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10 ways to understanding Children’s Emotions and The Learning Power of Play

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Play and EmotionsPlay is an outlet for children to make sense of what they see, think and feel. It allows them the opportunity to express themselves, which is a vital part of their physical, intellectual and emotional development. Children can often struggle with their feelings and this frustration can lead to difficult behaviour, such as tantrums. It is important that parents take an active role in their child’s emotional development and to lead by example when it comes to expressing anger, sadness and frustration in a healthy way.

  1. The importance of play in a child’s life cannot be underestimated. Play is a child’s work and is ‘serious stuff’.
  2. Play helps children develop self-esteem and good social skills. It is also an important element in improving your child’s motor skills, problem-solving abilities and aids physical and intellectual development.
  3. Can you, as a parent, spend 20 minutes a day playing, listening and talking to your child?
  4. Our ability to feel and express our emotions helps us to stay connected with the world around us and to work through our feelings in healthy way.
  5. Children will express their sadness and grief quite naturally given the right amount of support. Children and young people learn how to express and deal with emotion from their parents and family members.
  6. We need fear to keep us safe. However, if children are too full of fear they will not be able to stand up for themselves or to express themselves. It is important to show children that feeling fear is normal. Tell them some of your fears and how you cope, in doing this, you enable your child to develop these skills too.
  7. Children need boundaries around the good stuff just like they need boundaries around fear and anger.
  8. Children’s natural impulse is to hit out when they feel angry. Adults need to be able to help children to manage and  express their anger in a healthy way.
  9.  A child who displays too little anger may be open to bullying and may be seen as a bit of a ‘wimp’ and a pushover.
  10. A child who expresses too much anger may become a bully and have difficulty in managing emotions without becoming aggressive or even violent. This can make it difficult for the child to have healthy social relationships.

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. Coming up next week; 10 Ways to Talk to Your Child about Your Family Situation. 

LIVE Facebook Q&A on this topic with Geraldine, 2 March from 11am-12pm on One Family’s Facebook page. Join in and post your questions.

Next you might like to read, 10 Ways to Support a Child Who is Being Bullied or 10 Ways to Support a Child Who is Bullying

Find out more about our parenting skills programmes and parent supports. For support and information on these or any related topics, call askonefamily on lo-call 1890 66 22 12 or email support@onefamily.ie.

Difficult Behaviour

10 ways to Handle Difficult Behaviour – Part Two

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Difficult Behaviour Consistency is vital to teaching your children that all behaviour breeds a reaction and whether that reaction is good or bad depends on how they choose to act. Enabling them to make good choices by being consistent in your reaction is a powerful tool in handling difficult behaviour.

  1. Consistency is one of the most important factors in successful parenting.
  2. A child who knows that their parent always follows through on what they say is more likely to choose a positive behavior.
  3. Making better choices makes a child’s life easier and supports him/her in developing responsibility.
  4. Inconsistency can cause children to feel unimportant, insecure and confused.
  5. Routines offer predictability and stability for children.
  6. It is impossible to change all behaviours at once.
  7. Focus on one behaviour, either positive or negative, that you would like to change.
  8. Children’s behaviour will not change overnight. Be patient with yourself and with your child.
  9. Remember that if you have changed your behaviour from being someone who didn’t follow through to being a parent who means what they say then it will take your child time to react to this change and bring about change in their own behaviour.
  10. Sometimes children will respond well and quickly to change, and then gradually drift back to old ways. Do not despair, this is normal. Remain firm, calm and consistent until the new behaviour becomes the norm.

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. Coming up Next Week: 10 ways to Help your Children Express Their Emotions and the Importance of Play.

LIVE Facebook Q&A on this topic with Geraldine, 23 February from 11am-12pm on One Family’s Facebook page. Join in and post your questions.

Next you might like to read: 10 Reasons Why Children Misbehave and The Power of Positive Attention

Find out more about our parenting skills programmes and parent supports. For support and information on these or any related topics, call askonefamily on lo-call 1890 66 22 12 or email support@onefamily.ie.

Difficult Behaviour

10 Ways to Handle Difficult Behaviour – Part One

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Difficult BehaviourDifficult behaviour can be tough to deal with, especially when you are already under stress. Children act out for many reasons and tantrums are often the result of frustration and misunderstanding. Here are a few tips on how to handle this difficult behaviour and to teach your children the power of positive choices.

