Working together for change with Lone parents

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Annual Report 2006/07

One Parent Families helped over 50,000 lone parents during 2006/07 though a range of services, including our Lone Parent Helpline, the Lone Parent Helpdesk, our free publications, our website, and our employability and other training programmes.

The Lone Parent Helpline

Generously funded by The Royal Bank of Scotland Group and delivered with One Parent Families Scotland and, until January 2007, One Plus, the Lone Parent Helpline is an invaluable source of help and support to parents. Our team of trained and supportive staff offer free, independent, confidential information and advice on a wide range of issues such as benefits, childcare, family law, finances, employment and education.

In 2006/07 we offered support and advice to 20,000 callers and sent out almost 9,000 free publications to lone parents.

What callers have said about the Lone Parent Helpline:

'One Parent Families' expert advisers guided me through so many problems and explained all sorts of things to me - including claiming benefits, something I had never done before. They always have supportive answers and practical advice on every question. Without them I just couldn't have coped.'
'I think the work of [One Parent Families] is vital as it helps me realise that I'm not alone and there are other people in the same situation. I know that there is always someone I can call if things are bad.'
'Finding One Parent Families was a godsend for me. I have been on my own for six years, bringing up my only son. Your publications and advice service are brilliant.'

The Lone Parent Helpdesk

The Lone Parent Helpdesk, supported by ASDA, is an online source of focused and up-to-date information that lone parents can access at any time of the day or night. It contains information on a diverse range of topics, such as benefits, employment, housing, disability and bereavement. During 2006/07, the Lone Parent Helpdesk received 24,000 visitors.

What users have said about the Lone Parent Helpdesk:

'You provide an excellent and invaluable information service.'
'I found the site to be clear and easy to understand and also bright and cheerful. Thank you.'

The Young Mum's Guide went regional

We published four regional editions (West Midlands, Yorkshire & Humber, North-West and Eastern) of our popular Young Mum's Guide, thanks to funding from Awards for All, a Lottery grant scheme for local communities. These upbeat, colourful magazines are packed full of information, help and advice for mums under 25.

Membership

We continued to offer a valuable membership service throughout the year. Our members were regularly updated on the issues that affect them through our monthly enewsletter and our bi-annual magazine Together.

Factsheets and other publications

Thanks to continued funding from The Royal Bank of Scotland Group we built upon our series of factsheets on specific issues, including maternity and adoption, tax credits, debt, splitting up, maintenance and employment rights. These are aimed at supporting and extending the information provided on the Lone Parent Helpline and Lone Parent Helpdesk and are sent free of charge to lone parents.

Caring for a child with additional needs

Thanks to funding from the Grand Charity, the True Colours Trust and individual supporters of One Parent Families, we were able to restart our Disabled Child project in November 2006.The project offers specialist advice and support to lone parents caring for a disabled child, by providing a call-back Over the year, we sent out service, free publications and 2,300 free copies of the a web forum. booklet published for the project, Caring for a child with additional needs, and the dedicated area of our website received 16,000 'hits'.

'I wanted to find out mainly about benefits and my rights where my children were concerned. The youngest is disabled and has just turned 16. I've recently separated from my husband ... I needed to know where I stood. They put me in the right direction and told me what I could claim legally, without incurring any kind of fraud. It was excellent - they didn't make me feel stupid.'

Lone parent caller to the Disabled Child project

FamilySafe

New funding from The Henry Smith Charity and The Rayne Foundation enabled us to restart this project, which refers parents of children displaying difficult behaviour to a support worker at Parentline Plus. We published a new edition of the project's booklet, Looking after children with challenging behaviour, having distributed 10,000 free copies of the previous edition in earlier years. We were also able to make the booklet available online in various community languages, thanks to funding from the project's original supporters, the Parenting Fund and the former DfES.

'They [Helpline staff] were very helpful. They were sympathetic and understanding ... It was all up to me - I wasn't pushed. I was happy to try it - I'd have tried anything.'

Lone parent caller to FamilySafe

Our Manchester office

Our Manchester office continued to promote the Lone Parent Helpline for parents within the Manchester area, supported by Manchester City Council. Efforts to extend our reach to lone parents who currently do not access our services resulted in an exciting pilot that involved the setting up of partnerships with community organisations representing African Caribbean, Bangladeshi, Chinese and Somali lone parents. Since the year-long pilot began, in October 2006, we have established a partners' steering group and started work on the cultural adaptation of our employability training materials to suit the needs of our partners' clients. In the coming year we will deliver 3-day training-the-trainers programmes to staff and volunteers from the partner organisations, during which they will learn how to deliver the employability programme to their clients. The project will also translate many of our publications and factsheets into Bengali, Chinese and Somali.

Financial literacy training

During the year we built on our 2005/06 action research pilot in Manchester with further funding from the Basic Skills Agency. We took the programme to new locations in the area and built the capacity of community organisations to increase lone parents' financial capability. Twenty-nine lone parents directly benefited through attending workshops and were signposted to further courses leading to the national tests in literacy and numeracy. This work was disseminated both locally and nationally through conferences and a comprehensive evaluation of the programme that captured good practice and learning.

Esmée Fairbairn Foundation

With funding from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, we also delivered an in-house employability programme which linked work experience at One Parent Families to soft skills and IT training. Ten lone parents in London and Manchester completed the course.


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Lone parents caring for a child with a disability or long- term health problem

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