One Family’s tips on how to make blended families work was featured in an article by Sheila Wayman in the Irish Times on Wednesday 2 September. The article featured comment by One Family’s CEO Karen Kiernan on how to make blended families work – to read the article click: Irish Times article:

Meanwhile, our helpline staff have come up with a list of books that parents could find helpful when starting conversations with children about blended and shared families. Diverse families: https://onefamily.ie/booklist/diverse-families-booklist/ and Blended Families: https://onefamily.ie/booklist/blend

One Family’s tips on how to make blended families work:

• Never presume just because you as adults are in a good relationship that your children will be overjoyed to meet your new partner’s children;
• Ensure your couple relationship is strong and stable before subjecting children to a blended family. You will need to agree how you both play a role in parenting each other’s children, especially if they are young and you are left in charge at times;
• It must be made very clear to children that new partners are not replacing mum/dad. They should always call the new partner by their first name;
• Children usually choose who they become friends with, so being landed with someone else’s children all of a sudden is not easy and they may not get along. Yet they need to feel at home in each parent’s home;
• Children want to spend time with parents and not always with new blended families, unless you are very lucky. Sharing you may be a challenge;
• If you have no children but are moving in with your new partner and their children, you need to do it in stages. It is a bit like being an uncle/aunt. You need to support the children to have a good relationship with both biological parents and extended family – this comes before your family;
• Couple time is crucial. If you get caught up in childcare and parenting with no time as a couple, you will fall down. You must have a strong relationship, take time to talk and compromise, so you can parent children in the one home and meet their needs;
• Include children in the planning to become a blended family. Include the other parent(s) in this plan too;
• Explain family forms to children – do not presume they get it. Be factual and help them understand about whose mum/dad is whose biologically and otherwise, about step siblings and grandparents etc Help them explain their family form to others and to feel proud of the family form they belong to.

For more parenting tips click here:

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Specialist Employability programme for Lone Parents sees 90% success rate

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The award-winning, European Social Fund -funded, New Futures Employability Programme, for lone parents on social welfare has seen over 90% of graduates progress to education or employment. The programme run by charity, One Family, recorded an 85% success rate in 2018 and new figures further show the phenomenal success of the community-based programme. The figures are revealed in the charity’s Annual Report for 2019 which has just been released. The programme uses a ‘one-to-one’ mentoring system to support lone parents who are looking to return to education or work as well as an accredited training programme and wrap around family support services.

Niamh Wynne, Coordinator of the New Futures Employability Programme said, “Many of the parents we work with are experiencing poverty,domestic abuse, homelessness and social isolation. Despite the incredibly difficult circumstances they are in, all are motivated to change and improve their situations. The New Futures Employability Programme provides the skills, challenges and support they need to build their confidence to take the next step for their family.”

New Futures graduate Tracy*said, “Before starting with One Family in 2019 I had left a relationship due to domestic violence. I had two very young kids and I was only starting to gain back some of the confidence I had lost. I saw a post on Facebook for the New Steps programme and decided to apply with a view to starting the New Futures programme afterwards and get my life back on track. These programmes were a God send! I learned how to deal with so many emotions I was struggling with; instead of letting them get on top of me, I learned new strategies to cope with them. I also learned to look at life from a different perspective. It was great to meet with other people in similar situations and know that I am not alone. The help and support in the 1:1 mentoring was second to none and I would advise anyone no matter what your background or struggles to try this programme as it’s one of the best decisions I made. I am now in a job and my life has improved incredibly since completing the course.”

One Family CEO, Karen Kiernan said, “The success of these proven education programmes shows how targeted supports, such as these specialist bridging programmes, can support parents on social welfare to take the next steps into education or employment. These programmes need to be available nationally so that parents from all over Ireland can also be successfully supported off social welfare and into long-term careers. In 2019, 93% of graduates who completed the New Futures Employability Programme went on to further education or employment. We must support parents so that they can support themselves out of poverty.”

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Notes to editor:

One Family was founded in 1972 as Cherish and is Ireland’s organisation for people parenting alone, sharing parenting or separating.

*Tracy is not her real name

One Family Employability Programmes:

• New Futures Employability Programme is One Family’s flagship 24 week personal and professional development, specialist bridging programme, accredited at QQI level 4.  New Futures won the Special Recognition Award for an ESF Initiative at the Aontas Star Awards in 2019 for making an outstanding contribution to adult learning.
• New Steps is an eight week parenting support and self-development programme.
• For more cases studies of New Futures graduates click here
• To read One Family’s Annual Report click here
• To learn more about One Family’s educational supports click here

Statistics on one-parent families:

There were 218,817 family units with children (of any age) headed by a lone parent (Census 2016).

• 1 in 4 families with children in Ireland is a one-parent family (Census 2016).
• 1 in 5 people in Ireland live in 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).
• In November 2018, 14,349 One-Parent Family Payment recipients (39 per cent of all recipients) are in employment, and of 14,418 Jobseeker’s Transition recipients, 4,037 recipients work. The Working Family Payment is an important support for working parents; almost half of recipients are households headed by a lone parent.
• The Survey on Income and Living Conditions 2017 (SILC) revealed that one-parent family households experience the most deprivation in Ireland. Almost 45% of lone parent households experience more than one form of deprivation.
• 55% of homeless families living in emergency accommodation are one-parent families, at any time.

For further information visit: www.onefamily.ie.
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Available for Interview

Karen Kiernan, CEO | t: 01 662 9212 or 086 850 9191

Further Information/Scheduling

Noel Sweeney, Communications and Events Manager | t: 01 622 9212 or 085
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Courts should be last resort for separating families

One Family CEO, Karen Kiernan, has said, Ireland is decades behind the rest of Europe in supporting families and protecting children who use the family law system.  Ms Kiernan’s comments come ahead of a free seminar of leading Irish and international experts on Family Law this Thursday, 2 July from 3pm – 5pm live online. The seminar Building a Family Law System for Families examines how the proposed family law reform as set out in the Programme for Government will work and will offer a vision for how radical change could be implemented for the better in the future.

Karen Kiernan, CEO of One Family explained: “Many of our family law systems are antiquated and overly focussed on conflict and court. What children and their separated parents need is support to share parenting well such as appropriate policies, legislation, mediation as well as necessary parenting and therapeutic services. They do not need to be unnecessarily funnelled into court hearings because there are no alternatives to resolve difficulties. Court should be the last resort.”

Speaking ahead of the seminar, Anthony Douglas CBE, former CEO of The Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service in England (Cafcass) explains how the organisation re-engineered the entire family law system in England and Wales over the last ten years to provide a system rooted in the need for children’s safety and well-being:

“In England and Wales there was willingness amongst policy makers, practitioners and Government for a radical change in the provision of family law. There was a feeling that court practices were out of touch with the way children and families lived their lives. Working together, we transformed the system to reduce delay, be more child-focussed and to understand both the advantages and limitations of family courts in resolving family problems. Our goal has been to provide a therapeutic justice system focused on conflict resolution rather than having your day in court where there are rarely winners and losers. Ireland can learn a lot from the English and Welsh experience.”

Ms Kiernan added, “We have opportunities in the coming years to begin building a reformed family law system that focuses on the needs of families rather than on the courts, the legal practitioners or the state. The implementation and adequate resourcing of the proposed legislation on the Family Law Courts by the new Government is absolutely critical to begin this process. We need more family support services such as the counselling and parenting programmes provided by One Family and others funded to help families navigate the difficulties of separation and divorce.”

Speakers at the seminar include:

• Oonagh Buckley – Deputy Secretary General, Department Justice & Equality
• Anthony Douglas CBE – Former CEO of Cafcass
• His Honour Judge Colin Daly – President of the District Court
• Peter Mullan – Head of Circuit & District Courts Directorate, Court Service of Ireland.

For Editors:
One Family was founded in 1972 as Cherish and is Ireland’s national organisation for one-parent families and people sharing parenting or separating, offering support, information and services to all members of all one-parent families, to those sharing parenting, to those experiencing an unplanned pregnancy and to professionals working with one-parent families. Children are at the centre of One Family’s work and the organisation helps all the adults in their lives, including mums, dads, grandparents, step-parents, new partners and other siblings, offering a holistic model of specialist family support services.
For further information visit: www.onefamily.ie

Cafcass:

Cafcass stands for the Child and Family Court Advisory and Support Service. Cafcass is a national arms-length Government body sponsored by the Ministry of Justice, providing a court-based service to 140,000 children a year in public and private law cases throughout England. Their remit is to understand and advise courts about the needs wishes and feelings of individual children.

Anthony Douglas CBE:

Anthony Douglas was Chief Executive of Cafcass from 2004-19 and now has a small consultancy business working in the UK and internationally. He took Cafcass from an ‘inadequate’ to an ‘outstanding’ Ofsted rating and from working with 60,000 children a year in 2008 to 140,000 in 2019. Anthony was an economist and a journalist prior to becoming a social worker and has written 4 books on UK social care and is now writing a fifth on the importance of social care in a civilised society. He was Director of Social Services in Suffolk between 2002 and 2004. He is now a Visiting Professor at the University of East Anglia and was a member of the Family Justice Board and the Adoption Leadership Board in England and Wales for many years. He was awarded a CBE in 2008 for services to family justice and adoption and was given the ‘outstanding contribution to social work’ award at the Social Worker of the Year Awards in November 2018. He is currently a member of a small advisory group to the President of the Family Division for England and Wales about transparency in the family courts.

