Educational Barriers for Lone Parents

Whilst the issue of barriers to education for parents is complex and some structural barriers such as homelessness and childcare require cross-departmental funding and exchequer investment to solve, other issues can be more directly addressed.

5.1  Income Supports:

Lone parents who have transferred to BTEA were particularly highlighted in Maynooth University’s Independent Review as the most economically vulnerable group among lone parent welfare recipients[15]. One Family recommends the following changes to income supports to ameliorate some barriers to education for lone parents:

  • The reinstatement of the student grant scheme (maintenance grant) for BTEA recipients would create a more equitable, less complicated and targeted approach for supporting lone parents in higher education.
  • The student grant scheme should be available for part-time and online education.
  • The rigidity of how SUSI classifies students as being dependent or independent causes difficulty for people parenting alone who access a different housing tenure and may lead to them losing their grant. Reassessment is only in very restricted circumstances.
  • We recommend that SUSI be available to parents engaging in education, regardless of the age of their youngest child (up to a limit of 18). There are several administrative options in how to achieve this. It is important that that once a lone parent is in receipt of One-Parent Family Payment/ Jobseeker’s Transition and the SUSI maintenance grant has begun that their payment continue until their course is completed.
  • In general, the SUSI grant should be reviewed and the levels increased. The maintenance portion of SUSI education grants only provides a contribution towards the costs of participating in education and ignores the reality of caring for children.
  • Additional funding for lone parents either in the form of cash transfers or in the form of universal scholarships for lone parents within Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) should be provided. The Department of Education’s 1916 Bursary Fund offered 200 bursaries for an overall target group of lone parents, first-time and mature student entrants, students with a disability, Travellers, Further Education Award holders, and ethnic minorities. Whilst this is a welcome start, this is actually a nominal and piecemeal response to the education needs of such a huge group of marginalised people, especially those of lone parents. Given that 25% of Irish families are one-parent families, 80 Bursaries set aside for lone parents appears as a gesture, rather than a systemic action towards genuine recognition and educational inclusion.

5.2  Complexity of Supports:

the complicated nature of the current systems of supports can block access purely on a bureaucratic level. We recommend stronger dissemination of information, guidance, and awareness-raising regarding the ‘bundles’ of supports offered by different government departments and agencies to parents.

We also concur with Maynooth University’s recommendation that there is a persistent need for training and awareness for Intreo case-workers who operate frontline services and supports in the Department of Employment Affairs & Social Protection[16].

We are concerned that supports and payments from two government departments interact with each other in a negative way and we strongly recommend that the Department of Education & Science collaborates with the Department of Employment Affairs & Social Protection in order to ensure that parents can access education irrespective of their housing tenure.

5.3 Access Pathways:

Taking an education-first approach will result in improved employment rates for one-parent families in the longer term. Jobseeker’s Transition (JST) payment recipients are a distinct group with a specific set of needs. The time spent on JST is a unique opportunity to invest in a package of supports and services to ensure that these parents can access education or employment. Broadening access to JST will also allow parents with older children to enhance their employability through further education and training. These recommendations would remove a number of structural barriers which currently prevent lone parents from accessing education.

The provision of specialist bridging programmes such as One Family’s New Futures and New Steps for lone parents[17], which directly support progression, job-readiness, and incorporate wrap-around parenting and family support services, offer an example of a genuine way into heretofore exclusionary educational institutions.

5.4  Pro-Active Inclusion:

Lone parents are a considerable body of potential students who are systematically excluded, since the requirements for their participation are not being met. The profile and needs of this large student cohort should be  integrated explicitly into the ethos of each Higher Education Institutions (HEI). This needs to be visibly stated by colleges and universities, who have the responsibility of welcoming people who are parenting alone onto campuses. There is a need to provide lone parents with tutoring that generates both the technical skills and ‘cultural’ competencies required for higher educational engagement. Like other students, they need the tools to succeed.

While there are established Access to Higher Education programmes available across the networks of further education colleges, Institutes of Technology and Universities, there is a need to meet the specific needs of students, current and potential, who are lone parents.

5.5   Housing Tenure:

The ability to access and stay in education should not be linked to housing tenure, indeed education is a route out of homelessness into independence and security for lone parents. The following recommendations are critical for access to education for lone parents:

  • Allow those in receipt of Rent Supplement to engage in full time education. This would remove a number of structural barriers which currently prevent lone parents from accessing education.
  • Address the anomaly by which lone parents in receipt of Rent Supplement cannot receive their One-Parent Family Payment or Jobseeker’s Transition Payment and the SUSI maintenance grant on taking up an education or training course.
  • Ensure all lone parents in receipt of Back to Education Allowance can receive the SUSI maintenance grant to help meet the costs of accessing education.