  1. Positive parenting requires parents to teach their children how to make good choices and to provide them with the tools to do so.
  2. Using discipline as a tool for teaching promotes self-esteem, responsibility and good choices.
  3. A child who learns that there are consequences for their choices will be in a much better position to negotiate the challenges of adult life than a child who does not know their limits.
  4. It is a common misconception that in order to behave in a loving way a parent must meet a child’s every whim and allow them to express their impulses and desires without limits.
  5.  Strong, but not rigid, boundaries help children to feel safe and secure.
  6. Tantrums are often a sign of the child becoming frustrated with the world, especially if they can’t get a parent to do something that they want.
  7.  Handled well, tantrums should decrease as the child learns to negotiate their environment more effectively.
  8.  A parent’s role is to attempt to manage and organise a child’s environment so as to minimize the causes of tantrums.
  9. When dealing with a tantrum; speak at your child’s level, establish and maintain eye contact and give clear commands.
  10. Tell your children what you would like them to do and why. Be Clear. Be Consistent.

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. Coming up next week; 10 Ways to Handle Difficult Behaviour – Part Two.

LIVE Facebook Q&A on this topic with Geraldine, 16 February from 11am-12pm on One Family’s Facebook page. Join in and post your questions.

Next you might like to read,  10 Ways to make Positive Parenting Changes.

Find out more about our parenting skills programmes and parent supports. For support and information on these or any related topics, call askonefamily on lo-call 1890 66 22 12 or email support@onefamily.ie.

 

Active Listening

10 ways to Active Listening and Assertive Parenting

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Active ListeningActive Listening is an important part of being an assertive parent. It allows children to express their emotions and shows your child that you are taking on board  what they are saying and making an effort to understand how they are feeling about what is going on in their lives.

  1. A child who is allowed time to think for themselves learns to have faith in their own problem solving abilities.

  2. Parents who use active listening teach their children that they are valuable individuals who, given time, can work through and find solutions to the many challenges they may face in life.
  3. Our aim as parents is to be assertive in how we communicate and relate to our children.
  4. Assertiveness is a skill that is learned over time. Through patience and persistence it can transform the relationship between parents and their children.
  5. The world can be a difficult and complicated place for children.
  6. Active listening is the key to good communication.
  7. Listen for feelings and try to put a name on that feeling.
  8. Let your child clarify what feelings they are experiencing or correct you if you have got the feeling wrong.
  9. Being self-aware is crucial to successful anger management. Ask yourself, ‘What is the trigger for this anger I feel?’

  10. You can control your own behaviour and this will model anger management for your child, but you cannot control your child’s behaviour.

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. Coming up Next Week: 10 ways to Handling Difficult Behaviour – Part 1.

LIVE Facebook Q&A on this topic with Geraldine, 9 February from 11am-12pm on One Family’s Facebook page. Join in and post your questions.

Next you might like to read 10 ways to Improve your child’s Self Esteem, 10 ways to Be Assertive or 10 ways to Improve Listening in the Home

Find out more about our parenting skills programmes and parent supports. For support and information on these or any related topics, call askonefamily on lo-call 1890 66 22 12 or email support@onefamily.ie.

Dad and child's hands

63% of One-Parent Family Households in Ireland Suffer Deprivation According to SILC Report

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Press Release

63% of One-Parent Family Households in Ireland Suffer Deprivation – Shameful!

SILC Report 2013 Launched Today

www.onefamily.ie

(Dublin, Wednesday 21 January 2014) One Family – Ireland’s organisation for people parenting alone and sharing parenting – reacts to the Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC) 2013 results published today, which clearly show that those living in households with one adult and one or more children had the highest deprivation rate in 2013 at 63.2% and the highest consistent poverty rate at 23%, with distress but not surprise.

Karen Kiernan, One Family CEO, comments: “Today’s SILC results amplify what we keep saying. People parenting alone tell us through our monthly surveys, askonefamily helpline and our mentoring, counselling, education and human services that they live on the knife edge of poverty. Government ignores the lived reality of these parents’ caring responsibilities. It continues to enforce new, ill-formed activation measures without provision of effective supports such the long-promised, affordable quality childcare. Over 39,000 lone parents will be taken off their One-Parent Family Payment and moved to Job Seekers Transitional in July this year. The real impact of this will be even more hardship and we’ll see yet another rise in the numbers of one-parent families suffering deprivation in future reports.”

Stuart Duffin, One Family Director of Policy & Programmes, states: “It is shameful and reduces children’s life chances. People parenting alone are still being hit the hardest. Over 800 lone parents who are also caring for adult family members are set to lose another €86 per week this year. How much further can the income gap widen? Austerity has impacted on everyone. Enforced deprivation was experienced by 30% of the population last year, up from 26% in 2012 and the deprivation rate for those at risk of poverty increased from 46% to 53%, which proves that the income gap is widening. How is that just and fair?”

Stuart continues: “One in four families with children in Ireland is a one-parent family, over half a million people. With two thirds of these families shown to live in deprivation and suffering the highest consistent poverty rate, Government needs to finally admit that its current policies are just not working. People parenting alone want to do their best for their children’s futures and 53% of lone parents are in the labour market. But current policies mean that the barriers to lone parents returning to employment or education are leading to an increasing dependence on social welfare over time. It is very difficult to make progress for your family while living under constant fear of an energy bill or the threat of homelessness, as so many thousands of people parenting alone do today. Government needs to listen and act, as its choices condemn one-parent families to persistent poverty.”

One Family recorded a staggering 30% increase of callers to its askonefamily helpline in 2013. The real impact of years of austerity is only now being realised and one-parent families and parents sharing parenting of their children have borne the brunt of spending cuts. One Family reiterates its call to Government to enact its 10 Solutions campaign, with an immediate focus on provision of affordable and accessible quality local childcare.  Every parent should have an equal opportunity to create a better future for his or her children. All families deserve an equal chance.

Further information on One Family’s 10 Solutions.

Central Statistics Office (CSO) SILC results.

The askonefamily helpline can be contacted on lo-call 1890 66 22 12.

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About One Family

One Family was founded in 1972 as Cherish and is Ireland’s leading organisation for one-parent families 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 62 22 12, counselling, and provision of training courses for parents and for professionals. One Family also promotes Family Day and presents the Family Day Festival every May, an annual celebration of the diversity of families in Ireland today (www.familyday.ie). For further information, visit www.onefamily.ie.

Available for Interview

Stuart Duffin, Director of Policy & Programmes | t: 01 662 9212 or 087 062 2023

Further Information/Scheduling

Shirley Chance, Director of Communications | t: 01 664 0124 / e: schance@onefamily.ie

 

Positive Parenting Manual Cover

Our New Specialist Services for Separating Families Announced in National Parents Week

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Press Release

Separating Families in Dire Need of Supports

New Specialist Services Launched by One Family to Meet Demand

www.onefamily.ie

(Dublin, Monday 20 October 2014) One Family – Ireland’s organisation for people parenting alone and sharing parenting – launches its Positive Parenting for Changing Families programme at a Seminar in Dublin Castle tomorrow, Tuesday 21 October, in celebration of National Parents Week which runs from 20 to 26 October.

Karen Kiernan, One Family CEO, comments: “We are pleased to launch our new Positive Parenting for Changing Families programme. Carefully researched and developed over several years, this parenting programme is expertly designed to meet the needs of people parenting alone, sharing parenting, and those going through the process of separation. We know from our national helpline and other services of the struggles that separated and other one-parent families face. Current structures do not always support them well and laws as well as services need to be updated and expert.”

“For over 40 years One Family has supported the diversity of one-parent families and we understand their needs, so we are also launching a new mediation service focussed on developing parenting plans following separation as well as individual parent mentoring services,” Ms Kiernan continues. “It is imperative to ensure that the real supports these families want to access are available as they separate, share parenting and introduce step-parents, to help ensure the best outcomes possible for children.”

Donagh McGowan, Solicitor and incoming Chair of the Law Society Family Law Committee and member of the Family Law Court Development Committee, explains: “As a family law practitioner, I have seen firsthand how family support services such as counselling, mediation and parenting programmes can benefit both the Family Law Courts and the parents themselves as they work through the difficult process of separation. Whilst the draft Children and Family Relationships Bill provides for expanded ancillary support services to courts – which is to be welcomed – what Ireland really needs is a comprehensive range of State funded ancillary services to assist families in preventing or reducing conflict arising from relationship breakdown and to support the Courts where such conflict requires judicial intervention.”

Mr McGowan will present on this topic at the Seminar on Tuesday. Other speakers include: Ms Stella Owens, Centre for Effective Services, Chair of Special Interest Group on Supporting Parents; Ms Helen Deely, Head of HSE Crisis Pregnancy Programme; and Mr Niall Egan, Jobseekers and One Parent Family Policy Section, Department of Social Protection. The panel will be chaired by Dr Anne-Marie McGauran, NESC, and One Family Board member.

