Could you be part of a Single Parent Experts Group on the child maintenance system?

Across all of One Parent Families Scotland services we hear from many single parents who experience problems with child maintenance so we decided to do some research on how we could help design a fairer and more effective child maintenance system.

We are interested in hearing about single parents’ views and experiences around this.

We want to make sure single parents are involved in every stage of this project, so we are setting up Single Parent Experts groups in different locations who will meet at regular points over an 18-month period and help to come up with the recommendations and messages on what needs to change.

We are doing this work with single parents as part of a two-year project with Fife Gingerbread and the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) Scotland, funded by The Robertson Trust.

It will look at family-based arrangements as well as the Child Maintenance Service, the importance of child maintenance for children, and what can be done to make the system work better.

How you can help

We are now looking to hear specifically from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic parents and from parents under the age of 25, because these groups are currently underrepresented amongst the parents who have signed up to take part in the project.

The project is based in Scotland so we’re looking for parents who live within Scotland.

If you have experience with receiving or trying to receive child maintenance and you’re interested in taking part, please get in touch at policy@opfs.org.uk.

We’ll get back to you shortly to explain a bit more about what’s involved and find out more about you.

The deadline to let us know you’re interested will be Wednesday 7th February.