It's been a busy time for One Family, and one that has been touched by sadness as we said goodbye to our friend and colleague, Sherie de Burgh, who passed away peacefully in February after a long illness. Sherie joined One Family in 2004 as Director of Counselling Services, having developed the IFPA’s crisis pregnancy counselling service previously. She was a visionary whose life’s work truly made a difference. Our thoughts remain with Sherie's son, Dorje, her family and friends. We thank colleagues in the sector and beyond who have shared their condolences and memories. 

Our Spring schedule of programmes for parents and for professionals has started with courses running in Cork, Dublin and Limerick. Recruitment is now open for a number of upcoming courses too, including online parenting programmes.

Over 1,000 parents who share parenting responded to our Shared Parenting Survey. Read what they told us and our policy recommendations in our report and find out more below.

We presented to the Joint Committee for Social Protection to highlight our continued concerns about the challenges one-parent families have to contend with, and responded to the latest Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC) which shows that one-parent families still experience the highest rates of poverty in Ireland.

One Family was founded as Cherish, in that time when pregnant unmarried women were ‘sent away’, by a small group of unmarried mothers who were raising their babies themselves in very difficult circumstances. Our founding member Maura O'Dea Richards responded to what has become known about Tuam Mother and Baby Home in this statement.

Continue reading for more news and details.

To find out more about these courses and to book your place, click here.

To find out more about and to book your place, click here.

 

One Family was invited to address the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection and welcomed the opportunity to highlight to the Committee members the needs of people parenting alone or sharing parenting. We focused on child poverty, issues with non-payment of child maintenance, in-work supports and access to education. Our overarching message was that the Department of Social Protection must work closely with One Family, other interest groups and other Government Departments to ensure that the unacceptably high levels of poverty experienced by many one-parent families are addressed and to design a social welfare system where work pays. The importance of affordable and accessible childcare and long term housing are central in achieving this. 

You can watch the presentation here.

One Family responded to the latest figures released from the Survey on Income & Living Conditions (SILC) with alarm as it shows that one-parent families are almost four times more likely than two-parent households to live in consistent poverty.

Deprivation is the inability to afford at least two basic necessities, from a list of 11, such as going 24 hours without a substantial meal or being cold because parents are unable to afford to heat the home. Of those living in households with one adult and one or more children aged under 18, 57.9% suffered deprivation in 2015. This shocking evidence of poverty underlines concerns that these families are being left behind. 

Read our full response here.

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