Member's Briefing: May 2002

FREEPHONE 0800 018 5026

On 25th March the new Lone Parent Helpline was launched in London and Edinburgh. Generous support from the Royal Bank of Scotland and MCI WorldCom means that lone parents anywhere in Great Britain can now ring the freephone number and get access to a wide range of support and free copies of a number of publications.

The board room and dining room of the Royal Bank of Scotland headquarters in Edinburgh were the grand setting for Health Minister Malcolm Chisholm to launch the Scottish end of the project.

Here he is shown putting in the jigsaw piece across the border, representing the new links between One Plus and OPFS in Scotland and the National Council for One Parent Families in London. Other launch speakers were the Bank's Diversity Manager, Gill Bruce, One Plus Director John Findlay, OPFS Director Sue Robertson, and the author of the three new advice booklets also launched that day, Fergus Muirhead.

Gill Bruce welcomed the new project, stressing the Bank's commitment to social inclusion for those facing isolation, lack of opportunity and poverty. As well as supporting the helpline and the publications, the three-year funding programme will pay for a national database of support agencies with associated lone parent volunteer and work experience programme. One of the lone parents at the launch, John Callaghan, has already benefited from such a programme, having been recruited to work at the Royal Bank following his attendance on a training course organised by OPFS through the New Deal Innovation Fund.

The whole project came alive at lunchtime that day, when STV showed the helpline number during the news item about the launch. The phone started ringing on every line almost as soon as the 0800 018 5026 number hit the screen, and we got an immediate taste of the pent-up demand out there. Publicity in the Daily Record, Radio Scotland and in a wide range of local papers has ensured that the line is well publicised. In some ways we were relieved that the planned launch on Breakfast TV did not happen, due to the illness of JK Rowling, but we sympathised with our English colleagues, whose London launch was affected by the last-minute loss of their star guest.

Thanks to all this publicity, we had more calls to the helpline in the four days that the office was open following the launch than in the rest of the month, and a far higher proportion of calls from outside Lothian.

Helpline cards and posters promoting the service are available from OPFS and are being distributed widely throughout Scotland.

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Although most of the news interest was on the raise in National Insurance, the most significant changes affecting lone parents are in the new Child Tax Credit scheme which will be introduced in 2003.

The Child Tax Credit brings together the various strands of support for families with children - the child elements in Income Support, Jobseeker's Allowance, Working Families' Tax Credit (WFTC), Disabled Person's Tax Credit (DPTC) and the Children's Tax Credit - into one streamlined system. This will bring financial gains to most parents bringing up children on their own, including those on Income Support.

Full details of the scheme will emerge over coming months, but it is encouraging to note improvements such as the abolition of capital rules, which means that people with savings will not be penalised unduly. Although the Credit will only be assessed once a year, there is protection for parents whose income falls during the year (the chance to get an immediate recalculation of the Credit). Rises in income of up to £2500 will be ignored, and the Credit will only be recalculated if income rises more than that amount. Student nurses will be entitled to apply for the Credit.

The government faces a hard task in meeting its target of 70% of lone parents in work by 2010, and two Budget measures reinforce the New Deal for Lone Parents. Childcare co-ordinators will be appointed in each Jobcentre Plus district to assist advisers, and mentoring schemes for lone parents will be launched in 2003. OPFS and other lone parent organisations look forward to further details of these measures, and to being involved in carrying them out.

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When considering ways of helping families out of poverty, one of the issues which has to be decided is whether benefits and tax should be calculated for individuals or for households. In Britain we started with tax and benefits being assessed for households, then taxation was moved to an individualised basis, whereas benefits have been kept at a household level. For lone parents on benefit, this has resulted in issues about whether they are cohabiting with a partner, with cohabitation potentially taking away their right to an independent income.

More recently, the shift from Family Credit being paid through the Benefit system to Working Families Tax Credit has started to undermine the idea of taxation being individually assessed. With the planned move to Tax Credits next year, this shift back to households in taxation would be reinforced.