5.6   Childcare:

The provision of affordable, accessible and quality childcare, including early years and out-of-school care are pre-requisites for lone parents’ ability to engage with work or education. Childcare costs in Ireland are the highest in the OECD for lone parents and the second highest for couples.[18] One Family makes the following recommendations:

  • Increase accessibility so that families in every county can access subsidised and affordable childcare, with particular emphasis on access to out-of-school care.
  • Reach the European average of investment in early years education and care so that labour market participation for parents, mothers and lone mothers, can be a reality and their children can benefit from high quality learning. Ireland ranks lowest among 28 EU countries for investment in pre-primary education. Ireland currently invests about 0.1% of GDP, considerably lower than the EU average of 0.8% [19]  Investment is required to address the poor infrastructure of childcare and the crisis in the lack of childcare workers.

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[1] Census 2016 http://www.cso.ie/en/csolatestnews/presspages/2017/census2016summaryresults-part1/

[2] Census 2016 http://www.cso.ie/en/csolatestnews/pressreleases/2017pressreleases/pressstatementcensus2016resultsprofile4-householdsandfamilies/

[3] https://www.tasc.ie/download/pdf/the_distribution_of_wealth_in_ireland_final.pdf

[4] CSO QNHS Q2 2017. http://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/er/qnhs/quarterlynationalhouseholdsurveyquarter22017/

[5] Census 2016. http://www.cso.ie/en/census/

[6] Growing up in Ireland : DYNAMICS OF CHILD ECONOMIC VULNERABILITY AND SOCIO-EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT:  AN ANALYSIS OF THE FIRST TWO WAVES OF THE GROWING UP IN IRELAND STUDY https://www.esri.ie/pubs/BKMNEXT284.pdf

[7] http://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/er/eda/educationalattainmentthematicreport2017/Ibid.

[8] Erola, J et al, (2016),  Parental education, class and income over early life course and children’s achievement, Research in Social Stratification and Mobility. Volume 44, June 2016, Pages 33-43, Elsevier. Open Access:   https://ac.els-cdn.com/S0276562416300038/1-s2.0-S0276562416300038-main.pdf?_tid=d89fc2fa-c2f7-4188-bfbe-8134e6c06dbd&acdnat=1521208135_5a6f1b80f20cfd812e758e547662485c

[9] https://www.welfare.ie/en/pressoffice/pdf/pr200306.pdf

[10] https://www.education.ie/en/Publications/Education-Reports/supports-barriers-lone-parents-accessing-HEd.pdf

[11] https://onefamily.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/One-Family_Pre-Budget-Submission-2018.pdf

[12]http://www.dhr.ie/tag/education/

[13]http://oireachtasdebates.oireachtas.ie/Debates%20Authoring/DebatesWebPack.nsf/committeetakes/SPJ2018012500002?opendocument#D00100

[14] Margret Fine-Davis, Attitudes to Family Formation in Ireland: Findings from the Nationwide Study, Dublin, Family Support Agency and Social Attitude and Policy Research Group, Trinity College, December, 2011

[15] Byrne, D., Murray, C. (2017) An Independent Review to Identify the Supports and Barriers for Lone Parents in Accessing Higher Education and to Examine Measures to Increase Participation. Maynooth University. DSP, DCYA, DES.  “https://www.education.ie/en/Publications/Education-Reports/supports-barriers-lone-parents-accessing-HEd.pdf

[16] Ibid (p.13)

[17] https://onefamily.ie/how-we-support-families/parenting-supports/for-parents/back-to-work-education/new-futures/

[18]  OECD, ‘Ireland Economic Survey of Ireland’, September 2015

[19] https://www.earlychildhoodireland.ie/latest-eu-report-highlights-irelands-embarrassing-track-record-investment-care-young-children/

Policy | Assessment Change Could Reduce the Impact of Poverty on Lone Parents

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One Family, Ireland’s organisation for people parenting alone, sharing parenting, and separating, has voiced its concern that child maintenance is to be assessed as parental income under the Affordable Childcare Scheme. According to the organisation, if child maintenance is assessed as child income rather than parental income it could significantly reduce the impact of poverty on lone parents.

Karen Kiernan, CEO of One Family responding to comments made by representatives of the Department of Children and Youth Affairs (DCYA) at a seminar on the Childcare Support Bill organised by the Children’s Rights Alliance said, “One Family has serious concerns about this issue and we have written to Minister Zappone and the members of the Committee on Children and Youth Affairs and asked them to make the appropriate change.”

There is a clear rationale for the Affordable Childcare Scheme to exclude child maintenance as income; currently a number of income sources are excluded from income assessment for state supports such as the Working Family Payment.

