What does job centre/society actually expect this woman to do?

[steppemum]

I support a lady (friendship through a charity) I'll change some details to make it less identifiable.

She has a son aged 5 and in school and so the job centre are giving her a lot of hassle to get into work. But I just cannot see how she is supposed to do this:

• she is a single mum. Her partner is not son's dad and doesn't live with her.


• she lives on a large council estate out of town. Very little work on the estate. 20 minute bus ride into town. Some work in town, mostly in shops (which I doubt she would get, she's not likely to get a customer facing job) most work is then a further 20 minutes on the bus from the bus station in town.


• there is no breakfast club or after school club, or holiday clubs at the school


• there are no childminders on the estate. The closest ones are about 1 mile away, and don't do school drop offs or pick ups


• she does have local family, but they are not willing to do any childcare, either before/after school, or in the holidays.


• she is only likely to get a minimum wage job as she has no qualifications.

So, she could only work day time, from about 9:30 - 2:00 in order to do school run, no weekends and she has no-one to look after her son in the holidays.

Job centre has told her she is being too fussy and she must be more flexible with timings.

Am I missing something here? I just don't see HOW she can get a job! She would like to work actually, but is also pretty scared about ending up with less money.

This is an interesting thread and I think a lot of PPs sound quite privileged and perhaps don’t understand how some people live.

OP, in an ideal world there’d be some form of support she could access to help build her skills and get her back into work. Realistically she is going to need quite a lot of targeted coaching/mentoring to find something which will work for her and stick with it beyond the first few days. I guess the job centre aren’t offering anything like this?

I take your point about cleaning and it doesn’t sound like cleaning people’s homes (particularly if self-employed) would be right for her, but how about cleaning hospitals/shops/offices/business premises? Is there anything like that going? Or shelf stacking? When I worked in a supermarket there was no expectation that warehouse staff would also work on checkouts.

What is your connection to this lady?

I am genuinley surprised at the types of jobs people think are a good fit for someone who isnt literate, has poor social skills and isnt organised.

Assuming she genuinely can’t read or write well m / fill in forms / organise herself this lady sounds like she probably has a learning difficulty. She sounds vulnerable and the sort of person who needs a helping hand from society until her child is able to be out of the house longer at school or spend short times alone at home.
i would advocate for trying to get a learning difficulty / disability diagnosed. That way you can also get charity help.
Jobs to go for would be lunch time supervisor / assistant cook in school, care work if you can find school only hours.
Is there any scope for volunteering in a care setting just a couple of hours in the week to build experience whilst her child is at school?
When her child is older she may be able to do warehouse or factory work.

What do these people do today who have left school and don't have qualifications but also are not disabled in any way, just areas the op described, not very bright.

Around here it tends to be warehouse work - Amazon etc.

I agree with you. The woman sounds extremely vulnerable with little education, social skills and no support and probable learning difficulties.
What the women on here seem to be unable to understand is that for someone in that position its just about impossible to pull yourself up out of that situation without a lot of help and support.
Does she have any friends who she could trust to pick up her child from school? I know a lot of women in her position have suffered since all the sure start centres were closed a few years ago and now they have no support services at all.
There's Fuck all empathy on here for people in this woman's position though.

This sounds like undiagnosed SEN. A very low IQ is the very definition of SEN. Op, you seem really kind to me, and the best way for you to help this woman is by taking her through her life to develop a comprehensive portfolio Why can’t she read and write? What did the school say? , does she have trauma in her background? I worked in this field and it was truly shocking how often women with clear learning difficulties were branded inadequate and neglectful, and had their children removed, when with support, they could have raised them, or at least, have everyone, including the children , understand that they lacked capacity rather than love or motivation.
it is difficult to get a diagnosis as an adult, but not impossible, particularly as she may actually have been diagnosed as a child but then left to get on with it. There’s a massive gap in educational attainment between the middle class and the working class, but it’s as nothing to the gap in support offered to SEND children in those categories. Most people are capable of learning to read, if the teaching offered is appropriate.
on a more practical level, you may also need to talk to her about self care and presentation, and suggest a routine for cleaning, in order to prepare for the extra demands of a job or an assessment process.