The question as to whether this is a sensible direction for policy has now been raised in a discussion paper published by the Trades Union Congress, which compares policy in Britain with that of other countries.

The implications of using the household rather than the individual to assess benefits and tax are:

• Disincentives for women in couples to work: it is less worthwhile for cohabiting or married women to work where their partners are not working or are on a low wage. This reduces the supply of labour and also means that women whose relationships break up are likely to be more disadvantaged because they have not been working. It also reduces household income, since women's earnings are an increasingly important element of family income. Because Britain has a relatively high proportion of people relying on means tested benefits, the effects here are particularly large. Thus, the proportion of households with no-one working has risen from 6.5% in 1975 to 17.9% in 1998 and has continued over the period of the Labour Government, despite its stated wish to reduce this.
• Incentive to family breakdown: The evidence is that taxation of individuals reduces relationship breakdown and encourages family formation by reducing the stresses associated with one adult depending on another.

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In January 2002, during a debate on a Private Member's Bill on partnership rights, the House of Lords were told that the Scottish Executive are likely to be bringing forward legislation on Family Law in the near future. OPFS, together with the other national family organisations, has written to the Civil Justice Department, enquiring when this might happen, but as yet we have been given no timetable.

In the meantime, we have seen two contrasting cases in the Sheriff Courts regarding lesbian families. In Glasgow a Sheriff refused to grant parental rights and responsibilities to a lesbian co-parent, saying that "a lesbian family was not a family unit for the purposes of granting parental rights". Shortly after that an Edinburgh Sheriff did grant parental rights and responsibilities to a lesbian couple. This was the first time such rights had been granted in Scotland, although in England and Wales it is quite common for lesbian partners to be granted joint residence for their partner's children.

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Free School Meals

At the Director's Meeting on 21st March, it was agreed that OPFS would support the Free School Meals (Scotland) Bill. This calls for all primary and secondary school children to be given free school meals of a good nutritional standard, as a way of addressing child nutrition and overcoming the stigma of free school meals on a means tested basis.

Children are unbeatable

At the same meeting, it was also agreed that OPFS would support the Children are Unbeatable campaign which is pressing for the Executive to widen its proposed ban on smacking children under 3 to a ban on all physical punishment, assuming that parents would not be prosecuted for "trivial smacks" and would be given support in finding alternative methods of punishment.

Evidence from countries which have implemented such bans show that the level of child abuse has been reduced, that very few parents have been prosecuted and that fewer teenagers become involved in alcohol or drug abuse. Indeed, a recent English study (Nobes & Smith, Journal of Family Issues, 23(3) 349-373, 2002) showed that in a sample of 500 parents, lone mothers did not punish their children more severely than partnered mothers, despite their greater level of disadvantage.

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The organisation works to match youngsters from lone parent families with adult mentors - the result is a two-way friendship from which both individuals benefit. The mentors agree to spend two hours a week for at least a year meeting and sharing activities with the child or youngster. They will spend time doing everyday things like playing football, going shopping or just having a chat. Mentors can make a difference to the lives of children and young people from one parent families who are in need of that extra friend and confidant in their life.

How do I find out more?

If you are a lone parent with a son or daughter aged 6-15 years of age and feel that they may benefit from a one-to-one friendship with an adult volunteer, contact Karen McClelland on 01475 674640 (Glasgow area) or Amanda Kaple on 07789 921535 (Edinburgh area) for an information pack.
Web: www.mentors.org.uk

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User-friendly web site for all women living alone which provides a database of trusted and known contacts from the trades and professional spheres.

Leah Phryce-Jones set up this web site to give women access to services they can trust: "This is not meant to infer that all women are useless or inadequate - but how many of us actually know what, for instance, the car mechanic is really doing? Or how many lady plumbers do you know?"
Web: www.women-alone.com

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Money Series

£2.50 each, free to lone parents.

