Employment, Employability and Education
Single parents and Higher Education
This report explores the barriers single parents face in accessing higher education and offers recommendations to improve inclusivity and support. Based on research by OPFS, funded by The Robertson Trust, it draws on direct consultation with single parents to highlight the financial, structural, and emotional challenges they experience, and calls for meaningful policy and institutional change.
Single Parents, Employability & Employment
The Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017 sets statutory targets to reduce levels of child poverty that require the Scottish government to ensure fewer than 18% of children are living in poverty by 2023/24, with less than 10% in poverty by 2030.
Freeing low-income single parents from in-work poverty’s grip
This research, carried out by consultants Iffat Shahnaz and Talat Yaqoob as part of The Collective working with One Parent Families Scotland for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, finds that Scotland’s labour market is not working for single parents. The report outlines nine priority areas to support parents in the labour market.
Thriving, Not Just Surviving
Research carried out for OPFS, funded by Oxfam Scotland, shows that a new approach to employability for single parents, the majority of whom are women, is needed that puts access to good-quality, sustainable and rewarding employment at the heart of its design and operations.
Colleges and Lifelong Learning Policy Commission
OPFS submission to Glasgow City Council - Colleges and Lifelong Learning Policy Commission: Call for Evidence September 2016. OPFS submission which looks at the barriers to single parents participation in college learning, and recommendations on possible solutions to tackle these barriers.