Ms. Kiernan added, “I can understand why the Department have chosen this provision. They believe that by including it would prevent a poverty trap but there is no indication that excluding child maintenance from assessment would form a poverty trap. These payments do not vary for recipients when they leave or enter employment, so the exclusion of this income source would not serve as a disincentive to enter or increase employment.”

The payment of child maintenance varies significantly based on the vagaries of the relationship with the maintenance payer. Feedback from the One Family national helpline and from frontline staff in the District Court in Dublin indicate that a significant majority of court-ordered maintenance orders are not complied with fully or at all. It is also extremely likely that non-court-ordered arrangements are also not fully adhered to in many cases. This can cause significant difficulty and stress to the family in receipt of the payments as their social welfare payment may have been reduced, their rent supplement may have been reduced and they be left at short notice without a full income in any given week.

The issue of child maintenance and the negative impacts of non-payment on vulnerable children and their parents has become an issue of great political interest with bills being introduced both by Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein in recent months. The non-payment of maintenance is regarded by a Government agency Cosc as domestic abuse and should be taken very seriously. This relatively simple assessment change would protect vulnerable children and help towards lifting 100,000 children from poverty by 2020.

#AffordableChildcare and #EndChildPoverty.

 

#AffordableChildcare  #EndChildPoverty

 

 

Update | Office Closed This Week

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***Updated Thursday 1 March ***

The One Family office will now be closed until Monday 5th of March. We can be contacted during normal office hours at support@onefamily.ie

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Our office will be closed today, Wednesday 28 February, due to the adverse weather conditions and the status red weather warning. We are unable to go ahead with the parenting programmes and other services today. The helpline will also be closed but if you need to contact us please email support@onefamily.ie. We will be monitoring the situation as the week progresses. Please keep an eye on our Facebook page for our latest updates. Stay safe.

Press Release | Another New Report Shows Lone Parents Experience Higher Levels of Deprivation and Child Poverty

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One Family, Ireland’s organisation for people parenting alone, sharing parenting, and separating, welcomes the ERSI report Poverty Dynamics of Social Risk Groups in the EU in relation to the specific barriers faced by lone parents in both accessing work and their experience of higher levels of deprivation and child poverty. The paper draws on the EU-SILC dataset to investigate changes over the period 2004 to 2014 in the trends and dynamics in poverty for social risk groups in selected European countries representing different welfare regimes. Out of 11 EU countries, the persistent poverty gap in Ireland was the largest; it also increased the most during the study’s time frame.

The main findings of the report indicate that one-parent families in all countries have among the highest risks of both material deprivation and income poverty. Ireland, along with the UK, stood out as having poorer outcomes for vulnerable groups such as lone parents, especially in terms of material deprivation. Both are liberal welfare regime countries. The report also showed that lone parents face significant challenges in converting resources such as capital and skills into desired outcomes, with 43% of lone parents experiencing material deprivation in at least one of two consecutive years compared to 13% for other adults aged 30 to 65.

Karen Kiernan, One Family CEO, states: “We have had multiple reports telling us that lone parents face significant barriers in being able to get into the workforce, in earning enough money to sustain their families and being able to keep their jobs. There is an incredible amount of evidence all telling the Government what they need to do which is to prioritise supports to people parenting alone who are on social welfare or low incomes.”

Karen continues: “It is extremely frustrating to see that not all social welfare cuts have yet been restored since Budget 2012; so many parents are not even back at the low level of income they were at in 2011. This is too long for thousands of children to have grown up in crushing poverty and to know nothing else. There is a Government commitment to lifting over 100,000 children out of poverty in the next two years – strong and specific actions must be focussed on children living in one-parent families to achieve this.”

According to Dorothy Watson of the ESRI, policies which successfully reduce poverty for the population as a whole are not enough to support vulnerable groups. “Proactive steps are required to address the deprivation experienced by lone parents and adults with disabilities, and also to tackle the higher rate of child poverty associated with these households. Such interventions are particularly urgent in Ireland, as the data show that the deprivation gap is most pronounced here,” she said, in the organisation’s press release.

The report also found that lone parents and adults with a disability face barriers when trying to get work. The ESRI suggested improving access to affordable childcare, flexible work arrangements and protection of secondary benefits such as medical cards to make getting to work easier.

