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Memorandum submitted by Gingerbread
Gingerbread welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the Children, Schools and Families' inquiry into Sure Start and Children's Centres. Gingerbread is the national charity working with single parent families. Formed following a merger of the National Council for One Parent Families and Gingerbread, we now provide increased support and a stronger campaigning voice for single parents and their families.
Single
parents in the There are 1.9 million single parents in the
· Only two per cent of single parents are teenagers and the average age of single parents is thirty six. · Single parents have moved into employment faster than any other 'disadvantaged' group over the past twelve years, and 57 per cent of single parents are now in paid work. Nine out of ten single parents say they want to work when it is right for them and their children. · Only one third of single parents receive child maintenance from their child's other parent, and over half of children in single parent families remain poor. · Paid employment can help single parents to move out of poverty, but it is not a guarantee: a third of children with a single parent working part time live below the poverty line.[i]
Introduction The principle goal of Sure Start Local Programmes has
been to enhance the life chances of young children and their families by
improving services in areas of high deprivation[ii].
There are currently 1.9 million single parents in the
Some children's centres and Sure Starts have taken part in pilots linking them with Jobcentre Plus. To date, two research projects have taken place to look at examining the involvement that Jobcentre Plus' had in Children's Centres, and to test whether children's centres can offer an effective means of engaging parents in labour market activity[iii].
The DWP report 'work-focussed services in children's centres pilots' found that many of the parents surveyed in Sure Starts were not at a stage where they were 'ready to find work' but that Jobcentre Plus' presence in children's centres or other training might be useful for future employment.
"[Many] did not consider employment an option in the short to medium term alongside their childcare responsibilities, it will be important to see how successful the pilot is in getting parents to think about, or prepare for their longer term employment options, along with promoting the benefits and availability of good childcare, so that they can consider work as an option once their children start school, or earlier"[iv]
These findings draw a parallel with Gingerbreads own findings about lone parent employment rate and the age of the youngest child, which show that parents with younger children are significantly less likely to be in paid employment. The graph below shows employment rates for single parents by age of youngest child for 2008 and 2009. .
Overall, Sure Starts Children's Centres provide a crucial lifeline to many single parents, who can sometimes feel isolated and cut off from main-stream life. This inquiry is looking at issues that are central to the lives of single parents and their children. Sure Starts are a place where single parents can meet other people in similar situations and can participate in training while their children are in childcare in the same building. Research shows that more than half of all single parents have concerns about using formal childcare to support their move into employment and children's centres are a key facility for addressing these concerns. Studies have shown that single parents are more positive about finding work if they have adequate childcare in place[v]. Children's centres are also ideal locations for single parents as they can engage with other parents in a safe non-threatening environment.
Gingerbread's partnership work with Sure Start and children's centres Gingerbread delivers national employability programmes for single parents in partnership with Marks and Spencer and Barclaycard. Gingerbread delivers the lone parent strand of Marks & Start, which is Marks & Spencers' flagship corporate social responsibility programme. Gingerbread also delivers the Barclaycard Horizons 'Your Work' programme. Both programmes aim to help single parents to move into paid employment and to increase confidence, aspirations and transferable skills. Since the inception of Marks and Start in 2004, we have successfully provided pre-employment training and work placements for over 1,500 single parents and 45 per cent of those who complete placements gained employment. Over a three year period we will have engaged with a further 1,000 single parents via the Barclaycard Horizons programme. We work closely with many Sure Starts and children's centres to make contact with single parents who want to participate and we use the centres facilities for training and development programmes.
Gingerbread's regional programmes also work very closely with Sure Start Children's Centres. Many of these programmes are designed to engage and progress single parents who are furthest from the workplace and children's centres are ideal venues for hosting programmes, engaging the target client group and providing on-site childcare. Gingerbread has recently received funding from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills Learning Revolution Transformation Fund for a community learning project for single parents in partnership with Lancaster District Children's Centres. The project aims to engage 'hard to reach' single parents with community learning programmes that will build their confidence and enable them to set up Gingerbread friendship groups as well as to put together s for other single parents wanting starting a group. Lancaster District Children's Centres will be hosting the programmes using their on-site crèches and will assist with the engagement of single parents.
Other regional programmes that involve close working with Sure Start Children's Centres include contracts funded by Manchester City Council for Gingerbread to set up 'hubs' in community venues as a first port of call for single parents to engage and progress them on to further learning and employability programmes. Gingerbread also works with Wigan Council and the Lancashire Learning & Skills Council to deliver programmes for NEET (not in employment, education or training) single parents to progress them on to positive destinations. These programmes are all hosted by children's centres, which provide on-site childcare and allow young single parents to become familiar with placing their children in childcare as well as giving opportunities to their children to social interact with other children . Hosting programmes in children's centres also gives single parents the opportunity to take part in with other services provided by the children's centres as they progress towards economic activity.
