The single parent experience

Welcome to our single parent stories. You can read the real-life experiences of single parents below, some of whom have worked with One Parent Families Scotland services.

You can share your experience with us too – it can simply be a quote or a story, long or short. We want to share your stories and make your voice heard so you can be celebrated and recognised for the remarkable jobs you do.

We also hope that people can learn from you about what needs to happen to make sure single parents and their children are supported and valued.

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Transforming Child Maintenance: Chloe's story

Joy is a single mum who lives in Glasgow with her four children

Chloe* shares her experiences of using the Child Maintenance System after she separated from her children’s dad due to domestic abuse.

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Stories of four Ukrainian mothers in Scotland

Members of the Edinburgh UKRA group

Our UKRA group supports Ukrainian mothers in Edinburgh, many of whom are parenting alone for the very first time.

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Transforming Child Maintenance: Gemma's story

Gemma* is a single mum and a survivor of domestic abuse. She went to tribunal after the Child Maintenance Service ‘nil’ assessed her ex partner, despite her providing evidence of earnings.

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Transforming Child Maintenance: Hamish's story

Hamish has one child who lives mostly with her mother. He works night shifts so that he can see his daughter as much as possible.

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End Young Parent Poverty: Rachel's story

Rachel shares her experience of being a young, care-experienced mum who is living in temporary accommodation.

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Refugee Week 2023: Clara's story

Clara shares her experience of moving from Nigeria and seeking asylum in Scotland

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Mental health awareness week : Zoe's story

Zoe shares her experience of domestic abuse, temporary housing and impact on mental health.

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End Young Parent Poverty: Hassan's story

Hassan is a 24 year-old single dad who lives with his son in Edinburgh

Hassan missed out on getting school qualifications as he was away from the UK for two years. He now wants to go to college.

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Observing Ramadan in Scotland - Alisha's story

Alisha is a single mum to two children in Dundee

Alisha shares her experiences of being a Muslim in Scotland and speaks about observing Ramadan and celebrating Eid with her family.

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Autism Acceptance Month: Lindsay's story

Lindsay McCurley is a single mum and lives in Glasgow

Lindsay is a single mum from Glasgow. She shares her experiences on autism from both a personal and parent perspective.

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Mary's story

Mary is a single mum to four children in Glasgow

Mary talks about her experience of the asylum system, the racism she and her children have faced, and getting support from OPFS.

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Joy's story

Joy reflects on her experiences as a single parent, dealing with housing services, and her family’s experiences of racism.

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Sadatu's story

Sadatu is a single mum to one boy and two girls in Glasgow

Sadatu talks about her experiences as a single parent, dealing with the immigration system, and racism in Scotland

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Annie's story

Annie is a single mum of two boys, 11 and 6

Annie explains how our Glasgow team helped her and her kids go on a short holiday and why Christmas can be such a challenging time for single parents.

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Gayle's story

Gayle is a single mum of a 10-year-old boy and 19-year-old girl

Gayle talks about the challenges of finding work as a single parent, dealing with the benefits system, and the support she's had through our Glasgow service.

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Anita's story

Anita is a single mum of two boys

Anita explains how taking part in our employability courses in Edinburgh helped give her the confidence to start to her own business.

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Stephen's story

Stephen is a single dad of a 7-year-old boy

Stephen tells us about his experience becoming a single dad three years ago and how our dads' club in Edinburgh helped him.

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Suzanne's story

Suzanne is a single mum of two girls in Glasgow

Suzanne is a single mum of two girls in Glasgow.

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Carolyn's story

Carolyn is a single mum from Edinburgh

Carolyn is a single parent to a four year old son with additional support needs.

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Single Parents Week 2024: Mia's story

Mia is a single mum living in Edinburgh

Mia moved to the UK in 2015 and has struggled to secure a job that is flexible enough to fit around school hours and pays enough to cover the cost of childcare.

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Ya's story

Ya is a single mum living in Edinburgh

She moved to the UK in 2010 to pursue an undergraduate degree in Electrical & Electronic Engineering.

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Covering your tracks

You may not want other people to know that you’ve been searching for information or help from OPFS.

When browsing the internet whether on a mobile phone, tablet or computer, you leave a ‘history’ trail of pages and sites you’ve visited.

It’s impossible to completely avoid being tracked online but if you’re worried about someone knowing which sites you’ve been looking at, there are some things you can do to help cover your tracks.

If you’re using a laptop or desktop computer, try keeping another document or website open in a new tab or window while browsing. If someone comes in the room and you don’t want them to see what you’re looking at, you can quickly switch to another window or tab.

Deleting browsing history

You can delete the history of websites you’ve visited, but it’s important to know that if you delete your browsing history, someone else using the same device may notice.

If you share a tablet, mobile phone, laptop or computer with someone, they might notice that passwords or website addresses have disappeared from their history.

Find out how to remove your browsing history and other data from some of the most commonly used browsers:

Browsing in Private mode (incognito)

When browsing ‘incognito’, the internet browser won’t store cookies or record your browsing history on the computer, mobile or tablet.

This option is available on popular web browsers i.e. -

Toolbars

If you use a search toolbar in your web browser, remember that your searched items can be saved as part of your history. Find out how to delete your searched items from the following search engines: