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.

sorry, I need to unpick a few things.
the distance to job/childminder is not an issue in itself, but it is an issue in terms of how much it limits hours that she can work. So the childminder being 1 mile away, means that they will not do school drop offs to her school. She could easily drop the son off there on the way to work, but then they will not do school drop off.
The distance to work is not an issue, except that it limits the hours in the day left to work. She would happily do the distance, she applied for one job which was 45 minutes walk (buses didn;t run in the right direction) and she was happy to walk it.

There is no way that she would be able to be a childminder, her home is not suitable and she simply doesn't have the skills to organise herself and her son well, let alone look after others. Her reading and writing skills are very poor, she would not get past the first forms to fill in.
Options like studying etc are just not realistic. She wouldn't get past first base (that's not her giving up, that's me observing her).

She has applied for dozens of jobs, cleaning, care, shops etc. There all turn her down when she says she needs school hours.
I really doubt that she would have the capacity to organise self employment well enough to make it work. And to be honest, having seen her house, I am not sure I'd employ her as a cleaner.

So no one in her area with children, if they don't drive, have jobs? Or in any other similar area of which there are hundreds thousands up and down the country?
well, all the people I know in her area that have jobs have:
a partner who shares school runs
drive
relatives who do child care.
but in most families, one parent isn't working.
One reason that the school doesn't have wrap around care is that so few families are working. Many of them are like this lady.

What do I want the job centre to do?
Well the fundamental issue seems to be childcare, provision of it and the cost of it. Because even if she could find a child minder, during the holidays that would mean that all the money she earnt went on child care, which leaves them with no money to live on.

It just seems like she is stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Can she look into working from home or if the local school is in need of part time staff?

Everything you've said is standard for a lot of parents - commute/distance to childcare.

The school doesn't sound ideal with no wrap around care, is there another school she coulf move him to? Why did she pick that school knowing it had no wrap around care?

Your friend needs to take some ownership and work oit what changes she needs to make now that her child is in school

People need to read the op - no childminders drop off at the school.

I haven’t read all the replies but she could register on to an agency that does zero hour contracts, that way she can pick available work to suit her circumstances. It might also appease the job centre that she is on an agency.

I agree with those circumstances it would be difficult for her to get a typical employed role, as people have suggested she could look at childminding/cleaning/ironing etc. If her son is 5 that means another 6 or so years until he is in high school so too long to not try to find work. If he was 3 and she was waiting until he went to school I could understand.

If she has explored all avenues with her current set of skills/requirements she would need to start from scratch and get some qualifications. There are plenty of jobs she can do, if she is willing to change her curcumstances. It's really hard to advice though without knowing why you are supporting her, why she can't have customer facing roles and why she has never before worked or finished school (I am assuming this since you say she has no qualifications).

It's really hard when childcare options are so limited.

What sort of role do you think she could do? You mention not customer facing but what sort of thing could she do?

Are there any others nearby in a similar situation? It might be easier to find something for a few full days rather than 5 school hour days and I'm just wondering if she could team up with a couple of others to share the before/after school stuff?

Has she spoken to the school about the possibility of a before and after school club? If they know there's demand, they might sort something - ours was run independently as a non profit but the head was involved in it

I wouldn't apply for a job cleaning. I'd put an ad in gumtree and get going.

What do the people of MN not get about being poor? You can't just train and get a qualification. It takes time and money. A single, piss-poor parent with no support has very little of both.

Actually she is in a great position to get free training now which would cost a lot if she were earning. I know people who have studied accounting, hairdressing, become teaching assistants, trained as scaffolders, all at no cost because they were in receipt of the right benefits. The jobcentre also backed off as long as they could show they were attending and progressing towards a qualification, so they did have time.

Obviously you have to be willing and capable, and I am not sure what the OP means about her client/friend not being suitable for a customer facing job, so this may be an issue.

It is hard, I am in a similar situation but my dc are disabled so I don’t have to sign on (I get carers allowance) but I do want to work, I have no family support and my dc is too old for free childcare. It is really tricky for people in this situation. At the moment I am self employed and doing part time dog waking as well as running a small business from home, the small business won’t make me any money until next year so at the moment it’s not providing an income. For me I feel the only way I can work is by being self employed as I can kind of chose my hours and do some work from home. Trouble is unless working school hours at minimum wage will probably make the poor lady really struggle financially, she will get a top up from UC but it won’t be a lot, the price of living is so high especially fuel/electricity prices.

I do really feel for single parents, it’s easy for people to say ‘oh she could become a childminder’ or ‘she could work in a school’ but she still has to either pay for training or find a actual job in a school, if there are no school jobs near by then she’s a bit stuck, and not everyone has what it takes to look after other peoples children, you need to want to do it and not just be doing it for the money.