Bank Accounts: Advice on bank accounts, credit ratings and savings.
Debt: How to manage and avoid debt.
Separation: Dealing with money issues after separation.

Education and Employment

In early August a series of publications that cover Education and Employment will be published, with topics such as Higher Education, Further Education, Choices and Moving On and Employment Rights.

Published jointly by OPFS, National Council for One Parent Families and One Plus.

Factsheets

The OPFS Lone Parent Rights Guide, a set of factsheets covering benefits, employment, housing, maintenance and other issues, has been updated for the 2002 benefit rates and other changes. £5.00 each, free to lone parents.

A new factsheet on Child Support describing changes to the system is also available.

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The Helpdesk section of the web site is currently being modified into a new question and answer format, backed up by our in-depth factsheets. The aim is to make it quicker and easier for people to find the information they are looking for. It is hoped the new version will be up and running by next month.

Our web site worker, Paul Wilson, has recently visited our projects at Whitfield and Maddiston with the Deputy Director, Ian Maxwell, to get updates on the projects and to get feedback on how they think the site could help them.

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OPFS, together with a consortium of other organisations, has been successful in obtaining funding from the New Opportunities Fund for a Web portal for lone parents and women returners which will offer both practical information on issues like funding and childcare and access to open learning resources on-line. The One Plus, Scottish Out of School Care Network, Engender and the Rosemount Adult Learning Centre in Glasgow. This represents an excellent opportunity to build on the existing web site development which Paul Wilson has been doing for OPFS.

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Cathy Scott

Headquarters

We are pleased to welcome Cathy Scott as our new fund raiser. Cathy is coming to us with previous experience of fund raising for cycling projects. She starts work with us on 29/4/02 and will be working Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings.

We are also pleased to say that Kate Russell will be staying with us for at least another year as Training and Development Co-ordinator, managing the CSA training in Northern Ireland and developing our consortium training on family change which we are doing through Scotland's Families.

Paul Wilson, our web worker, has also agreed to stay another year with us to continue developing our web site.

Kim McRae

Dundee Project

In Dundee we are welcoming Kim McRae as our new Project Manager, also starting on 29th April. Kim was previously a Senior Social Worker in Angus and has considerable experience of interagency working in Angus which should be extremely relevant for her new post.

Change of Convenor

Due to a change in job, Ruth Lockwood has had to step down as Convenor, and has been replaced by Pauline Brogan until the AGM. Pauline is a lone parent living in Edinburgh with two young children. We are pleased to say that Ruth is staying as a Director and will continue to be involved in the Finance Group.

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Centre users were given an extra boost in their fund raising efforts by donations from our MSP, John McAllion, and our MP, Ian Luke towards our prize bingo night in March. Ian visited our project in February, and discussed the necessity of the service provided for lone parents in this area. We are very grateful to them both for their continued support. The money raised on the night paid for the children's Easter trip to an indoor adventure playground in Perth.

Gemma Abbott, who had been with the project for 14 years, has moved to a new job. As Gemma had been associated with so many initiatives, projects and local people during her time with OPFS, we had a `bit of a do' for her here at the project. Old acquaintances, and new, turned up to express their thanks for her help over the years, and wish her well in her new endeavours. One of the most poignant moments, for Gemma, was a visit from a young man who had been the first child to attend the contact centre here at Whitfield many years ago.

We have two New Deal trainees with us at present, Shelley and Gillian, who are both assisting with office administration and reception duties. A farewell was bid to Louise Smith, our social work student, who successfully finished her placement and returned to her studies. We wish her well in completing the remainder of her university course. Maureen McCabe, our part time crèche worker, has also left our employment, due to family commitments, but happily for us continues to be involved with the project.

We collaborated with other projects in the Whitfield locality to put on a week- long programme of events to celebrate International Women's Week in March. These included henna painting and a sari demonstration, line dancing, belly dancing, reflexology, facial acu-pressure, healthy food tasting and health check workshops. The events, and the joint planning process, proved so successful that the projects are planning a repeat of a similar type of programme for Adult Learners' Week in May.