Has anyone completed MN Bingo with suggesting a nanny/ au pair yet? 🙄

The problem is that she's not exactly unemployable, but logistically viable opportunities are far too rare.

I agree with looking at the PIP/ diagnoses route if possible. Another black hole of beauocracy, and if it is a matter of generally low and barely functioning IQ it is a blind spot in society compared to identifiable conditions/ neuro-divergence.

Society changed, expected mothers to work, employment moved away from residential areas, low-skilled basic jobs have been automated and the logistical gaps of reliable transport and practical, affordable childcare didn't catch up. To put it crudely some areas have been left as deserts of opportunity or ghettoised.

It's not as simple as get on your bike and look for work when there are so many logistical challenges involved.

What she does is engage with a charity based funding programme for "training and employment" this then gets the job center off her back.

She can then complete the training course/activity to keep them at bay for about 6-12 months.

Then she starts applying for work from home call center jobs. Now if she has a criminal record or anything she probably will get declined but she's "trying" and the job center can't do anything about her criminal record stopping employment.

The other option she has after the training and education course, is to look for "peer mentoring opportunities" with charities. Again this will keep the job center off her back as she's "preparing for work" she may then get lucky and one of the organisations she's volunteered for may hire her on a flexible part time basis.

Hope that helps

Clearly it is a hopeless situation. She really shouldn’t have brought this child into the world if she wasn’t capable of taking care of her first children who are no longer with her.
The other big problem is the lack of wrap around care. I personally think all primary schools should be forced to provide it. I didn’t apply for a school near me that didn’t provide it. She should have made that choice before she go into this situation. But it is shit that the school doesn’t provide it.

Bloody hell some of these of these replies!

1. child care in some areas is nonexistent. Three schools in my area only one has full wrap round child care, no surprises that it's oversubscribed. Next school has semi- child care it offers Tuesday-Thursday 8:00-5:00. Last school in the area nothing at all.
2. setting up as self employed (cleaner or gardener) at the very least you need to understand basic maths/ accounting. You need to keep good records and You need to fill out a self assessment tax form (even if under a taxable wage). wonder how many people here have actually done a tax return. Ideally you would have insurance, and be registered as a sole trader (although being a sole trader is not compulsory until you earn over a certain threshold). 3)working from home jobs normally require reasonable IT skills, reasonable literacy skills and if tele-sales type work good interpersonal skills. Then you need a laptop or similar so already these jobs are out.

Op I think you and she should think of the following: contacting adult social services and see if they can offer any advice re possible learning difficulties and access to education. Social worker with adult services are normally good at sign posting people to what courses are available and they may be able to offer advice re assessment for learning difficulties.
Next have a look at what the local library are offering, they often run literacy and maths classes for adult, if you are in receipt of benefits these classes are normally free.
Talk to her employment officer (if she has one) and see if they can make recommendations re getting her up skilled.

Please don't say she isn't 'bright'. For whatever reasons she has been failed by our educational system (not the teachers but the system).

I can just imagine some of the threads if this lady was a TA or a carer for an elderly parent. Even a cleaner.
The alternative to the manual jobs of before is Amazon warehouse or Ubereats driver.
Time managed productivity driven non jobs.
The reality is while we are on this constant pursuit for profit at any costs there will be people who can't slot in. Either we spend taxes on having a civilised solution (social security that works) or carry on with this race to the bottom and end up with homeless villages like the U.S.
Some of us will be horrified at the thought but plenty will just think they're there because they are undeserving.
Until it's one of their children or relatives.

Tbh, this is the kind of scenario that ends in people doing sex work.

It sounds like she wouldn't manage a delivery job. (plus, she'd have to have a car/reliable transport and that's just another cost)

Poor woman really does sound like she has all the cards stacked against her.

OP, can you advocate for her at the Jobcentre? Go with her and help explain her situation to the staff there? Maybe her best bet is to try to improve her literacy/skills with a view to getting a job when her DS is older.

