Evidencing the Impact of Financial Hardship on Single and Separated Parents

The Challenge

The research set out to examine the financial vulnerabilities facing lone parents in Northern Ireland and the impact this has on their physical and mental health, their children’s wellbeing, their approach to parenting, parents’ capacity to participate in employment, and their experiences of accessing government financial support (the benefits system). 

What we did

The CES team conducted the research between April 2022 and September 2023 through arange of activities including:

• A review of relevant literature including best practice in UK and elsewhere.
• A review of Northern Ireland and UK policy, to identify potential levers for change which could improve single parents’ financial wellbeing and address the financial difficulties they face.
• An online survey completed by 247 parents, which gathered information about the nature of the financial challenges they face, the impact on their wellbeing and sources of support.
• A series of focus groups and interviews with 50 parents to explore in greater depth, how financial hardship impacted on them and their children.
• A series of interviews with relevant stakeholders in academia, and the statutory, community and voluntary and private sectors to gather their insights into the financial challenges facing single parents and identify potentially beneficial supports or interventions.
• Engagement with Parenting Focus staff to explore the issues facing parents and to gather their feedback on emerging findings from the research.
• Consultations with the Parent Reference Group and Research Reference Group to seek their advice and feedback at key stages in the Solus project.
• The final research report was launched in October 2023.

The Impact

Drawing on these findings, CES and Parenting Focus made a series of recommendations for government and service providers which were intended to ensure better support is provided to single parents, including, specific financial support to benefit low-income families, improved employment opportunities for lone parents, opportunities for social connections, and advice on navigating the benefits system. These are outlined below.

Recommendations ‍

• The Northern Ireland Executive should agree to provide specific financial supports which will benefit low-income families, including lone parents, e.g. reduce debt deductions, increase the threshold for debt relief orders and introduce ‘better start’ grant payments for children at different developmental stages or introduce targeted support, similar to the One Parent Family Payment available to parents in Ireland.
• The Department of Communities, Department of Health, Department of Education, Jobs and Benefits offices, local councils and community and voluntary sector need to work collectively to proactively increase awareness of and improve access for single parents to accurate and reliable information and advice about benefits and other government supports, to ensure parents know what they are entitled to and how they can access it.
• Health and social care professionals and community and voluntary sector organisations should continue to identify opportunities for parents to access peer support and maintain social connections.
• Agencies and organisations in the statutory and community and voluntary sectors providing financial advice to parents, should support them to explore their financial capability and navigate the benefits system, advising how they can maximise their income.
• Consideration should be given to the needs of the whole family including:

- Extending free school meals to more children, introducing statutory regulation of uniform costs and promoting ‘re-use, recycle’ schemes

- Urgently address the unaffordability of childcare in Northern Ireland

- Tackling ongoing problems with the Child Maintenance Service

- Enabling access for families to appropriate evidence-based interventions.

• Service providers supporting parents through separation should encouragemparents to discuss financial issues and shared parenting arrangements and to reach a resolution as part of the separation process - if possible, before separation. The Department of Health should continue to ensure free and timely access to early intervention family mediation for parents who are not involved in court proceedings.
• The Department for Communities, along with other relevant NI government departments should seek to improve employment opportunities for lone parents particularly resident parents.
• The Department of Justice should take steps to redress the current equity of access to court-directed family mediation, where parents without legal aid are required to self-fund their participation in mediation while a parent receiving legal aid can access it free of charge.
• All those who work with or on behalf of single parents, including policymakers, practitioners and service providers, should strive to ensure there is a better understanding of single parents’ circumstances, by tackling negative stereotyping, taking steps to remove the stigma of lone parenting and challenging the misperception that lone parents are a homogeneous group.
• All relevant government departments and agencies should address current gaps in statistical and qualitative data relating to lone parents in NI, in order to ensure a robust evidence base is established to help expose hidden trends and gaps in the data and target resources more efficiently and effectively.

The findings and recommendationsfrom this research provide government and service providers with evidence-informed insights, which could be utilised to ensure better support is provided to single parents, including specific financial support to benefit low-income families, improved employment opportunities for lone parents, opportunities for social connections, and advice on navigating the benefits system.

Since the completion of this project, Parenting Focus has closed. You can read a statement from the Commissioner of Children and Young People here.