Group work is continuing in the Whitfield and Menzieshill areas. Two of the women from the Whitfield group have completed crèche training and joined the list of local crèche workers. Parents Groups covering "Talking to Your Kids About Sex" have been delivered in the Douglas, Kirkton and Ardler areas of the city, by Caroline Urquhart, Project Worker (funded by Lloyds TSB).

The contact centre after a brief quiet period has begun to pick up again. We had a boost to the funds of the centre through a grant from the City of Dundee Children's Fund, and a donation through a local solicitor. We have also made several successful applications for grants to cover the site fees and running costs for the holiday caravan and hope to open it soon for the season.

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The Spring session ended with our annual Family Fun day. We had a total of 26 adults and 63 children joining in our activities, games, bouncy castle and barbecue. The busy day ended with the children receiving Easter eggs which were kindly donated by Aberlour Childcare Trust.

The adult groupwork programme continued to expand thanks to the Community Access Programme at Falkirk College. The Lifestyle Group has come to an end and many of the women signed up for the Social Psychology group which will continue during the next session. We hope to have an `Options & Choices' half module course starting soon after the Easter break which may encourage anyone interested to take the step into further education or training at Falkirk College.

The second 'Who'd be a Parent' group is well under way and being enjoyed by all those attending.

The nursery children continue to thrive with some old faces moving on to pre-school nursery and eager new faces filling in the spaces.

The Outreach Service funding has been continued until the end of May 2002 while we are negotiating and further investigating ways to secure its funding.

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So far the North Lanarkshire Sitter Service have recruited and trained 10 Sessional Sitters and Caroline McGinn has just started as the service Administrator for 30 hours per week. We are now established in our Motherwell Office at last! The Sitter Service should soon be registered with the Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Child Care and the Sitters vetted. We hope to start the provision of our flexible childcare from May. First though, we will be visiting the families to check their home for safety standards/regulations and to get to know them. At the moment we have 16 families on the waiting list and we are about to publicise the Sitter Service in the local newspapers to attract more families.

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These groups have continued to offer support to lesbian parents locally and nationally. OPFS provides an office base for the groups including a library of relevant books for adults and children and a contact point by telephone and e-mail for enquiries. It can be contacted through the web site: www.lesbian-mothers-scotland.org

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The Lone Fathers Project continues to attract new families. To cope with the increase, the Saturday trips now work on a rota, with almost all the families enjoying at least three outings a month. A healthy eating lunch club will be in operation from the beginning of May, which will hopefully encourage the families to think about what they eat. During the lunch club, a guest speaker will address the issues and concerns raised by the dads, these have ranged from children's behavioural problems to self confidence to how to get motivated. All classes will run in a very informal manner. In addition, all the families are offered the opportunity to participate in the `food run', a weekly trip in the minibus to the local cheap superstore.

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The Service is now into its 4th year of operation and has proved to be a popular child care option for many families. To date there are 210 registered families, 141 of which have or are accessing the Service and in the last year we were able to provide 18101 hours of care to families, an increase of 3169.85 on the previous year. We were able to do additional hours last year due to the grant from the New Opportunities Fund which is to continue for a further 2 years.

The demand for respite sits is currently far outstripping the hours we are able to provide, both in terms of staff hours available and available funding. In order to help address this growing need a bid is being made to the Community Fund for specific funding for this client group which will allow us to meet this ever growing need.

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Noticeboard

Free School Meals Rally

10th May 2002, 10am-1pm
Glasgow Film Theatre
with Elaine C Smith and MSPs

Details: 0141 333 1450

Lone Parents Support Group in Falirk

Evrey Wednesday morning, 9.30am
Lambert Day Nursery

Contact Barbara Soutar formore details:
01324 876 610

All Articles are the views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of One Parent Families Scotland