New roles available
One Family, Ireland’s national organisation for people parenting alone, sharing parenting and separating are recruiting for a number of positions including Director of Counselling, Counsellors for the MyOptions unplanned pregnancy phone line and Key Worker for the New Futures Employability Programme. For more details of these opportunities click here:
Farewell to Marguerite
Today we bid farewell to our Counselling Manager, Marguerite McCarthy, who is retiring after seventeen years with One Family.
Marguerite, sometimes described as a quiet subversive; pioneered unplanned pregnancy and post-abortion counselling with her predecessor Sherie de Burgh, supporting thousands of women, men and children throughout her career. She leaves in place a dedicated, professional, and capable team to support service users into the future. The staff, board and service users of One Family want to thank Marguerite for her work, guidance and friendship and we wish her a long and happy retirement. Thank you
New Futures Employability Programme is now recruiting for a Key Worker
One Family’s award winning New Futures Employability Programme is now recruiting for a Key Worker. If you want to work in a great team, supporting, encouraging and mentoring people parenting alone in their journey back to education or work this could be the role for you.
For more details and job description click here or call Niamh Wynne on 01-6629212 or email: nwynne@onefamily.ie
Alliance of 32 national organisations calls for a public childcare model
A network of 32 national community and voluntary organisations working to address poverty, social exclusion and inequality has today launched ‘Principles for Delivering a Public Childcare Model’ and called for the delivery of a public childcare model in Ireland.
The Six Principles for a Public Childcare Model are:
1. Child centred
2. State responsibility
3. Investment
4. Quality, inclusion and accessibility
5. Equality6. Decent working conditions
The document will be launched at an online event involving speakers representing parents, community providers, childcare professionals and workers, women and a range of political parties, who will have a chance to engage with a wide audience on the development and delivery of a public childcare model.
Paul Ginnell from the European Anti-Poverty Network Ireland, a member of the Platform stated that ‘The current model of childcare in Ireland, which depends very heavily on the private market, fails many people across society, particularly children and parents from low-income families and workers.’
Catherine Lane from the National Women’s Council, also a member of the Platform highlighted that “The Community Platform believes that the progressive delivery of a high quality, inclusive and accessible public childcare model is urgently needed and that a properly designed and delivered public childcare model can play an important role in addressing poverty and disadvantage and the wide-ranging structural inequalities that women experience.”
Rachel Doyle from Community Work Ireland also a Platform member continued “Lessons from the past, which have been reinforced by the Covid-19 pandemic, show the important role of the state in providing key public services and in ensuring universal access. This is essential in creating a more equal and inclusive society and childcare is one of these critical public services.”
Mary Roche from Treoir concluded “The delivery of a fit for purpose public childcare model needs to be adequately funded and we are calling for Government to invest 1% of our national income over the next decade, in line with UNICEF recommendations.”
Following the launch the Community Platform will engage widely with all political parties and the different stakeholders to promote the progressive delivery of a public childcare model.
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Contact: Paul Ginnell 087 640 2200
Note:
Download: Principles for delivering a high quality, inclusive and accessible Public Childcare Model
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The Community Platform
The Community Platform is an alliance of 32 national networks and organisations in the community and voluntary sector working to address poverty, social exclusion and inequality. The members of the Community Platform members are:
• Age Action Ireland
• All Together in Dignity (ATD) Ireland
• Community Action Network
• Community Work Ireland
• Cairde
• Debt and Development Coalition
• European Anti-Poverty Network (EAPN) Ireland
• Family Resource Centre National Forum • Focus Ireland
• Immigrant Council of Ireland
• Independent Living Movement Ireland
• Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed
• Irish Penal Reform Trust
• Irish Refugee Council
• Irish Rural Link
• Irish Traveller Movement • Migrant Rights Centre Ireland
• National Adult Literacy Agency
• National Collective of Community-based Women’s Networks
• National Traveller Women’s Forum
• National Women’s Council of Ireland
• One Family
• Pavee Point
• Rape Crisis Network Ireland • Safe Ireland
• Sign Language Interpreting Service
• Simon Communities of Ireland
• TASC
• Threshold
• Treoir
• Vincentian Partnership for Justice
• Women’s Aid
Civil Society organisations call for referendum on care, women and family in the Constitution
Ahead of the Oireachtas debate on the motion to establish a Joint Committee on Gender Equality today (9th November 2021), civil society organisations have welcomed the setting up of this Committee and called on it to implement the recommendations of the Citizens Assembly on Gender Equality in full, prioritising a referendum to make the recommended Constitutional changes in relation to non- discrimination (Art. 40), the value of care (Art. 41.2. on ‘woman in the home’) and Article 41.3 on the Constitutional definition of the family.