NOTES FOR EDITORS

ERSI report : Poverty dynamics of social risk groups in the EU: an analysis of the EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions, 2005 to 2014

  • 1 in 4 families with children in Ireland is a one-parent family (Census 2016)
  • 356,203 children lived in one parent families, representing more than one in five or 21.2% of all children in family units (Census 2016)
  • The average one parent family is has 1.63 children compared to an average of 1.95 for the population overall (Census 2016)
  • Individuals living in households where there was one adult and one or more children aged under 18 had the highest consistent poverty rate at 24.6%. This is compared to a consistent poverty rate of 6.4% for two-parent households. This means that lone parents are four times as likely to be living in consistent poverty compared to two-parent households. (SILC 2016)
  • 51% of lone parent households with one or more children experienced enforced deprivation. This compares to 21% of the general population who experienced deprivation, meaning lone parents are 2.5 times as likely to be experiencing deprivation than the rest of the population. (SILC 2016)
  • 40.2% of lone parent households are at risk of poverty. This is compared to an at risk of poverty rate of 12% for two-parent households. This means that lone parents are almost 3.5 times as likely to be at risk of poverty compared to households with two parents. (SILC 2016)
  • People in lone parent households continue to have the lowest disposable income out of all households with children in the State (SILC 2016)
  • For further facts and figures, visit onefamily.ie.

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Policy | One Family Welcome Child Maintenance Proposal

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One Family welcome the launch of Sinn Féin’s proposal paper on the establishment of a statutory Child Maintenance Service. This proposal is an important first step in clearly asserting that the payment of child maintenance is not a discretionary gift, but a legal requirement, and the responsibility of both parents.

It is the State’s responsibility to intervene and assert and protect these rights in a systematic and equitable way, whether lone parents are in receipt of financial state supports or not.

A summary of their proposal is as follows:

Context:

  • The proposal is child-poverty focused and highlights that the consistent poverty rate for children in lone parent families is 26.2%, according to SILC 2015 figures.
  • Lone parents face a number of challenges such as unemployment; underemployment and they are often in part-time, low paid precarious work.
  • They also have inadequate access to affordable and accessible childcare.
  • Lone parents face significant barriers in accessing education or full-time employment.
  • Changes to the One-parent Family Payment (OFP introduced in 2012 has exacerbated these issues and challenges.
  • UN CEDAW 2017 Recommendation to Ireland to “Consider establishing a statutory authority and prescribing amounts for child maintenance in order to reduce the burden on women of having to litigate to seek child maintenance orders”.
  • Child maintenance payments can play a pivotal role in reducing consistent poverty. In the UK there has been a 30% reduction in the poverty gap as a result of impact of compliant child maintenance payments.

Three Options for a Child Maintenance Service Model:

  1. Parental Arrangements – Parents willing to negotiate can avail of advice, support and information in agreeing amount. This option is not available in cases of domestic violence.
  2. Direct Pay – Situations where non-custodial parent is willing but agreement cannot be reached. This allows the Child Maintenance Service to calculate an appropriate amount. Once agreed, the payment is then made directly between both parents.
  3. Collect & Transfer – This will occur where the non-custodial parent refuses to engage. The Child Maintenance Service will calculate, collect and make payment. This should be an automatic option in case of domestic violence.

Other Key Points:

  • The service should be free at the point of access.
  • 20% penalty where collect & transfer is needed in order to incentivise payments.
  • Strong enforcement powers which will allow them to take monies directly from all forms of earnings.
  • Fully supported information & advice service established to be accessible to all lone parents.
  • Strong links with Revenue to assist access to property details as well as income.
  • Domestic violence training for all Child Maintenance Service staff.
  • Fast track options should be available.
  • In order to decrease poverty – child maintenance should not be calculated as means with regard to any state supports.
  • In the UK the service costs €230 million per annum for 2 million lone parents.

One Family Response

Children living in one-parent families are living in the most socially and financially deprived homes in Ireland. Lone parents have the highest rates of consistent poverty, the lowest disposable income and the highest rates of deprivation. The government has made clear commitments to reduce child poverty and the formation of a Child Maintenance Service provides a clear opportunity for the government to increase household income for lone parents.

Current mechanisms available to parents to seek maintenance orders, and their subsequent enforcement, rest with those who are seeking the payment, placing an excessive burden on them. Parents must utilise the family law courts to legally seek and enforce these requests. Many parents find the court process daunting and overwhelming and require, often costly, legal advice in order to fully utilise the family courts system effectively. There is also inconsistency and a lack of transparency regarding how the courts decide how much maintenance should be paid by the non-resident parent. State intervention is needed to better support these families.

Some countries, mostly Nordic (Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden) and some Central European states (Germany), operate systems of guaranteed maintenance which involves state departments making provisions to ensure children actually receive maintenance consistently even where non-custodial parents are unwilling to pay. Countries such as the United Kingdom, Ireland and United States view child maintenance as a financial obligation on liable relatives governed by family law placing the burden on custodial parents in seeking maintenance arrangements. The affect of these two aforementioned approaches to maintenance governance and provision mean very different outcomes for one-parent families.  Children have better outcomes in those countries where a guaranteed state mechanism is in place for the payment of child maintenance.