There are two specific questions raised by the inquiry that are of interest to Gingerbread and for this reason we will be focusing our submission on the following two areas:
1) How well children's centres work with other partners and services, especially schools and health services; and 2) Whether services are being accessed by those most in need and how effective they are for the most vulnerable
1) How well children's centres work with other partners and services, especially schools and health services.
Children's centres play a large role in our training and employability work with single parents and they are a focal point for engaging with parents and communities in a way that was almost totally lacking before they were developed. This has particularly been the case for community learning programmes.
We work with Sure Start children's centres in a wide variety of ways; to promote our programmes, to engage with community workers, as venues for training, and to provide childcare for the children of participants. Children's centres are ideal community venues for training as single parents often feel comfortable in settings they are familiar with and feel relaxed knowing that their children are in the same building while they participate in training programmes.
Gingerbread has developed a method of engagement with children's
centres in
We have also engaged with children's centres through the Learning
Revolution Transformation Fund project that started in September in partnership
with Lancaster District Children's Centres and children's centres in
Children's centres are one of the key sources of referrals to our learning and employability programmes, alongside Jobcentre Plus. The south east regional personal development programmes such as Building Futures relied quite heavily on children's centre referrals as they were outside the natural scope of referrals from Jobcentre Plus, due to their educational, rather than work, focus.
We have
also worked closely with local authorities on employability programmes, and
developed good working relationships with Sure Start childrens centres as a
result. This has been particularly
successful in
Similar programmes have been run with Haringey, Croydon and Hammersmith and Fulham. The facilities are excellent, they are local to the participants and trusted, and the fact that they are free all provide real benefits to voluntary organisations such as ourselves delivering employment services. However, we find that many Centres are oversubscribed, and it can be difficult for voluntary providers such as ourselves to book space.
Gingerbread has a good relationship with Sure Starts and Children's Centres. Our employability work also works with parents with older children, and it can be frustrating that similar services are not available to these parents. Given that older children are outside their remit, children's centres have been understandably reluctant to work with us when we are working with parents who have older children.
2) Whether services are being accessed by those most in need and how effective they are for the most vulnerable.
Although we cannot supply statistics on the numbers of disadvantaged people recruited from Sure Start or children's centres to our programmes, referrals from Sure Starts tend to be lower skilled and not always able to start our Marks and Start programmes immediately. Referrals from Sure Start are more likely to be further away from 'job readiness' and would benefit from types of training centred on building confidence, realising potential and aspirations. Therefore, it would seem to suggest that Sure Starts and children centre's services are being primarily accessed by those most disadvantaged and in need of support.
This would seem to concur with the findings from DWPs research 'work-focused services in children's centres pilots' that found that many of the parents interviewed were not ready to find paid employment "as they do not necessarily see work as an option in the short to medium term, alongside their primary childcare responsibilities" [vi]
Conclusion Gingerbread enjoys a close working relationship with many Sure Start children's centres in our training and employability work and they are a focal point for engaging with parents within their communities.
Sure Start and children centres provide excellent facilities for networking and are ideal for single parents with childcare commitments who want to use the facilities and begin a process of development. Greater support is needed to allow organisations like Gingerbread to deliver confidence building and personal development programmes in children's centres and help those single parents who are further away from work to begin to think about entering the paid workforce and investigate training or skills shortfalls.
Recommendations We would like to see: · Continued funding for Sure Start Children's Centres which play a vital role in the lives of many single parents. · Improved links with school age children and more partnership work with Extended Schools. · Increased capacity for children's centres to work in partnership with charities. · More focus on training and skills to help those with young children begin to engage with work-related activity.
October 2009
[i] DWP (2008) Households Below Average Income 1994/5 - 2006/07 available at http://www.dwp.gov.uk/asd/hbai/hbai2007/contents.asp [ii] The National Evaluation of Sure Start team based at the Institute for the Study of Children, Families & Social Issues, (March 2008), The Impact of Local Programmes on Three Year Olds and Their Families. [iii] DWP, (2009), Jobcentre Plus and Children's Centres. Work-focused services in children's centres pilot. Research carried out by the Institute for Employment Studies on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions. [iv] DWP, (2009), Jobcentre Plus and Children's Centres. Work-focused services in children's centres pilot. Research carried out by the Institute for Employment Studies on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions. [v] Edinburgh Research Institute, 2008, The Role of Childcare in Getting Disadvantaged Parents into Employment. [vi] DWP, (2009), Jobcentre Plus and Children's Centres. Work-focused services in children's centres pilot. Research carried out by the Institute for Employment Studies on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions. |