Sounds to me like the problem is she has low aspirations. If this were my friend, I'd encourage her to return to education to help raise her confidence and her chances of getting a job she wants.
I don't think you're helping her by agreeing with her that she's stuck

@TheYearOfSmallThings yes that's what my mum did. But she also knocked on doors and started cleaning by herself.
If you want to work you absolutely can.

If you want to train, there are literally hundreds of options at most colleges designed to help people get back to work. My mum failed all the basic English and maths tests constantly but her tutor was so used to this it really helped my mums self esteem being helped so much and getting out and meeting people.

I strongly recommend it even if your friend thinks it isn't worth it, it is. Plus you get the heating at the college, another reason my mum went to save on bills.

OP I think you've explained very well what the issues are, I don't know why people are not grasping the problem.

She does sound rather unemployable at the moment, perhaps people could remember the benefits are not just for her but to keep her child from harm.

Is there any way your charity could help her train up to be a cleaner? That would seem the best option with limited hours and it would also improve her own living conditions.

I don't think the job centre are allowed to tell your friend to be less fussy about hours; the school hours are fixed and she can't change them.

If you are on benefits or tax credits, the last thing you need is insecure employment when you are a single parent with no support (or disabled); especially if its low paid. We desperately need fixed hours fixed pay contracts that last more than 3 months. Not as and when, and not self employed. That's what they should be helping her to look for.

It sounds like she could really do with some further education and training as a stepping stone to working. There are quite a lot of online courses in English, Maths, computer skills, often free to those on benefits or who haven’t reached a certain level of education. Some run in the evenings (her child would be in bed) some in the day or whatever time you choose as they are recorded. Does she have a computer/internet?

I don’t know if the job centre would accept this approach, as an alternative to finding work immediately, but surely it would help.

no customer facing roles?

Well this lady is very sweet, but she is not bright, so many ofthese suggestions just make me laugh. She not bright, cannot read and write properly, her house is a serious mess and not very clean, she has poor social boundaries, so she tells her life story to everyone. Most places like starbucks just wouldn't touch her with a barge pole.
She is extremely willing to work, and would work hard, but she would need close supervision and directions. So things like self employed cleaning is not really a possibility. Add to which, no-one would give her the keys to their house once they know her address.
There are a shit load of jobs in our town. eg several massive distribution warehouses. In fact her mum works in one of them. (another reason why she can't help with childcare) But all shifts start at 6am or 7am. What does she do with her child? Care are crying out for people, she'd be good in care, she helped look after her grandfather when he needed care, there are several places on the estate that she could work at. But again, they are looking for shift work, expecially beginning and end of day. What does she do with her child?

Someone suggested she takes her son with her. If she was cleaning for me, I wouldn't wnat her son running round the house while she cleaned, he really isn't old enough or sensible enough yet.

and son's dad is dead, so that isn't an option.

It is one child! I was a single parent of three and managed. Hard but doable.

OP have the job centre looked into any training courses she can do to help improve her reading/writing/general prospects?

What about home based telephone work? I don't know much about it but have heard it suggested a lot in my local area. No commute so solves that issue. If it was flexible about lunch times, she could pick up her child during her lunch break and then sit him in front of the TV for another hour or so while she carries on working, then an hour or so of quiet activities for him (drawing, colouring, Lego, kinetic sand, audio books with headphones). Then she could feasibly work 9:30 til 5:30.

Childminder.

Sounds like it's needed where she lives.

The job centre needs to arrange for some basic literacy training for her.

Tbh if she can't read, write, study further, do a customer facing job, clean her own flat or organise herself to be self employed - the problem is not even one a job centre or society can fix! With all her time at home and access to the internet can she really not improve ONE of those areas above that make her employable?? There is a women woman where I live who arrived here speaking no English, from a Middle Eastern conflict zone, with 2 kids - she started baking and beating the streets to sell to shops and customers, going to weekend markets - to the point she now has a good online business. There's a lot of work that can be done online but she needs to teach herself a skill.

Has she tried other local schools that do have wrap around to see if they have places. If she could get a school in town she might manage to drop and be at work at 9 so only needing evening childcare.
I’d also contact local college and see what courses she could do. I think maths and English are always free plus if she’s on benefits she may be eligible for other courses.
Look on local authority website. Ours has lots of casual catering on at minute in schools a few hours a day term only.
No customer facing? If she has a disability then there may be back to work schemes eligible for or guaranteed interview.

Well what do the countless others in the same situation do is the question I suppose.