One Family News | Welcome 2023! 🎊

One Family has been a force of change in Irish society since our foundation as Cherish in 1972; in 2022 we celebrated our 50th Anniversary.

In February we hosted, with our colleagues in Trinity College Dublin’s renowned School of Social Work and Social Policy, a wonderful online event commemorating our friend and colleague, Sherie de Burgh. We were delighted to partner for the first time with The Ark to develop an exciting work for the stage which aimed to reflect real life experiences of children in one-parent families in Ireland over the years. We submitted multiple submissions to the government, including one on Parental Alienation. One Family’s Parenting Team published a new children’s book, The Doshel Bond by Dr Sara Flynn. We also released our new human rights guidelines for guidelines for one-parent families and public bodies. In December we held the third in our series of webinars looking at Family Law Reform and ‘Building a Family Law System’ for court users. This webinar examined the needs of separating families and looked at the Department of Justice’s Family Justice Strategy and recently published Family Courts Bill.

One Family continues to work to make a positive and equal future for people parenting alone, sharing parenting and parenting around separation – changing attitudes, policies, services and lives. We are immensely proud to be given the opportunity to support one-parent families and want to thank all the families and individuals who place their trust in us.

One Family offer a range of parenting supports. One Family offer a series of group based parenting courses via Zoom starting in January 2023. Our courses are specially designed for people parenting alone, sharing parenting and separating. You can view the Zoom course calendar here.

There will be two in-person courses starting in February, the Stay and Play Parenting Course and the Baby Massage Parenting Course. You can learn more here.

Our E-learning for parents’ offers a selection of five online courses that allows you to learn at your own pace. You can sign up for the courses here. We have also recently redesigned the Family Communications: Separating Well for Children e-course. You can learn more about the course here.

The professionals e-course launched in December 2022. You can register for the professionals course here.

In June 2022, the Minister for Justice Helen McEntee, T.D. established the Civil Legal Aid Review Group to review the current operation of the Civil Legal Aid Scheme and make recommendations for its future.

The Group established to review the Scheme is made up of representatives from the Free Legal Advice Centre (FLAC), the Irish Traveller Movement, academics and researchers, legal professional representatives, officials from government departments and agencies.

As part of its work, the Group wants to hear from you about your experience of having a civil, i.e. non-criminal legal issue. The Group would like to know how you might have resolved that issue, whether you accessed the Civil Legal Aid Scheme and if so, how well it worked for you.

Your participation lets you have your say on how we can improve things for the benefit of all.

We are interested in hearing about how you worked to resolved your issue and, in particular, your experience of engaging with the Civil Legal Aid Scheme, if applicable. This engagement can be simply applying for Civil Legal Aid or receiving legal advice and representation through the Scheme. We would also like to hear about your views on how access to justice could be improved for those on low incomes.

You can complete the survey at this link to share your experiences. You can do so completely anonymously and in confidence. The survey will close at 6pm on Friday, 03 February 2023.

One Family are looking to form two groups of parents, a media panel and a policy panel. The Policy Panel is a group where parents can share their point of view on various policies which affect one-parent families. The media panel is a group who wish to share their experiences or highlight a specific issue affecting parents in the media. By becoming part of the panel you can help us shape our message and represent the realities of those parenting alone and/or sharing parenting.

Please note you must be over 18 to apply. You can complete the survey here.

Trading as One Family, Cherish CLG is a company limited by guarantee not having a share capital, registered in Dublin, Ireland with registered office at 8 Coke Lane, Dublin 7 and registered Company Number 45364. One Family is also a charity (Charity Regulatory Authority No. 20012212 and Charity No. 6525).

Directors of One Family: Helen Hall, Jennifer Good, Nuala Haughey, Eimear Fisher, Jack Eustace, Donagh McGowan, Rosemary Wokocha and John Bohan.

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