The recommendations by the Citizens Assembly are ground-breaking and send a strong and clear signal to Government and all decision makers that gender equality needs to be at the centre of our Constitution, our legislation and our policies.
These recommendations come after long campaigns by civil society organisations to reform our constitution to reflect a modern Ireland with the value of equality at its centre.
Orla O’Connor, Director of the National Women’s Council (NWC) said,
“We welcome and support the establishment of the Committee to discuss how we can best implement the comprehensive recommendations by the Citizens Assembly on Gender Equality. In particular, we call on the Committee to prioritise the necessary changes to our Constitution on women, the value of care and care work and on the definition of the family.
In line with the recommendations of the Citizens Assembly, we urgently need to replace the sexist and outdated wording of Art. 41.2 of our Constitution and replace it with wording that recognises the value of care within the home and the wider community.”
Karen Kiernan, One Family said,
“The establishment of this Committee on Gender Equality is very welcome to drive forward the implementation of the wide-ranging recommendations by the Citizens Assembly. The recommendation to recognise all forms of families in our Constitution, not only families based on marriage, will finally recognise the diversity of family life in Ireland and particularly provide status and recognition to one parent families.”
Organisations supporting this call include the National Women’s Council (NWC), One Family, Irish Council of Civil Liberties (ICCL), Children’s Rights Alliance, Treoir, Family Carers Ireland and Care Alliance Ireland.
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For more information, please contact Silke Paasche, Head of Communications, NWC, Tel. 085 858 9104.
Notes to Editor:
Full report on the recommendation of the Citizens Assembly
Recommendations in relation to the Constitution are:
Insert a new clause into Article 40 to refer explicitly to gender equality and non-discrimination.
Delete and replace the text of Article 41.2 (woman in the home) with language that is not gender specific and obliges the State to take reasonable measures to support care within the home and wider community.
Amend Article 41 so that it would protect private and family life, with the protection afforded to the family not limited to the marital family.
Press Release: Tsumani of separations/divorce on the way with little or no support available
In 2020 there was a 20% increase in demand for One Family’s services for lone parent and separating families including 17% increase in demand for Parenting during Separation courses
Press Release
Ireland is facing a tsunami of separation and divorce following the pandemic and family law and support services are not prepared according to One Family – Ireland’s national organisation for people parenting alone, sharing parenting and separating. The charity, commenting at the launch of its Annual Review for 2020, said demand for its specialised family support services dramatically increased in 2020 with a 20% rise in client services and a 17% increase in demand for its parenting during separation courses.
One Family CEO, Karen Kiernan said, “For many separated families the pandemic and lockdowns acted as a pressure cooker exasperating old grievances and increasing conflict. There was a huge increase in calls from parents in distress (68% increase in calls to the askonefamily helpline in Q2 2020 compared with the same period in 2019) as issues of relationship breakdown, access, guardianship and child maintenance coincided with reduced access to courts services; leading to increased conflict and mental distress. We worked to support parents and we provided information guides, advocated on behalf of parents, and brought all our services on-line affectively bringing our services to every county. But this demand for services, particularly our mediation and Tusla funded Separating Well for Children service, has meant services are now extremely stressed and we are worried about a future surge as families struggle with family breakdown.”
Geraldine Kelly, One Family Director of Parenting Services said, “What we found is that support services are there in local communities if you have a parenting issue or if you are separating amicably but if there is conflict, or legal issues, which is often the case, specialist services are very hard to find. Currently, we are receiving calls from support services across the country looking to refer families to us and we are trying to accommodate them. But we have limited resources and demand is so high. This leaves many families in crisis waiting longer than we would like. At the moment, we have with a six-month waiting list for Separating Well for Children and eighteen-month wait for counselling services; when your family is in crisis this is a long-time. Any delay can increase the level of conflict in the family and impact greatly on the wellbeing of children and parents.”
One Family CEO, Karen Kiernan said, “We need to see a commitment from Government to provide funding in local communities for separating families, people sharing parenting and particularly for those in conflict. There is a tsunami approaching which will have a knock-on effect on children and families unless we prepare now.”
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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.
These services include the lo-call askonefamily national helpline on 0818 66 22 12, counselling, and provision of training courses for parents and for professionals. For further information, visit www.onefamily.ie. The askonefamily helpline can be contacted on 0818 66 22 12 or 01-6629212.
Link to One Family Annual Review:
Two case studies of how One Family supported families during the pandemic:
For further information visit: https://onefamily.ie/
Available for Interview
Karen Kiernan, CEO | t: 086 850 9191
Further Information/Scheduling
Noel Sweeney, Communications and Events Manager | t: 085 7241294