For Interview:

Karen Kiernan, CEO | t: 086 850 9191

Anthony Douglas, former CEO of Cafcass

Further Information/Scheduling
Noel Sweeney, Communications and Events Manager | t: 085 7241294

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Talking to your Child about becoming seriously Ill

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Talking to your child about you, their parent, potentially becoming seriously ill is something most parents might think about, but hope will never come to pass.  Therefore, planning what they would say and do is never put into action.
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It is hard to talk with your children about the possibility of you, not being there to care for them. However, taking the time to sit and talk with your child about the possibility of this happening is extremely important especially as we go through the COVID-19 crisis.
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Using props and play to support your child to understand the concept of Mammy or Daddy getting sick can be helpful.  Sitting with older children and finding ways to introduce the topic through an art activity, a movie time, story time or just as you relax can work well. Children like to have something else to focus on when the topic at hand might be hard for them. Allow time for children to ask questions as you work through the fears and anxieties this will raise for them. Some children might ask no questions the first time to raise this issue with them.
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Follow up the conversations with more light-hearted games and activities. Reassure children that you are exploring the issue with them, so they know there is a plan in place.  Be sensitive to their needs and their age; however, do not avoid the topic for fear of making children more anxious. Children are often thinking about things long before parents broach the subject with them.
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Children will have many questions and they will come back to you over and over in the coming  weeks and months. New questions or old questions will be asked again as children try to process what is means for a parent to be sick; what it means for them and their care and wellbeing if a parent is sick. Something on the TV, in the paper or a conversation overheard will prompt them to ask more questions and gain more clarity. Offering reassurance by answering their questions will help them through such difficult concepts.
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Continue to make time for talking things through with family, not only illness. Plan time in your weekly routines for sitting and talking with your child. Children sometimes will save a question as they know the space will come up, rather than going looking for the space. Support children to understand that we all make plans, however it does not mean something will happen. Give them examples of other situations when you have planned for something that in the end was not needed.
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Expect your children’s behaviour to change over this time as they process new concepts that maybe difficult for them. Make time each day to incorporate 20 minutes of Quality Time. This is time in the busy day when you are fully present to your children; listening to them; available to them; allowing time to talk. We can feel because we are at home that we are with our children all day. However, if we monitor what we are doing as parents, we might notice how busy we are and how much time we are not fully engaged with children. Try to incorporate fun into each day, enjoy activities together and create good memories of COVID-19 too.
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The following tips will support you as a parent to understand what may be happening for your child at this time:

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Awkward Questions: As a parent you will already know there are many times children ask awkward questions. You will have had to be brave and find the answers no matter how hard. This is one of those times.
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Worry: Children, due to their very existence and developmental stage will worry about what happens to them if a parent gets sick or dies.  This can happen more if one parent or another close relative has died. Who will look after them? Where will they live? Look out for all the tips around supporting children with worry/anxiety and build some actions into daily life.
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Time for Feelings: Talking about your children’s worries is important so you can try to understand what they worry about. Share a little with them about what you worry about too. Make sure to keep it appropriate to their age. Be open about feelings within the family. Make it safe to say how you feel.
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Identify Needs: What you as their parent might worry about could be somewhat different to that of your child or very much the same. Identifying your child’s needs at this time will help you to start creating a practical plan around supporting them. Unmet needs will create new and often challenging behaviours.
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Practical Steps: Consider what would happen if you were to become seriously ill. Focusing on taking practical steps will help you start a journey along with your child in preparing for changes. This does not need to be scary or create more anxiety than already exists. Creating the plan is about answering the questions you all have, that each of you are afraid to ask out loud.
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Children often like facts: Children will want to know who will look after them if they live alone with one parent. If Mammy or Daddy become sick and need to stay at the hospital, what is the plan? Be factual in the planning. Young children are not always ready for the emotional impact of a change; they often focus on practical changes first.
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Call askonefamily Lo-Call Help line 1890 662 212 for a listening ear, advice and support.
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This service can link you in with counselling and parenting supports. See www.onefamily.ie for more information.
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Extra Resources

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Talking with children about the death of a loved one:

• 10 Ways to talk to your children about death
• HSE: Children and Bereavement
• HSE: My Child

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1. About One Family

One Family, founded in 1972 as Cherish, is Ireland’s organisation for people parenting alone, sharing parenting and separating.  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.

We do two main things – we offer specialist family support services to families and we campaign to improve the lives of one-parent families and those sharing parenting. The services we offer include the national askonefamily lo-call helpline, employability programmes, parenting services, support for those experiencing a crisis pregnancy, and counselling services – all to help people who parent alone or are sharing parenting to be confident parents with happier children. We also provide professional development training to people working with one-parent families.

You can view a video we made in 2013 which has real-life stories of one-parent families here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGwGYWTGS10&t=1s.

1. Policy Context:

The frameworks within which we operate include a human rights-based approach as well as a child’s best-interest approach. The work we undertake with separated parents and their children is fraught with gender issues both objectively real and subjectively felt. We work extensively with both mothers and fathers across our specialist family support services to assist them to maintain a strong focus on their children, despite the parental conflict. In general, we do not find a gendered approach to complex family dynamics including separation to be helpful, informative or child-centred.

There are however gender dimensions to one-parent families that are objectively visible and these must be acknowledged. In this submission we will not be able to address all the nuances of gender that are relevant in our work so we are limiting this paper to the most prevalent issues. We regret where we have omitted important issues and hope that other organisations and individuals will be able to address them.

2. Gender Stereotypes and Norms:

Discrimination towards lone parents is, in itself, gender discrimination as the vast majority of them are female[1] (or are perceived to be) and they are constantly subject to judgmental policies, laws and practices. Today these judgements are mainly associated with welfare dependencyand perceived entitlements, but we believe there is a constant undertone of judgement around female sexuality as well that has deep roots in how we treated unmarried mothers and their children for decades in Ireland.[2]

One-parent families experience far higher rates of consistent poverty, homelessness and unemployment than other families. Children living in one-parent families form the majority of children in Ireland living in poverty[3]. This is ongoing, widely evidenced and at this stage indefensible.

Gender and care are complex and must be looked at in conjunction with family type and a child-centred approach to avoid a reductive view. The cultural norms and expectations around parenting become very explicit in separated families and, in particular, when people enter adversarial court proceedings. This can be when parenting behaviours that may be invisible in an intact family then become visible and problematic.

Lone fathers may be completely invisible in relation to care giving and whilst more men are staying very actively involved with their children following separation, we believe that negative attitudes towards Dads who are sharing parenting arealso gender discrimination.

Fathering is not, to date, well supported in Ireland either practically, culturally or in workplaces. This lack of support is coupled in some instances with reluctance by some separated fathers to parent or by some separated mothers to enable them to do so. We believe that as more policies are put in place to support fathers, then practical supports should also be made available to increase confidence and skills if required.

A financial support in the form of a tax credit that was in place to support separated fathers and mothers was removed with no consideration of the additional costs of sharing parenting and providing two appropriate homes for children.[4] The credit is now only available to one parent after separation, often the mother as it is linked to Child Benefit, leading to further conflict between mothers and fathers. Despite years of campaigning on this by many individual and organisations this has not been restored and there is a lack of institutional knowledge and support for shared parenting in Ireland, particularly when compared to our European neighbours by a number of government departments.

3. Gender & Family Law Courts:

What happens post-separation in court-ordered parenting decisions is complex and varied, relying mainly on anecdotal evidence. However, it can be observed that there are several cultural behaviours that may privilege stereotypical gender roles and ignore the best interests of children.

It is widely reported that for those sharing parenting, the starting points for negotiations may not begin with both parents being equally responsible for children. What may emerge ultimately from court cases is that the mother primarily has day to day care with a lesser contact time for the father. This is not always the best solution for every family and more resources need to be available in and out of courts to assist families and judges to make individual decisions that suit all family members.

It is also widely reported that courts can have a strong pro-contact presumption even in families where there has been domestic abuse and One Family has been aware of inappropriate court-ordered contact for children with a violent or neglectful parent. Again, additional resources can assist courts in making decisions that are safe for children and the high prevalence of domestic abuse must always be taken into consideration.

Our experience and research tells us that both mothers and fathers in separated families strongly experience discrimination in the courts and in wider society.[5] There are distinct and important issues for both parents which need to be addressed. In our view the best way to do this is to increase supports for family court users; increase supports for fathers to parent; and increase supports for one-parent families in general whilst maintaining a focus on children’s best interests. There are considerable dangers in making laws based on extreme cases and due to the highly privatised nature of family law in Ireland it is challenging for all relevant information to be made available in courts.