Since 1972, One Family – formerly called Cherish – has been at the forefront of responding to the real needs of one-parent families and separating families, developing supports which focus on keeping children at the centre of parenting that are both practical and empowering for the families who avail of them. Full details are available on www.onefamily.ie.

The new services being launched on Tuesday by One Family are:

  • Positive Parenting for Changing Families programme | A practical and positive course for parents of 2-12 year olds to build on existing skills in order to manage behaviours and development well.
  • Mediated Parenting Plans | Supporting both parents during and after the process of separation to develop their own comprehensive and practical parenting plan around how they will successfully share parenting into the future.
  • Parent Mentoring | Individual sessions which focus on helping parents to understand their own and their child’s behaviour, giving them the tools they need as a parent.

One Family will also announce the expansion of its parenting programmes for parents into new regions including the North-West, and new online parenting programmes which commence in January 2015. These additional services will enhance and complement One Family’s existing suite of supports for today’s families which include workshops, welfare to work programmes, counselling including crisis pregnancy counselling, and the askonefamily lo-call helpline on 1890 66 22 12.

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About One Family

One Family was founded in 1972 as Cherish and is Ireland’s leading organisation for one-parent families 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 62 22 12, counselling, and provision of training courses for parents and for professionals. One Family also promotes Family Day and presents the Family Day Festival every May, an annual celebration of the diversity of families in Ireland today (www.familyday.ie). For further information, visit www.onefamily.ie.

Available for Interview

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

Donagh McGowan, Solicitor | via Karen Kiernan on 086 850 9191

Further Information/Scheduling

Shirley Chance, Director of Communications | t: 01 664 0124 / e: schance@onefamily.ie

 

Featured Service | Parent Mentoring

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Every month a member of the One Family services team explains more about the particular supports they offer. This month, Parent Mentor Niki Williams writes about One Family mentoring supports available to all parents.

Parent Mentoring is a service where a parent can safely talk one to one with a trained professional about any concerns they may have with their family and child relationships. With sensitive guidance and practical suggestions, the mentor supports a parent to identify what is working well for their family and what could be changed.

laptop and headphones for the new generationsRaising children can be a really challenging job yet most of us don’t evaluate our family relationships until a crisis forces us to. When living with a situation daily, it can be difficult to ‘see the wood for the trees’. Whether facing tantrums with toddlers, fussy eaters, children who won’t stay in their beds, unhappiness at school or a grunting teenager, it’s okay for a parent to need a listening ear and a helping hand sometimes. Parents always work hard to do their very best for their children.

A Parent Mentor will support a parent to take time to reflect and reach a new perspective on what’s happening. This is useful for any parent regardless of the age and stage of their child/ren.

Niki Williams

Niki Williams, Parent Mentor

I’m a Psychiatric Nurse, Counsellor, Parent Mentor and Trauma Therapist by training. I’ve also experienced challenging life events. In my experience, getting support doesn’t always mean solving the problem. It can mean maintaining a loving relationship even in the face of that problem. With increased knowledge about why parents and children behave the way they do, a more peaceful and enhanced home life can result for every member of the family.

One Family’s Parenting Mentoring service is now available in Cork, Dublin and Wicklow with additional regions being added later this year. This is a low-cost service charged on a sliding scale from €20-€60. To book, call 01 662 9212 or click here to complete a short booking form.

Next, you might like to read what One Family Counselling Support Worker, Lisa Maguire, wrote last month about our services for Young People in Care.

Lone Parents Forced Out of Workforce – One Family Supports New St Vincent De Paul Report

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Press Release

Government Claims to Have Protected ‘Most Vulnerable’

yet One-Parent Families are Poorer When Working 

One Family supports today’s St Vincent De Paul report findings 

(Dublin, Monday 22 September 2014) One Family – Ireland’s organisation for one-parent families and people sharing parenting – welcomes the St  Vincent De Paul report published today which recognises that being a lone parent is one of the hardest survival situations in the State. One Family’s 42 years of experience delivering expert services to those parenting alone and sharing parenting helps to strengthen the SVP message.

Karen Kiernan, One Family CEO explains: “The devastating impact of Budget 2012 means that those parenting alone have been living a financially precarious life.  Today’s child and family poverty statistics highlight the inconvenient truths for Government; that maintaining the value of social security support helps protect families with children from poverty, and that work isn’t working for far too many families. The government may claim to have protected the ‘most vulnerable’ but there are thousands of lone parents and their children living in desperate circumstances. We must move on from attacking those parenting alone to addressing real needs.”

