Designing services for lone parents

• Tailoring Services to family circumstances: It will be important to assess the needs of lone parents in relation to their family circumstances. It may be worth creating opportunities locally for parents to link up with a view to submitting applications on a job share basis. It may be relevant for parents to consider self employment or a combination of self employment and part time paid employment.
• Building up confidence and dealing with personal problems: Many lone parents have to overcome personal issues such as low self confidence before they can begin their journey to employment. This means that close working with other statutory and community agencies may be required.
• Help with Education and Skills Development: The Growing up in Scotland study showed that lone mothers were likely to have fewer qualifications than couple mothers.  As lone parents are the sole breadwinners in their household, they are more likely to need formal childcare. This means they need higher earnings to escape from poverty, yet they start from a disadvantaged position.  Early engagement with lone parent families is vital to maximise their opportunities to improve education and qualifications. This is likely to involve partnership working with a variety of organisations.

• Access to Childcare: Many lone parents are reluctant to use formal childcare and may need specific encouragement to do so. Parents will only receive help with childcare costs from tax credits if they use registered care.

Young Parents

The majority of young parents come from disadvantaged backgrounds and can struggle due to their lack of formal qualifications and work experience.

• School age parents: young parents are entitled to stay in education, under the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2009. If the connection with formal education can be maintained this can give young parents access to much better life opportunities. To secure this help, employability agencies need to work closely with education authorities.
• Young Parents 16 and over: young lone parents in disadvantaged areas face many additional issues. This means that employability needs to be closely integrated with family support and tailored to individual needs.

• User involvement in programme design: Successful work with young parents is likely to benefit from their involvement in designing the help they receive, including an element of peer support and also in reminding and following up with them about dates for meetings.

Lone Fathers

Lone fathers may require assistance to sustain employment as employers are likely to be less willing to adapt employment conditions to fit with father's childcare responsibilities. Lone fathers who have recently separated may struggle financially in relation to securing child benefit and therefore access to Working Tax Credit.