There is a widespread phenomenon of unpaid child maintenance in Ireland and this is described as financial abuse by COSC. This is generally experienced by mothers and their children where fathers will not or cannot pay voluntary or court-ordered maintenance. This leads to feelings of gender discrimination by mothers in separated families and increased levels of child poverty. Ireland urgently requires a statutory Child Maintenance Agency as part of a comprehensive Court Welfare Service.[6]

4. Employment:

Parenting alone makes visible the invisibility of parenting work that all families and parents undertake. The lone parent must be the carer and the worker/student/ trainee all at the same time with very little support. Government policies have been particularly unhelpful in acknowledging the reality of lone parent’s lives despite extensive research indicating both the challenges they face and the solutions required.[7]

85% of lone parents in receipt of social welfare payments are female[8] so the treatment of these parents and their children is again a highly gendered issue. Lone parents on social welfare are required to be available for full-time work, training or education when their youngest child is fourteen years old and they are transitioned onto the Job Seeker’s Transition Allowance when their youngest child is seven. By re-categorising them within the social welfare system as jobseekers their role as parents is rendered irrelevant and invisible although they are still required by society to be available as excellent parents until their children reach adulthood. Activation measures for lone parents need to recognise their continued parenting responsibilities until their children are 18 years old.

We see that the vast majority of lone parents are in low-paid, part-time work and they experience significant challenges in transitioning to higher paid employment in order to fully sustain the costs of raising children. This employment is also frequently precarious, meaning it intersects negatively with the current system of social welfare and employment supports. There are many reasons for the prevalence of female lone parents in precarious and low-paid employment which include government policies, barriers to accessing education[9], poor accessibility to early years and in-school childcare as well as a lack of support from employers for parents, carers and part-time or flexible employment options.

UK research[10] points to the fact that people who experience separation are more likely to experience work absences and to leave their jobs. This results in a loss of experience and talent from the work force.

Some government departments do not provide the sensible pro-active policies that could be put in place to support one-parent families often due to a perceived fear of fraud by two-parent families. Instead of challenging this, government policy over many years has been to continue to make one-parent families fit the two-parent family mould and this is simply not working.

Prior to the One-Parent Family Payment reforms/cuts in Budget 2012, lone parents were disproportionately poor and working in part-time low paid work and 98% of OFP recipients were female. Since the reforms in 2012 these issues have been further exacerbated. Approximately half of all Working Family Payment recipients are lone parents, which indicate how reliant these families are on state income supports to stay in work[11]. Lone parents in Ireland are also now five times more likely to experience in-work poverty than other households with children[12]. This means that there are a disproportionate number of women detached from the labour market in this group. Government must ensure that women can avail of equal opportunities to enter employment in comparison to their male counterparts.

A higher proportion of male lone parents are engaged in work outside the home in comparison to female lone parents and women are more likely to be invisible within the social welfare system. Properly designed and implemented activation strategies have a role to play to enhance gender equality and to ensure that female lone parents can attain similar levels of attachment to the labour market as men and increase their employability skills and economic independence. This is in line with Europe 2020 targets to increase female labour market participation.

However activation policies also need to take into account the caring responsibilities of lone parents. Access to affordable, flexible and accessible childcare is a key issue to enable those parenting alone to engage with education and work. An ESRI report found that due to the prohibitive cost of childcare, 16% of lone parents are better off not working[13].

5. Article 41.3: One Family has been seeking an expansion of Article 41.3 of the Constitution in relation to the definition of the family for over 45 years.

There are many important reasons for reviewing and expanding the understanding of family in the Constitution which include:

1. The Constitutional definition of family only affords rights and protection to the marital family and no other set of people are considered a Constitutional family. This is wildly at odds with not just the reality of family life, but also with social policy and even legislation in Ireland which can, within limits, recognise other types of families.
2. An expanded understanding of family will build on other recent changes such as the Children’s Referendum; the Child and Family Relationships Act; marriage equality and the role of women in the home.
3. Census statistics and Growing Up in Ireland data show us the rich diversity of family life in Ireland today. One in three children in Ireland are born to parents not yet married to each other; one in three families do not conform to the traditional model of a married couple in their first marriage; and one in five children live in one-parent families.

Article 41.3 discriminates against all types of non-marital families andonly married families (same sex or opposite sex or divorced) are provided protection. We are seeking an expansion of the current definition of family to include all types of non-marital families, as any unmarried parent/s and their children are not a Constitutional family. This has permitted discrimination against children of unmarried parents for decades in this country including the ‘Baby Ann’ adoption case[14], pregnant women and unmarried mothers losing their jobs[15] and the treatment of unmarried mothers and their children in various institutions.

Having consulted with experts and bringing our own experience of working with diverse families to bear, we believe that a good workable solution is to edit Article 41 to add in Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights[16]. This new wording offers high level symbolic change that does not put restrictive wording or automatic rights for anyone into the Constitution but allows legislation to be crafted for specific situations as required.

It removes the barriers to family equality that are there at the moment, it is child-centred and is potentially helpful to any households/families based on caring arrangements including siblings, other non-nuclear family members, foster families and non-marital families. Though the wording of our Constitution could be considered to have only symbolic significance, it is incredibly important and could go some way to provide symbolic reparation to the thousands of unmarried mothers and their children mistreated in Ireland for many decades, particularly those in Mother & Baby Homes[17] and Magdalen laundries.

In 2013 we established All Families Matter[18]– a campaigning coalition calling on the Constitutional Convention to progressively review the Irish Constitution in relation to the family. Members at the time included BelongTo, Family Resource Centre National Forum, GLEN, ICCL, Marriage Equality, New Communities Partnership, One Family, TENI and Treoir.

We wrote an article at the time calling for the then Constitutional Convention to consider Article 41.3 and this can be read here: https://bit.ly/2SRVBSC.

We made a video that succinctly describes the problem of Article 41.3 as it stands for families that are not considered Constitutional. The video can be viewed here: https://bit.ly/3bZklj9

6. Gender Equality vs the Best Interest of the Child:

Even though the work of the Assembly is focused on gender equality, it is important to remember that our Constitution, the Children & Family Relationships Act 2015, Children First and case law all require us to take a child’s best interest approach when looking at issues where parents and children’s needs intersect. We are aware of issues related to families and parents that are highly sensitive where a gender equality perspective can over-ride a child’s best interest approach. There are several examples of this:

• Automatic Guardianship for Unmarried Fathers: there are advocates for automatic guardianship for all fathers who argue that it is necessary for gender equality and that children deserve a legal relationship with their parents irrespective of whether they are married or not. This argument has great appeal and merit until you consider all the instances in which a child may be conceived or born into, including acts of conception that are crimes. This issue is not simple or straightforward and this is why we do not have automatic guardianship in Ireland. Without knowing the individual circumstances of each child, it is impossible to protect their interest with a blanket automatic guardianship of all fathers even though this may be appropriate in the vast majority of cases.
• Parental Leave Benefit Act: this act was introduced in November 2019 by the Department of Employment Affairs & Social Protection and the Department of Justice and Equality to provide greater gender equality in the provision of parental leave for parents of newborn babies. The interpretation of gender equality adopted by the Departments meant that it became impossible for a single parent to avail of all the leave. So while two-parent families can maximise the amount of time their babies have access to them with fourteen weeks of paid parental leave, our understanding is that lone parents can only access seven weeks. It is important for all babies to have access to their parents at this critical time and not just those in two-parent families. Because the majority of lone parents and new parents are women, there is an additional negative gendered impact if the leave remains non-transferrable. One Family understands the reason why it is non-transferrable is to ensure that fathers avail of the leave and that it is not routinely transferred to the mother by fraudulent means in two-parent families[19]. Thus a well-meaning gender equality approach coupled with a conservative approach to fraud prevention has resulted in a poorer outcome of opportunity for some babies and their parents.
• National Childcare Scheme: whilst the National Childcare Scheme purports to provide quality education and care for young children, in practice it is primarily operating to provide childcare to women to participate in education and employment. Whilst the latter is a laudable aim and one that is critically required by people parenting alone, the emphasis should be on a quality educational experience for young children.
• Contact Post-Separation: there is a widespread perception that family law courts may at times privilege the rights of parents to have contact with the children they do not live with, over the safety of the children involved. Due to a lack of resources to ensure all relevant information is brought into private family law cases, courts may not always be aware of all the issues taking place in a family and we are aware of instances of court-ordered contact with an abusive or negligent parent. In these cases Tusla are unable to act on a child protection notification to change a court-ordered action. There is a gender dimension to this as most contact parents are fathers.

We recommend that in all the work of the Assembly gender equality can be balanced with the needs of vulnerable affected people such as children.

7. Gender Identity

One Family recognises the diversity of gender identities and expressions experienced by family members in Ireland and we work regularly with service users who identify as transgender or non-binary. We believe this is an important aspect of gender that needs to be considered in all aspects of society, legislation, policies and services in order to ensure the full human rights of transgender people and to ensure their good physical and mental health. We also recognise increasingly that parents need appropriate services to support their children on their individual journey of gender identity and these services, particularly healthcare services, are currently lacking in Ireland.