Stuart Duffin, One Family Director of Policy & Programmes, highlights: “The stark evidence we collate on an on-going basis – from callers to our national askonefamily helpline and responses to our monthly survey – illustrate unequivocally that survival for our families in low-paid or no employment is balanced on a knife edge. This is because the support they get from the State is continuing to decline in real terms, while the barriers to returning to the workplace remain insurmountable for so many. If items such as food, social housing and childcare continue to become more expensive, these families’ overall incomes cannot keep up.”

Lone parents are being forced out of employment. One Family has heard from working lone parents who, with the changes being implemented from Budget 2012, have had a net income reduction of €200 per week. The ongoing reduction of the income disregard – the amount a lone parent in receipt of the One-Parent Family Payment can earn without a reduction in supports as they transition into employment – from €146.50 to €60 per week is working against Government policy. This reduction means that it is no longer financially viable for many to work which is the opposite of what Government claimed to set out to do – support lone parents into employment.  Although 53% of lone parents are in the labour force, one-parent families remain those statistically most at risk of poverty.  This cannot be justified.

Stuart Duffin further comments: “This isn’t just about balancing the high cost of housing, childcare and energy: it includes a family’s need to be part of society, by being able to participate in things many take for granted, such as buying a small birthday present or taking the children swimming on occasion. Government needs to square-up to in-work poverty. ”

One Family’s 10 Solutions to Government address this as a matter of urgency. Research shows that a key contributor to children’s futures is not the structure of their families but living in consistent poverty.  Current policies mean that Ireland risks seeing more poor children becoming poor adults. This is catastrophic for their life chances and the public purse.

Click here to read One Family’s monthly survey results. The St Vincent De Paul report can be read here.

One Family’s demands for Budget 2015 are:

  1. Work must pay and be seen to pay.
  2. The proposed parental dividend must work in conjunction with an up-rated income disregard.
  3. Those parenting alone must have equal access to all of the government activation measures, such as MOMENTUM and access to free part-time education to help raise their labour market skills base.
  4. Comprehensive provision and support for Out Of School Childcare and Recreation (OSCAR). Currently, the new child care provision (ASCCS) only lasts for 12 months, is not available for existing workers and does not take into account existing childcare relationships.
  5. The Single Person Child Carer Tax Credit discriminates against those sharing parenting – most often against Fathers, in effect – and thus must recognise the realities of contemporary Irish family life.

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About One Family

One Family was founded in 1972 as Cherish and is Ireland’s leading organisation for one-parent families 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 62 22 12, counselling, and provision of training courses for parents and for professionals. One Family also promotes Family Day and presents the Family Day Festival every May, an annual celebration of the diversity of families in Ireland today (www.familyday.ie). For further information, visit www.onefamily.ie.

Available for Interview

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

Stuart Duffin, Director of Policy & Programmes | t: 01 662 9212 or 087 062 2023

 

 

Has your One Parent Family payment ended?

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Some people will no longer qualify for the One Parent Family Payment (OFP) from 4 July 2013. If you are getting no other payment you may qualify for other income supports. A Jobseeker’s Allowance transition payment is available, which aims to support lone parents with children under 14 years of age back into the workforce. You need to make a new claim for these payments.

If you are working and are already getting a Family Income Supplement (FIS) your FIS payment will automatically increase when your OFP ends. This will partially make up for the loss of the OFP.

If you are unsure of what you can access and are struggling financially, please call our askonefamily Lo-call Helpline on 1890 662 212 or email us.

Q&A

1.    Q. My payment is due to end in July as my youngest child is 18, can I avail of the Jobseeker’s Allowance – Transition scheme?

A:  No, the Jobseeker’s Allowance – Transition scheme will only apply to those whose youngest child is under 14 so if you are applying for Jobseeker’s Allowance you will be subject to the full conditionality of being available for and genuinely seeking full time work.

2.    Q. My payment is due to end in July and my youngest child is 11.  I am working 5 mornings a week from 10 to 12 noon, can I apply for Jobseeker’s Allowance – Transition?

A:  Yes, because your child is under 14 you can apply for Jobseeker’s Allowance – Transition and although you are employed for 5 days in the week you are still eligible for this payment, subject to the means test.