And I hope she's got her contraception sorted out.

I do agree with you. What about cleaning, ironing or child minding?

In what world would a job as a ta be suitable for someone who is illiterate ?
The OP has already said that the lady has learning difficulties and wouldn't be organised enough to be a self employed cleaner.
She's tried getting cleaning jobs with cleaning companies but none will give her school hours.

I think the old model of work is hard for her to integrate into given her situation, but these days there are more options, like childminding, work from home jobs that just need a laptop that you can get on HP/installments these days, etc. There are surely options for her there but the jobcentre have no idea about those kinds of jobs.

Being blunt. Firstly the lack of literacy and boundaries needs to be dealt with before she goes into work as does her inability to manage her home and keep it clean etc - is there any special needs/a reason as to why she’s unable to maintain her home etc? Is there any support in place? She then could look at something like data entry from home- which she could do around school hours and after child goes to bed.

ultimately what was she doing before she had her child?

*onlywork55 · 17/05/2022 13:35
This is an interesting thread and I think a lot of PPs sound quite privileged and perhaps don’t understand how some people live.

OP, in an ideal world there’d be some form of support she could access to help build her skills and get her back into work. Realistically she is going to need quite a lot of targeted coaching/mentoring to find something which will work for her and stick with it beyond the first few days. I guess the job centre aren’t offering anything like this?*

Hilarious. You think targeted coaching/mentoring is easily available and offered by the job centre? Funny you’ve labelled PP as sounding privileged.

Whats happened here is the OP massively drip fed and had she not done that the earlier responses would have been quite different. OP herself has made snarky comments about sink estates and laughing at the idea of this lady in certain roles, when based on limited early information were reasonable suggestions.

In her shoes, I'd get a job at the child's school.
cleaner, dinnerlady, TA.

So it sounds like there are two main barriers, one being skills and education, the other being childcare. And at this point in time the overwhelming barrier is probably childcare.

The one huge positive of where she lives is that deep sense of community in as much as it is able to persist. In order to do shift work, building further links with other parents to make more informal childcare arrangements is perhaps the most likely thing to work. Perhaps facilitating such partnerships is something the factories or care homes needing workers could actually help with. Probably fall foul of the regulations in the childcare environment nowadays, sadly. So needs to be fully a private arrangement - maybe she can put feelers out around school pickup time. Don't know ...

I don't think I could do it @QuestionableMouse and I've held a job for 30+years.
Timed toilet breaks, items scanned per hour, 49p per delivered parcel, 120 successful deliveries per shift....and so on.
As @NapoleonSolo said that leaves sex work with the inevitable consequence of drug/alcohol dependency.
Without society helping it's fucking bleak.

She really can't be a childminder. This isnt the 1970s where Mrs Smith from down the road will watch your kids for an hour and give them a glass of squash while you do a couple of hours in the factory. Seriously! Childminders need food safety certificates don't they? First aid training...knowledge of safeguarding procedures, not to mention the paperwork. Even self employed cleaners and ironing ladies will need insurance, an ability to drum up custom and do a tax return.

She may be able to apply for PIP. I highly recommend a visit to the CAB, accompanied by you. They may be able to help with other things - she could possibly be entitled to Employment Support Allowance (sickness benefit), but that is just a guess. I'm a sometime CAB paid adviser, but I'm not up to date with current benefits.

I have a friend who has learning difficulties, though she can read and write quite well. She's also had mental health issues. She also has 3 children, now grown up. I don't know if she worked before I met her, but she hasn't since.

In ye olden days, the Goverment used to bang on about working mothers being the cause of juvenile delinquency. They did put their/our money where their mouth was, and a single mother, or a SAHP, did not have to seek work until their youngest child had reached 16. It was possible to scrape by on benefits.

Oh do Fuck off. You have no idea why her older children aren't with her. Their father may have custody.
The father of this child has died, she presumably didn't think she'd be bringing the child up alone when she had him. She didn't choose her life to be like this