Ends

[1] Census (2016)

[2] Submission to Mother & Baby Homes Commission (2020) One Family. https://onefamily.ie/mother-baby-home-commission-submission/

[3]CSO SILC (2018)

[4] One Family Pre Budget Submissions 2014-2019 https://onefamily.ie/media-policy/policy-submissions/

[5] National Shared Parenting Survey (2017) One Family. https://onefamily.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/One-Family_Shared-Parenting_Results-and-Recommendations_FINAL-REPORT_Online.pdf

[6]Child Maintenance Position Paper (2019) One Family.https://onefamily.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Child-Maintenance-Position-Paper-7-19.pdf and https://onefamily.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Vision-for-a-Court-Welfare-Service.pdf

[7]Pre Budget Submission 2020 (2019) One Family, Page 4: https://onefamily.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Budget-2020_One-Family-Pre-Budget-Submission-2020.pdf

[8]DEASP (2019)

[9]An Independent Review to Identify the Supports and Barriers for Lone Parents in Accessing Higher Education and to Examine Measures to Increase Participation. Delma Byrne and Clíona Murray. Maynooth University (2017)

[10] Resolution (2014) Divorce is hurting British workplaces. https://www.familylaw.co.uk/news_and_comment/british-businesses-are-suffering-as-a-result-of-divorce-and-separation

[11]DEASP (2019)

[12]Society of St Vincent de Paul, Working, Parenting and Struggling? An analysis of the employment and living conditions of one  parent families in Ireland (2019)

[13]Lone Parent Income and Work Incentives (ESRI 2018)

[14] ‘Baby Ann’ adoption case Supreme Court Judgment. Murray J. 2006 http://www.courts.ie/Judgments.nsf/09859e7a3f34669680256ef3004a27de/b43e456d7a8eea87802572250052b81b?OpenDocument

[15] 1980s Ireland was no place for women. Dan Buckley in the Irish Examiner, 2019. https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/views/analysis/1980s-ireland-wasno-place-for-women-931480.html

[16] Article 8 of the ECHR – Right to respect for private and family life “1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence. 2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.”

[17] Submission to Mother & Baby Homes Commission (2020) One Family. https://onefamily.ie/mother-baby-home-commission-submission/

[18]https://www.facebook.com/AllFamiliesMatterIreland/

[19] Email communication by DEASP representative.

Fun, family friendly, fundraiser at Third Space, Smithfield on Friday March 27 from 7.00pm-9.30pm. Third Space, as part of their Square Meal, initiative provide all the food for free, the staff work for free, you enjoy a beautiful meal in the company of lovely people and you donate what you think the meal was worth/what you can afford and it all goes to One Family so we can continue to support families most in need. You can BYOB if you want and children are very welcome. You can book directly with Third Space on 01-529-7208 or email office@thirdspace.ie. Thanks for your support!

Who We Are

One Family is Ireland’s organisation for people parenting alone, sharing parenting and separating. We provide a range of specialist family support services to one-parent families and advocate for improvements in policies, legislation and services.

One Family was established in 1972 as Cherish. At that time Cherish was Ireland’s first organisation for single mothers, organised by single mothers, and run on a human-rights, rather than charity/ ‘benevolence’ based model.[1] The organisation’s early work was concerned primarily with providing direct support, information and advocacy to thousands of women in crisis who were unmarried, pregnant and who felt they had no choice but to hide their pregnancy and possibly have their babies removed for adoption. Over time the organisation was able to provide visibility, social supports and legal protections to these families in partnership with others resulting in more unmarried mothers being able to decide to keep their pregnancy and parent their own child.

Whilst we are not providing direct testimony to the Commission in this submission, as organisations that have worked for many decades with unmarried mothers and their children we are aware of the direct experience of hundreds of thousands of women. We are bringing our collective knowledge and experience to bear in our observations and recommendations to the Commission. We believe this submission can inform the work and findings of the Commission as it is based on the longstanding credibility we hold as an organisation working directly with vulnerable parents and their children.

Terms of Reference

We note the Terms of Reference which were provided to the Mother and Baby Homes Commission.  We note the mandate on consent where you are directed to consider the extent of mothers’ “participation in relevant decisions … (and) … whether these procedures were adequate for the purpose of ensuring such consent was full, free and informed.”   

In relation to this, we strongly caution against interpreting consent as being fully and freely informed on the basis of signed documentation given the direct experience of many of the women we supported. As has been well discussed elsewhere many women were not aware of what they were signing, were not aware they had a choice and did not consciously consent to the adoption of their child. 

We note that Section 1 (I) “to establish the circumstances and arrangements for the entry of single women into these institutions…” permits a review of how women came to enter and stay in institutions often against their will and where they lost control of their children through adoption. This system of containing women in Mother & Baby Homes, in order to conceal the pregnancy and the resulting child, contributed to a society which protected itself against the perceived social deviations of unmarried mothers and any associated economic costs. We look forward to the findings of the Commission in relation to this issue and in particular to the social history module.

As an organisation that continues to work with women today who parent alone in difficult circumstances, frequently from unplanned or crisis pregnancies, we believe that there are direct links between the period of time that the Commission is examining and the challenges faced by many lone parents today. We note that many of the negative attitudes, policies and laws that mitigate against the success of one-parent families today are based in beliefs, customs and practices that were current in the mid part of the last century.

Single Mothers in 2020 

Widely available research and Census data clearly show on an ongoing basis that living in a one-parent family in Ireland is extremely disadvantageous. Most poor children in Ireland live in one-parent families; those who parent alone are four times more likely to live in consistent poverty; single mothers are the most socially isolated people in Ireland and experience higher levels of depression and anxiety; lone parents have less access to savings than anyone else; most homeless families in Ireland are headed by a single mother. Having said that, when economic and poverty issues are accounted for; children in one-parent families do just as well as other children. Therefore issues related to structural poverty, economic exclusion and inequality are paramount, and can be addressed though policies which recognise one-parent families and political will.

It is our experience that some of our legal, social and policy institutions continue to work against women (and men) who parent alone, or who parent outside a ‘traditional’ married family. We still have significant historical structures that preference a two-parent married family over a one-parent or unmarried family. These structures range from the highest legal levels of our Constitution through to systematic unequal treatment between one and two-parent families in policies employed by various Government departments.

Lone parents in receipt of social welfare supports experienced significant cuts in Budget 2012 which catapulted thousands of their children into higher levels of poverty – to this day the effects of these cuts are still felt.

The ESRI has noted the gendered impact of Budgets in the austerity period and most cuts were experienced disproportionately by women and children.[2]

Many people parenting alone report to us the ongoing negative stereotyping by society and media in relation to their families. Sometimes this can be subtle, and sometimes quite overt. A survey of 166 parents undertaken in 2014 by One Family found that the majority (78%) of those surveyed think that members of one-parent families have experienced shame or embarrassment because of their family type.

Transitional Justice | Recommendations & Reparation Efforts

We welcome the engagement of the UN Special Rapporteur on the “promotion of truth, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence”, and the adoption by the Minister for Children & Youth Affairs of a more robust Transitional Justice framing, which “aims to achieve not only individual justice, but a wider societal transition from more repressive times … that … will find out and record the truth, ensure accountability, make reparation, undertake institutional reform, and achieve reconciliation.” [3]

We note in Section 6 of the Terms of Reference that “the Commission may include in its reports any recommendation that it considers appropriate…”

We request that the Commission strongly considers the following recommendations in your forthcoming reports to Government as a means to provide some recognition, recompense and rebalance for the harm inflicted on unmarried mothers and their children in the past – consequences of which many families still experience today. Our recommendations are:

1. Support the women who directly suffered in Mother & Baby Homes: Implement the eight recommendations of the Clann Project, in particular recommendations for access to data; inclusion of all stakeholders; redress and reparation through material benefit and symbolic representation; and legal remit through legal aid, extension of statute of limitations and criminal investigation.
2. Support the parents and children living in poverty in one-parent families today: In order to break the historic and continuing mistreatment of unmarried parents and remove the ongoing stigma endured by ‘single mothers’. In particular, we recommend the full implementation of the recommendations of the Advisory Council of Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures in relation to child-poverty in one-parent families. We strongly recommend that Government implement all recommendations from its various research reports in order to address the poverty and educational/ employment exclusion endured by lone parents. We welcomed the 2017 pilot gender-proofing of Budgets and we recommend a mainstreamed equality proofing approach to budget development.
3. Provide high level symbolic gestures to recognise diverse families: In the first instance, we call on Government to establish a National Family Day where the State publically celebrates diverse families in Ireland and explicitly builds on the positive contribution to society of all parents.

More substantively, we call for a referendum on Article 41.3 of the Constitution to expand the definition of the family in order to provide rights and protection for all families including unmarried families and in particular unmarried mothers and their children. This will provide a significant symbol of inclusiveness and reparation on behalf of the state and the Irish people.

We know from our work that part of the painful legacy of the Mother and Baby Home system is this continued erasure of unmarried mothers and their children. They are simply not recognised as a family in our Constitution and remain formally invisible. While the Children & Family Relationships Act 2017 made significant strides in working to provide protection and respect to a diverse range of families with children, we need a Constitution which recognises all families and acknowledges the changing demographics and family formations arising throughout Europe.

Article 8 of the ECHR indicates how a new definition of family in Ireland could be interpreted and provides a robust solution to a Constitutional amendment. One Family is happy to provide possible wording to address this referendum issue.

Ends

[1] “Single Issue”, Richards, M., Poolbeg Press, Ireland, 1998 and https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B009OJ8YGA/ref=rdr_kindle_ext_tmb

[2] THE GENDER IMPACT OF IRISH BUDGETARY POLICY , Doorley, K., et al. ESRI (2018)  https://www.esri.ie/pubs/bkmnext367.pdf

[3] Investigation confirming Human Remains on the Site of the former Tuam Mother and Baby home

https://www.dcya.gov.ie/docs/09.03.2017_Recovering_Truth_and_Justice_Remarks_by_Minister_/4155.htm

The Board and staff of One Family wish to warmly congratulate our Chairperson, Sinéad Gibney, on her recommendation for appointment as Chief Commissioner of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC). Sinéad will bring a wealth of expertise, experience and personal warmth to her new role and we all wish her the very, very best.

Sinead’s appointment comes following an open and transparent competition by the Public Appointment Service (PAS).

To read the IHREC press release click here:

One Family, Ireland’s national organisation for people parenting alone, sharing parenting and separating has called on parents to challenge General Election candidates with a series of questions on their plans to address homelessness, child poverty and reform of Ireland’s archaic family law system. The call comes following the launch of the organisation’s Election Manifesto and as the charity sets about mobilising the almost quarter of a million one-parent families in the state.

One Family CEO Karen Kiernan said, “Families living in makeshift accommodation and children going without a warm meal shouldn’t happen in Ireland. It’s not who we are. But every night thousands of children and families go without these basic needs, caught in a broken system that pulls them under. It doesn’t have to be this way. Poverty and homelessness are not inevitable. They are symptoms of a broken system.”

One-parent families now make up over a quarter of all families in Ireland. Yet many are struggling to stay afloat against a rising tide of poverty. These families represent a growing and restless force in every constituency in Ireland. They are disproportionately affected by child poverty, homelessness and a family law system that is decades behind our European neighbours. We are asking one-parent families to challenge, in a friendly yet firm manner, election candidates on their plans to address Child Poverty, Homelessness, Reform of Family Law and Constitutional change. Our four top priorities for General Election 2020 are:

• End Child Poverty: Meet and expand on the current target to lift 70,000 children out of poverty by 2020. Develop another target and commit to a strong implementation system with high level political support. Ensure adequate income levels for all families and households through independent benchmarking of income supports.
• End Homelessness: Ireland has a national crisis of homelessness which disproportionately affects one-parent families. Commit to prioritising the building of social housing for families and ensuring that children do not spend longer than six months in emergency accommodation.
• Reform Family Law & Court Welfare Service: Build on family law reforms and commit to developing a comprehensive public Court Welfare Service including a statutory Child Maintenance Service. Ireland is decades behind our European neighbours and must ensure the safety of children and parents in family law proceedings.
• Protect All Families in Ireland: Commit to a referendum to update Article 41.3 of the Constitution to extend rights and protection to all families.

Read our Election Manifesto here:

Ms Kiernan added, “We know the issues that are raised on the doors are fed back to party headquarters and are included in future Programmes for Government so we are asking parents to let their voice be heard. We have put together a list of questions that might help parents to start the conversation with the local candidates so they can make up their own minds on who to vote for.”

/Ends/

Editor’s Note:

One Family was founded in 1972 as Cherish and is Ireland’s national organisation for one-parent families and people sharing parenting or separating, offering support, information and services to all members of all one-parent families, to those sharing parenting, to those experiencing an unplanned pregnancy and to professionals working with one-parent families. Children are at the centre of One Family’s work and the organisation helps all the adults in their lives, including mums, dads, grandparents, step-parents, new partners and other siblings, offering a holistic model of specialist family support services. These services include the lo-call askonefamily national helpline on 1890 66 22 12, counselling, and provision of training courses for parents and for professionals. The askonefamily helpline can be contacted on lo-call 1890 66 22 12.

For further information visit: www.onefamily.ie

Available for Interview

Karen Kiernan, CEO | t: 01 662 9212 or 086 850 9191

Further Information/Scheduling

Noel Sweeney, Communications and Events Manager | t: 01 622 9212 or 085 7241294

One Family’s Election Manifesto 2020

Families living in makeshift accommodation and children going without a warm meal shouldn’t happen in Ireland. It’s not who we are. But every night thousands of children and families go without these basic needs, caught in a broken system that pulls them under. It doesn’t have to be this way. Poverty and homelessness are not inevitable. They are symptoms of a broken system.

One-parent families now make up over a quarter of all families in Ireland. Yet many are struggling to stay afloat against a rising tide of poverty. These families are three and a half times as likely to be at risk of poverty as two-parent households (CSO – SILC 2018).  In our Election Manifesto we give our Top Four Election Priorities click here for a copy of the manifesto 

• End Child Poverty: Meet and expand on the current target to lift 100,000 children out of poverty by 2020. Develop another target and commit to a strong implementation system with high level political support. Ensure adequate income levels for all families and households through independent benchmarking of income supports.
• Reform Family Law & Court Welfare Service: Build on family law reforms and commit to developing a comprehensive public Court Welfare Service including a statutory Child Maintenance Service. Ireland is decades behind our European neighbours and must ensure the safety of children and parents in family law proceedings.
• Protect All Families in Ireland: Commit to a referendum to update Article 41.3 of the Constitution to extend rights and protection to all families.
• End Homelessness: Ireland has a national crisis of homelessness which disproportionately affects one-parent families. Commit to prioritising the building of social housing for families and ensuring that children do not spend longer than 6 months in emergency accommodation.

We are also asking voters to hold ‘would-be’ politicians to account with a series of questions to test their commitment to these priorities.

[1] List of research at One Family Budget 2020 submission. https://onefamily.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Budget-2020_One-Family-Pre-Budget-Submission-2020.pdf

We have a number of new publications available this month including or new ‘Services Brochure’ and ‘Strategy 2019-2021’ booklet please click on images below for more details:

Services Brochure:

One Family Strategy 2019- 2021:

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 ‘Courting Disaster’ coalition calls on Government to urgently allocate funding for a dedicated Family Law Court

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Vulnerable members of society without the most basic of facilities in Family Court, campaign group says

For immediate release: December 10, 2019: Barnardos, Children’s Rights Alliance,  Community Law and Mediation, Dublin Rape Crisis Centre Family Lawyers Association, FLAC, National Women’s Council Ireland, One Family, The Bar of Ireland, The Law Society and Women’s Aid have formed a coalition to highlight the archaic conditions in which family law and childcare cases are currently being heard in Ireland.

The eleven organisations are launching the ‘Courting Disaster’ Campaign in Dublin today, calling on Government to immediately allocate the funding required to develop a dedicated Family Law Court at Hammond Lane in Smithfield in Dublin.

It has been agreed in principle for some time that a dedicated Family Law Court is required but agreement has yet to be reached on its structure and funding. In October 2019 The Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice and Equality recommended that the necessary funding be allocated as a matter of urgency.

In a joint statement, the Courting Disaster Campaign Group said; “A properly functioning courts system is essential to providing access to justice. Some of the most vulnerable members of society seeking to resolve family law proceedings, often arising from relationship and marital breakdown and domestic violence, are currently faced with wholly unsuitable and inconsistent court facilities where not even basic needs are met, such as separate waiting areas, family friendly spaces and consultation rooms to allow for privacy.   These archaic conditions significantly increase stress and anxiety in what are typically very sensitive cases, and this can result in volatility and even violence in the course of family law litigation.

“A more effective and efficient administrative organisation of the court structure and improvement in court facilities will undoubtedly have a positive impact on the management of family law applications and lead to reductions in delays and cost which is in the interest of all parties to proceedings.

“The site at Hammond Lane is ready and awaiting the construction of dedicated family law facilities. We are calling on Government to make the necessary funding available without any further delay, so that the deficiencies in the current family law system can begin to be addressed,” the Courting Disaster Campaign Group stated.

In order to ensure access to justice for family court users, and to meet Ireland’s obligations under the United Nations Convention on The Rights of The Child, the Courting Disaster Campaign Group is calling for the following immediate actions;

• Allocation of appropriate budget to develop dedicated Family Law and Children’s Court at Hammond Lane to ensure the provision of facilities that are fit for purpose to meet both current and future need.
• Prioritisation of children including enabling the voice of the child to be heard through the provision of onsite services to assist children such as Guardian ad Litem (GAL), social workers and specialist legal advice services.
• Provision of onsite Legal Aid Board and mediation services
• Creation of a child-friendly environment, including large spaces to cater for children, playrooms, cafes and bright design. The court rooms should also be child-friendly environments.
• Inclusion of large waiting areas and a sufficient number of rooms to cater for private consultations, particularly cognisant of the need to facilitate safe spaces for women and families who are experiencing domestic violence and abuse situations.
• Provision of rooms for the delivery of ancillary family support services such as counselling and parenting supports.
• Ensure accessibility for all users of the court including through wheelchair ramps, induction loop systems, video link for vulnerable users, supports for people with intellectual disabilities and assistance for lay litigants.
• The final plans must be fully gender proofed to ensure that any potential gender discriminatory effects arising from those plans have been avoided and that gender equality is promoted.