3.   Q. I started receiving OPF in November 2011. My child is 14 now and my payment is going to end as the age conditions changes from 14 to 12 in July.  What payment am I eligible for as I am job seeking already?

A: As your child is already 14 then you can apply for Jobseeker’s Allowance and you will need to meet the full conditionality of the payment of being available for and genuinely seeking full time work.

 

 

 

 

Public call to give one-parent families an equal chance for economic well-being in Budget 2014

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Press Release

(Dublin, Friday 19 July) Today One Family, Ireland’s leading organisation for one-parent families, calls on members of the public to email and connect with their local TDs to demand the implementation of One Family’s “10 Solutions for Smarter Futures,” a series of ten no-nonsense, low or no-cost actions that government must implement to better the lives of the adults and children in one-parent families who continue to experience the highest rates of poverty in Ireland. 2014 is the 20th anniversary of Family Day as proclaimed by the UN – the Irish Government should reflect this by giving one-parent families an equal chance.

There are over 215,000 one-parent families in Ireland today and over half a million people living in one-parent families. One Family calls on each of these families, and everyone who knows a member of a one-parent family, to join in the campaign by emailing their local TD to ensure that all of Ireland’s families can enjoy a higher quality of life.

One Family Director of Policy and Programmes, Stuart Duffin, commented: “The 10 Solutions are all about delivering some of the supports needed to enable lone parents to have Smarter Futures out of poverty, off social assistance and into quality sustainable jobs.  These solutions may not require a lot of money but they do require public services and policy makers to think and behave creatively in order to deliver more appropriate and effective services for their customers and constituents.”

10 Solutions for Smarter Futures is part of One Family’s Strategy 2013-2015, launched last month on the 28th.  These solutions are focused on improving the well-being of Ireland’s one parent families, and they are changes that will benefit everyone. Just over 87,000 people are in receipt of the One-Parent Family Payment (OFP).  Mr. Duffin explains: “The new Jobseekers Allowance payment, which responds to our call for Flexibilities, is designed to allow former recipients of OFP whose youngest child is under 14 years of age to avail  of Minister Burton’s activation services to return to work, education or training. The implementation of 10 Solutions for Smarter Futures would make a real difference for lone parents as they move into the workplace, education and/or training as the solutions fully recognise the particular difficulties that can be faced by those parenting alone such as lack of child care and long-term absence from the labour market.”

Mr. Duffin commented further: “To help some of the poorest children in Ireland have a better life, please champion and advocate for 10 Solutions.”

One Family’s Number 1 solution is:

Flexibilities: allow lone parents who are moving to Jobseeker’s Allowance to seek only part-time work during the school term in order to assist lone parents who have a child with a disability or lack of access to childcare or are coping with a bereavement or separation.

Others include: solution 5 – Responsive Learning; solution 6 – Progression Opportunities; solution 10 – Poverty and Parent Proofing.

Members of the public are invited to visit www.onefamily.ie to learn more about 10 Solutions for Smarter Futures and to add their voices to the campaign by availing of the facility there to email their TDs. For additional information, they may also email: solut10ns@onefamily.ie.

Notes for Editors:

  • 1 in 4 families with children in Ireland is a one-parent family
  • Over half a million people live in one-parent families in Ireland
  • Almost 1 in 5 children (18.3%) live in a one-parent family (Census 2011)
  • There are over 215,000 one-parent families in Ireland today (25.8% of all families with children; Census 2011)
  • 87,586 of those are currently receiving the One-Parent Family Payment.
  • Those living in lone parent households continue to experience the highest rates of deprivation with almost 56% of individuals from these households experiencing one or more forms of deprivation (EU-SILC 2011).
  • The full 10 Solutions for Smarter Futures document is available to read here.
  • Twitter #10Solutions

 

About One Family

One Family was founded in 1972 and is Ireland’s leading organisation for one-parent families offering support, information and services to all members of all one-parent families, to those experiencing an unplanned pregnancy and to those 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 622 212, counselling, and provision of training courses for parents and for professionals. One Family also promotes Family Day, an annual celebration of the diversity of families in Ireland today, with almost 10,000 people attending events this year on 19 May (www.familyday.ie). For further information, visit www.onefamily.ie.

 

Available for Interview

Stuart Duffin, Director of Policy & Programmes | t: 01 662 9212 or 087 062 2023

 

Further Information/Scheduling

Shirley Chance, Director of Communications | t: 01 662 9212 or 087 414 8511