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A photo call with representatives from all the partners in the Courting Disaster Campaign Group – Barnardos, Children’s Rights Alliance, Community Law and Mediation, Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, Family Lawyers Association, FLAC, National Women’s Council Ireland, One Family, The Bar of Ireland, The Law Society and Women’s Aid – will take place at the vacant site on Hammond Lane, Church Street, beside Phoenix House on Tuesday 10^th December at 8am. You are invited to attend or to send a representative.
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The latest Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC) report published on 28 November 2019 shows that lone parent families continue to be the poorest families with children in this State. They endure the highest rates of all types of poverty for families (‘at risk’, ‘deprivation’ and ‘consistent’ poverty).

While One Family welcomes the drop in rates since last year, the ‘at risk’ and ‘consistent’ poverty rate drops are not statistically significant and continue to keep one-parent families trapped in poverty.

Numerous Government and independently commissioned reports have identified the issues and offered similar conclusions – lone parents need targeted supports to help them and their children out of poverty.  While we welcome measures in Budget 2020 that offered supports to working lone parents more needs to be done.

Creating a child-centred response to poverty, which includes full recognition of diverse family forms, will stop the extreme inequality between different types of families in Irish society, as we outline in our Pre-Budget submission 2020.

At risk of poverty rates for lone parents

• In 2018, households with one adult and children aged under 18 have the highest at risk of poverty rate at 33.5%. This rate is 9.9% for households with two adults with 1-3 children aged under 18. Lone parents are three and a half times as likely to be at risk of poverty as two-parent households.

Definition of At Risk of Poverty: Households with incomes below 60% of the national median income of €264 per week / €13, 723 per annum are at risk of poverty.

Deprivation rates for lone parents

• In 2018, households with one adult and children aged under 18 had the highest deprivation rate at 42.7%. This rate is 14.3% for households with two adults with 1-3 children aged under 18. Lone parent families are almost three as likely to be living in enforced deprivation as two-parent families.
• People in lone parent households continue to have the lowest disposable income out of all households with children in the State.

Lone parents continue to struggle to meet living costs for themselves and their children every day. Housing, food, heating and clothing costs continue to put lone-parents under considerable stress, with the costs of schooling adding to this burden. Ireland is not a poor country and government needs to introduce targeted supports for one-parent families. Government commitments through the Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures strategy to lift 100,000 children out of poverty by 2020 must be met if these trends are to be reversed in a stable and consistent manner.

Definition of Deprivation: Households that are systematically financially marginalised from availing of the goods and services considered the norm for most people in society are considered to be enduring ‘deprivation’.   Deprivation is the inability to afford at least two of the eleven basic deprivation indicators outlined below. Furthermore, experiencing two or more of these indicators, for example, going without a substantial meal for  24 hours and being cold because it is too expensive to heat a home, creates ‘enforced deprivation’ for many lone-parent households.

1. Two pairs of strong shoes
2. A warm waterproof overcoat
3. Buy new (not second-hand) clothes
4. Eat meal with meat, chicken, fish (or vegetarian equivalent) every second day
5. Have a roast joint or its equivalent once a week
6. Had to go without heating during the last year through lack of money
7. Keep the home adequately warm
8. Buy presents for family or friends at least once a year
9. Replace any worn out furniture
10. Have family or friends for a drink or meal once a month
11. Have a morning, afternoon or evening out in the last fortnight for entertainment

Consistent poverty rates for lone parents

• In 2018, households with one adult with children aged under 18 continue to have the highest consistent poverty rate at 19.2%. This rate is 5.0% for households with two adults with 1-3 children aged under 18. Lone parents are almost four times as likely to be living in consistent poverty as two-parent households.

Definition of Consistent Poverty:  Households living with incomes below 60% of the national median income of €240 per week, and experiencing deprivation based on the 11 deprivation indicators outlined above, are living in consistent poverty.

How Poverty Traps:

Time plays a role in poverty. We know that the longer any lone-parent family is exposed to an ‘at risk of poverty’ category, the more likely they are to start experiencing enforced deprivation. These two types of poverty combined then force lone parent families into ‘consistent poverty’.  Consistent poverty is living in a poverty trap, where the daily and weekly living is nearly always living ‘on the back foot’, never able to plan head, participate in social life easily, and are usually always in some type of debt. (See EAPN for further poverty analyses: https://www.eapn.ie/poverty/understanding-poverty/)

Read our Press Release on the SILC results:

[Dublin, Thursday 28 November] The latest Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC 2018) results  show that one-parent families are now four times as likely than two-parent households to live in consistent poverty. While One Family welcomes the drop in both ‘at risk’ and ‘deprivation’ poverty rates since last year, ‘consistent’ poverty rate drops are not statistically significant at 1.5%,  and continue to keep one-parent families locked in poverty.

Karen Kiernan, One Family CEO, says. “Hidden behind these figures are parents struggling to put food on the table and clothes on children’s backs, keeping them in school. The SILC report reflects what we are hearing daily through our helpline and through our family support services. Parents and children are being crushed by poverty. While there were some welcome measures in Budget 2020 the consistent poverty rate remains too high. Repeated Government  and independently commissioned reports have set out what needs to be done so now Government just need to act.”

Valerie Maher, One Family Policy & Programmes Manager, says: “Lone parents continue to struggle to meet the most basic costs of living including housing, food, heating and clothes. This is unacceptable and should not be normalised. While we welcome the drop in enforced deprivation rates, we note that consistent poverty remains a core problem. This needs an whole-of-Government response to be reversed. Government need to do more if it’s to meet its own target of lifting 100,000 children out of poverty by 2020.

In 2018, individuals living in households where there was one adult with children aged under 18 continue to have the highest consistent poverty rate at 19.2% or nearly a fifth of all one-parent families. This is compared to a consistent poverty rate of 5% for two-parent households. We know the causes of poverty in one-parent families largely arise from structural inequality. Government know the resolution to this problem is to develop these structural supports and they now need to act.

One-in-four families in Ireland is a one-parent family. Research shows that a key contributor to children’s futures is not the structure of their families but living in consistent poverty.

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About One Family

One Family was founded in 1972 as Cherish. It is Ireland’s organisation for one-parent families and people sharing parenting, or separating, offering support, information and services to all members of all one-parent families, to those sharing parenting, to those experiencing an unplanned pregnancy and to professionals working with one-parent families. Children are at the centre of One Family’s work and the organisation helps all the adults in their lives, including mums, dads, grandparents, step-parents, new partners and other siblings, offering a holistic model of specialist family support services.

These services include the lo-call askonefamily national helpline on 1890 662212, counselling, and provision of training courses for parents and for professionals. One Family also promotes Family Day every May, an annual celebration of the diversity of families in Ireland today (www.familyday.ie).

For further information, visit www.onefamily.ie.

Link to SILC 2018

Link to One Family Pre-Budget Submission

Available for Interview

Karen Kiernan, CEO | t: 01 662 9212 or 086 850 9191

Further Information/Scheduling

Noel Sweeney, Communications and Events Manager | t: 01 622 9212 or 085 7241294

Wednesday 9 October 2019

One Family welcomes the targeted measures in Budget 2020 for working lone parents and the commitment to fund research into child maintenance. Specifically, we welcome the targeted increases to help make work pay for lone parents and that restore payments to the ‘pre-cuts’ 2012 levels. These are: an increase of €15 in income disregards for the One-Parent Family Payment (OFP) and Jobseekers Transition Allowance (JST); an increase of €10 to the income threshold for the Working Family Payment for families with up to 3 children; and increases in the Qualified Child Increase (QCI) by €3 for over 12s and €2 for under 12s.

Karen Kiernan, CEO of One Family, said “We are pleased that Government has been listening to us and our colleagues over the past year and have implemented some of the specific and targeted measures that we looked for. However they did not deliver a Children’s Budget to support Ireland’s poorest children out of their daily poverty and they did not use the evidence available to them when making all decisions.”

One Family notes there are still inequalities in how one-parent families are treated in the social welfare code when compared to two-parent families and these issues need to be resolved as a matter of urgency. Kiernan continued: “we know the vast majority of Ireland’s poorest children live in one-parent families therefore we must target supports at them. Unnecessary barriers need to be urgently removed to ensure that lone parents are treated fairly particularly in relation to eligibility requirements for the Working Family Payment and the Back to School Clothing & Footwear Allowance. It is just not right to let children’s lives be restricted by poverty”.

Kiernan welcomed the commitment to the establishment of a statutory Child Maintenance Agency saying: “We are pleased that Minister Doherty has committed €150,000 to research this important issue. We hope this will include robust stakeholder engagement and feed into existing evidence and work on child maintenance.”

Kiernan also welcomed the fact that Minister Zappone listened to the concerns about lone parents at risk of losing out in the new National Childcare Scheme saying: “It is reassuring that lone parents can now stay on existing subsidies until August 2021 if this is helpful to them. An additional five hours per week for those on income-based subsidies is also something we looked for and have received.”

But we continue to have deep concerns about the impact of the Budget on the most vulnerable children. If we enter into a No Deal Brexit, which seems the most likely scenario, these families, who are already held back through poverty, will slip further behind. Brexit may well be an economic tsunami for them – particularly those families in rural Ireland where the economic impact of a No Deal may be most felt. Increases to carbon tax and knock-on effects on fuel and energy use are a real issue and will push the vulnerable into further poverty.

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For further information, visit www.onefamily.ie.

Link to One Family Pre-Budget Submission:

Link to One Family Child Maintenance Paper:

Link to One Family Budget Comparison document:

Available for Interview

Karen Kiernan, CEO | t: 01 662 9212 or 086 850 9191

Further Information/Scheduling

Noel Sweeney, Communications and Events Manager | t: 01 622 9212 or 085 7241294

[Monday, September 16, 2019] One Family, Ireland’s organisation for people parenting alone, sharing parenting and separating has called for the urgent rollout of specialist support services for families who are going through the long process of separating. The call comes as the charity launched its Annual Review for 2018 which has seen an 82% increase in demand for its services compared with 2017.

One Family CEO Karen Kiernan said, “Since 2017, there has been an 82% increase in requests for our services with a large spike in demand for services for families separating. Services such as our Tusla-funded, Separating Well for Children project show the depth of demand that exists from people going through the private family law system and similar services are urgently required nationwide. Through this project we have found ourselves frequently bridging gaps in services that exist for vulnerable separated parents and their children. This project deescalates the conflict within the family using mediation, parenting support as well as creative therapies for children, allowing parents to put aside their own grievances and focus on the welfare of their children.When families separate the first responder shouldn’t be a solicitor – instead child-focussed, affordable supports should be available locally”.

Ms. Kiernan added, “In 2018, we delivered over 8,430 intensive in-person supports, while our askonefamily helpline received over 4,000 queries, we would urge anyone who needs advice when separating to call our helpline on lo-call 1890 662 212. Demand for our services has never been higher partly due to the increased number of people parenting alone, sharing parenting and separating. But it also reflects the poverty rates amongst lone parents who, because of spiralling homelessness and deprivation rates, are relying more and more on our services. We anticipate that demand for our services will increase in the years ahead and the Government must now look to urgently fund specialised support services for separated families in crisis throughout the country.”

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Notes to editor:

About One Family One Family was founded in 1972 as Cherish and is Ireland’s organisation for one-parent families and people sharingparenting, or separating.

Key statistics from the One Family’s Annual Review 2018:

• 82% increase in service
  delivery from 2017.
• 8,430 intensive in-person
  supports.
• 11 policy submissions over
  65 policy representations.
• Nearly 4,100 queries
  received through the Askonefamily helpline.
• 29% of queries related to
  family life and parenting.
• 1,841 counselling
  sessions were delivered an increase of 49% on 2017.
• Over 1,000
  parenting services delivered.
• 40% of parenting
  participants were Dads.

Statistics on one-parent families:

• 1 in 5 people in Ireland
  live in a one-parent family (Census 2016)
• 1 in 4 families with
  children in Ireland is a one-parent family (Census 2016)
• There were 218,817 (25.4%)
  family units with children (of any age) headed by a lone parent. This 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.
• This represented
  approximately one in four of families with children and one in five of all
  families (25.4% of all family units with children in Ireland and 18% of all
  family units).
• 356,203 children lived in
  one parent families, representing more than one in five or 21.2% of all
  children in family units.
• The total number of
  divorced people in Ireland has increased from 87,770 in 2011 to 103,895 in
  2016.This is an increase of over 44,000 people in the last ten years.
• In contrast, the number of
  people identified as separated has levelled off and stood at 118,178, up
  marginally from 116,194 five years earlier. As divorce in Ireland generally
  requires a period of separation in the first instance (up to five years) the
  figures reflects both a progression for people from separation to divorce,
  combined with more people becoming separated.

Link to One Family Annual Review 2018:

For further information, visit www.onefamily.ie.

Available for Interview

Karen Kiernan, CEO | t: 01 662 9212 or 086 850 9191

Further Information/Scheduling

Noel Sweeney, Communications and Events Manager | t: 01 622 9212 or 085 7241294

Listening is not the same as hearing.  To listen means to pay attention not just to what is being said but how it is being said, including paying attention to the types of words used, the tone of voice and body language.  The key to understanding is effective listening. For this week’s ’10 Ways to …’ post offering parenting tips, we look at how to improve listening in the home.

1. Do I listen? Ask yourself firstly what type of listener you are. Are you focused or distracted? Empathetic or impatient?
2. Stop shouting: Children do not respond positively to shouting so try always to speak in a calm manner.
3. Eye contact: When talking to your child, get down to their level and look them in the eye.
4. Be clear: Do your children understand what you are saying to them? Clarify if needed.
5. Family meetings: Talk as a family about what not listening to each other causes within the family – ask if everyone would like things to be better.
6. Reward: Notice good listening and reward it.
7. Remember: Put a note up somewhere, like on the fridge, to remind you as a parent to listen.
8. Make time: Make time – at meals, when children come in from school, when parents come in from work – to talk with each other and listen to what others have to say.
9. Active listening: Practice actively listening to what your children say. Down tools and stop what you’re doing to listen, or ask them to wait until you can give them 100% of your attention (but not too long).
10. Building relationships: Listening to your child and other family members increases positive behaviour in the home and improves relationships.

This week’s ’10 Ways to …’ is compiled by One Family’s Director of Children and Parenting Services, Geraldine Kelly.

Remember, if you need a friendly ‘listening ear’, our askonefamily lo-call helpline is available on 1890 662 212.

One Family welcomes the news that the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection has changed the conditions for Back to Education Allowance (BTEA) for people in receipt of One-Parent Family Payment. Applicants no longer need to be out of education for 2 years to qualify, and they don’t have to be over 21. People can now qualify if they are over 18 and are receiving one of the specified payments for the required period of time (3 months or 78 days for Second Level Options (SLO), and 9 months (234 days) for Third Level Options (TLO). We hope that this will help people returning to education this autumn. Spread the word if you know anyone looking at courses and wondering about their entitlements.

Homework is considered to be beneficial in helping children to learn how to manage time, planning and priorities, and to learn independently and take responsibility. These are all skills that will help them in the future in many ways. Homework also helps teachers to determine how well students are understanding their lessons. It is important as parents that we support our children in doing their homework. This keeps us in touch with what’s happening at school and how our children are managing, and will help children to achieve academically throughout their education. As part of our weekly ’10 Ways to’ series of parenting tips, here are our 10 Ways to Manage Homework with Primary School Children.

1. Homework belongs to the child not the parent. Teach your child from entry to school that they are responsible for homework being done. Your role is to support your child with homework, but not to do it.
2. Create the necessary environment for your child to work in. They need a calm space with no TV or other distractions. Allow them time to relax when they come in from school and have a snack and change of clothes ready.
3. Always demonstrate an interest in your child’s homework, support them, champion them and stand up for them. You know them best, so encourage and support yet know when it’s time to stop. Know your limits and theirs.
4. Encourage your child if they feel it’s too hard. Acknowledge that it is hard but tell them you know they can do it. If you find yourself being negative with them, or saying something like, “Yes, you are no good at maths”, then it is advisable to look at your own issues with homework.
5. Set a start and end time for homework. Sometimes you may feel your child has too much homework on a particular day. Let the teacher know it will be completed by the end of the week rather than pushing a very tired child to finish it that evening.
6. The National Parents Council offers a guide to the amount of time each age group should spend on homework, stating that in general the following guidelines apply:
   • Junior/Senior infants: No formal homework but perhaps some drawing, preliminary reading, matching shapes and pictures or listening to stories read by parents.
   • First/Second class: 20-30 minutes.
   • Third/Fourth class: 30-40 minutes.
   • Fifth/Sixth class: 40-60 minutes.
7. When you are tired and your child is tired, it’s usually time to stop. Your level of patience will be lower. Remember that your relationship with your child is more important than homework.
8. Arguing late in the evening over homework leaves everyone unsettled and stressed which can lead to bedtime routines being disrupted.
9. Talk with the school/your child’s teacher if you feel your child cannot get their homework done without your help. Children should be able to do their homework alone with parents nearby. Your role should involve encouragement, checking it’s done, and testing them on key things such as spelling.
10. Sometimes children need time off too. Explore how many extra activities they have on and look at creating down time for them. Would you like to bring home work every day? A school day is long and it is important to acknowledge all the work they have already done that day. Try not to focus on the areas they’re less successful at as this will do nothing for self-esteem and achieve nothing. Appreciate that children have a lot on and need you to recognise the effort they are making in every task.

This article is part of our weekly ’10 Ways to’ series of parenting tips, and is by One Family’s Director of Children and Parenting Services, Geraldine Kelly.

For support and advice on these or any related topics, call askonefamily on lo-call 1890 66 22 12 or email support@onefamily.ie.

As summer winds down, it is time to start thinking about school again. For parents with young children, that means looking into preschools for your children. Sending your child to preschool for the first time is a big step in both you and your child’s life, and it is important to make sure both of you are prepared to take that step. There are many ways to see if your child is ready for preschool, and in this week’s edition of parenting tips, we look at 10 ways to prepare your child for preschool.

1. Sit back and look at how much your child has grown in the past 3 years. Ask yourself if you are really supporting them to be more responsible, allowing them make choices and have more control over what they want and how they do things.
2. Ensure your child is toilet trained and able to manage in the toilet unaided.
3. Ensure your child can use a spoon to feed themselves, that they can recognise their belongings, get out their lunch and tidy away by themself.
4. Support your child to learn the rules of friendship, taking turns, sharing, asking for what they want and being inclusive of all children.
5. Play school with them at home. Help them act out their fears around school and through role play help them understand what will be expected of them in preschool.
6. Explore with them how they need to behave in preschool and what will happen if they misbehave.
7. Talk with them about the other children who will be there and how they will be very friendly with some and may not really like some children. Encourage them to have time for everyone and to aim to be friendly with all the children.
8. Visit the preschool in advance. Understand the policies and procedures in advance as a parent and help your child know what their day will look like in preschool. There are great differences between many preschools.
9. Keep preschool fresh in your child’s mind over the summer time. Help them be ready for school. Help them be confident by preparing them well and encouraging them to practice at home asking questions and resolving small disputes in a positive manner
10. Don’t put any pressure on your child. It is not university, so relax about whether they know their colours and numbers. They will learn if they are happy and feel supported to do so.

This week’s ’10 Ways to’ is by One Family’s Director of Children and Parenting Services, Geraldine Kelly.

For support and advice on any of these topics, call askonefamily on lo-call 1890 66 22 12 or emailsupport@onefamily.ie.

Image credit: Pixabay

One way or another children will misbehave, but understanding the reason why can give parents the opportunity to develop positive coping mechanisms to address misbehaviour and in turn develop stronger and more positive relationships with their children.

1. When thinking about the reasons why children misbehave it is perhaps useful to think firstly about what misbehaviour actually is.
2. A lot of behavior is more an expression of energy and enthusiasm than any desire to misbehave.
3. Misbehaviour may be the expression of the need for limits to be set.
4. Building healthy self-esteem requires parents to provide their children with a predictable, safe environment.
5. Positive attention is an essential ingredient to raising confident, happy children
6. A child who receives regular positive attention learns that they are a valuable human being and learns ‘I am a worthwhile, interesting person’.
7. Attention-seeking behaviour in children arises out of very real needs and any attention is better than no attention.
8. Positive attention means using positive feedback to point out to your child the things that they do well.
9. Be generous with praise and encouragement when it’s due.
10. When you reward your child with an incentive be sure to add a comment that causes your child to think about doing the right thing.

This article is part of our weekly ’10 Ways to’ series of parenting tips, and is by One Family’s Director of Children and Parenting Services, Geraldine Kelly.

For support and information on these or any related topics, call askonefamily on lo-call 1890 66 22 12 or email support@onefamily.ie.

“Play date” or “playdate” is a US expression that has become popular in Ireland in recent years.  Simply put, a play date is an arranged appointment between parents for their children to get together for a few hours at home. Play dates support children to form friendships, to practice their social and relationship building skills, and increase their confidence. Friendships are an important part of life, and start in the preschool years. As part of our weekly series of parenting tips, here are our tips to help create positive play date experiences for your children and you, their friends and their friends’ parents.

1. Play dates start with parent and child dates. Parents need to make time to meet other parents. Extend an invitation. It could start with arranging to be at the playground in the park at the same time.
2. Some parents are not in a position to invite your child over to play at their house. Don’t expect the invite. Play dates are for your child’s development and they don’t need to get invited to other homes all the time. They will be happy for it to happen in their own home.
3. Parents need to actively engage in play dates. Children need support to play well with other children. Always remain in the room with young children and as your child gets older, continue to fully supervise and always remain within earshot with doors open.
4. Talk with your child prior to a play date. Agree what games will be played, what toys they are willing to share and in what parts of the house they will play in.
5. Help children engage well in the games, both your child and the visitor. Support them to solve problems rather than you making the decisions. You are responsible for the visiting child’s well-being so you must protect their feelings also.
6. Make sure you have the contact numbers of the visiting child’s parent/s or guardian. Be aware if they have any special needs or dietary requirements.
7. Play dates are about play so avoid sugary treats.
8. Praise your child after the play date. Tell them how well they did; be specific about what went well. Later talk with them about what did not go well and plan what to do differently next time.
9. Be aware of how you deal with behavioural issues with your child and others. Be assertive in how you communicate with children and ensure they experience positive interactions in your home.
10. Talk with the other parent if things are really not going well. Both parents will need to work together to support young children to play well. Don’t make judgements on children; they are young and have so much to learn. Our job as parents is to help and support them, not judge or condemn them.

This week’s ’10 Ways to’ is by One Family’s Director of Children and Parenting Services, Geraldine Kelly.

For support and advice on any of these topics, call askonefamily on lo-call 1890 66 22 12 or email support@onefamily.ie.

A family ritual, or tradition, is a practice within a family that has special meaning to family members. Family rituals provide a sense of belonging and continuity. They bring families closer together. It is often hard in our day and age to escape the pressures and daily stresses that make up our lives, but having rituals creates an opportunity for children to feel secure. Family routines and rituals not only improve family relationships, they also improve health and emotional well being, particularly for children.

As part of of our ‘10 Ways to‘ series of parenting tips, here are some ideas to help you in developing family rituals and traditions for your family.

1. Think simple, not extravagant. An example of a simple and easy ritual is to eat together at least once every week.
2. Set aside time each week. Create a time where you and your children can be together to play.
3. Create your own special activity. For weekends, birthdays or celebrations, decide with the family how you really enjoy celebrating these occasions and go with that.
4. Include your children in the planning.
5. Create rituals that are meaningful to the whole family.
6. Be different. Don’t be afraid to start a new or different kind of family tradition.
7. Celebrate success. Acknowledge achievement within the family.
8. Don’t be a perfectionist. There’s no need to stress if it does not work out exactly the way you envisaged and planned.  Things go wrong sometimes. A sense of bonding between the members involved is still created.
9. Create a Family Event Jar. A family jar or box is a decorated jar used to save for the next big adventure. Decorate it with pictures and words of places you want to visit or have visited, or activities you enjoy. The jar becomes a daily visual reminder for all family members of something to look forward to.
10. Rituals and traditions are something for all family member to enjoy together. Don’t fight your natural inclinations. You probably won’t stick with a tradition that isn’t working for all members of the family.

One Family offers a range of training options to help parents and guardians to build on their parenting skills which you can find out about here.

This week’s ’10 Ways to’ is adapted by One Family’s Director of Children and Parenting Services, Geraldine Kelly, from our Family Communications training programme.

For support and advice on any of these topics, call askonefamily on 1890 66 22 12.

Image credit: Freedigitalphotos.net/arztsamui

One Family call for the establishment of Statutory Child Maintenance Agency

[Dublin, 15 July 2019] One Family- Ireland’s organisation for people parenting alone, sharing parenting, and separating today released the results of a national survey of parents in relation to child maintenance. The launch comes as the charity launches its new child maintenance position paper.

Karen Kiernan, CEO explains: “We know from our services and particularly calls to our national helpline, askonefamily; that parents really struggle with understanding how to come to an agreement around how much child maintenance should be paid and what to do if it is not paid.  Nearly half of the respondents who are the primary carers of the children do not receive any child maintenance at all, whilst most people have had to resort to court to come to agreement.”

Of the 1,068 respondents to the survey 58% resorted to court order to agree child maintenance, while 42% of the parents who are primary carers do not receive any child maintenance. However, 75% of those who do receive payments reported that they are paid regularly. When it comes to agreeing how much parents should be paid only 9% of respondents said it was determined by the needs of the child.

Kiernan added, “We are launching our new position paper on the thorny issue of child maintenance as for too long governments have ignored it, happy to leave it to parents and courts to battle things out. This is not working for anyone as children and parents can end up financially worse off or abused, our courts are jammed delivering maintenance orders that they cannot enforce, and we are again decades behind our neighbours across Europe.”

“What we need is a statutory child maintenance agency as part of a comprehensive Court Welfare Service that can determine appropriate levels to be paid in a fair child-centred way; that has the ability to ensure that children and families actually receive the maintenance and removes this issue from our adversarial courts system.”

/Ends

Notes to editor:

About One Family One Family was founded in 1972 as Cherish and is Ireland’s organisation for one-parent families and people sharing parenting or separating.

Survey results and position paper:

Survey summary findings here:

One Family position paper on child maintenance here:

Available for Interview

Karen Kiernan, CEO | t: 01 662 9212 or 086 850 9191

Further Information/Scheduling

Noel Sweeney, Communications and Events Manager | t: 01 622 9212 or 085 724 1294