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.

She should do cleaning or child minding during the day and study for a qualification in the evening. Eventually a WFH job would be ideal. Try looking into HR with CIPD qualification. It generally pays well, low stress and tons of WFH options. Also look into virtual volunteer opportunities in the industry in the meantime.

Lynsey Hanley’s book “Estates” describes exactly the geographic problems and multiple disadvantage you’re outlining @steppemum

It’s fascinating that so many posters are determined to insist there are no barriers.

www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B009NXUVB8/ref=dbs_a_def_awm_bibl_vppi_i1

I'm laughing at the middle class response to this thread.

OP can she get on something like Aim 4 Work? That would give her a bit more direction and a few more skills and support. And also UC would be happy about it too.

A mile to travel / walk to a childminder is not that much!

A mile walk twice a day with a five year old isn’t much? I suggest you try it and let us know how you get on.

It can be very difficult to find work to fit in with children even for those who are qualified, experienced and who drive so I can we’ll believe how stuck your client must feel.

There must be thousands like her which is a very sobering thought.

I don’t suppose there are any factories or distribution centres nearby? That sort of repetitive work can be be good for people who need close supervision and direction.

Our society is so sexist, so much weighted against women. Let’s not pretend that men take responsibility for children in the same way women do, but until they do we will be stick with inadequate childcare.

I agree some of the responses are aiming a bit high

but I do think a low demand job could be doable

Also I wouldn’t suggest childcare as the fall back - you need certain attributes for this too

Please, PLEASE read all of the OP's posts (there's a wee clicky thing that allows you to do this without even reading the entire thread).

The woman in question is barely literate, has a chaotic background that involves several children taken into care, and may well have undiagnosed learning / developmental / social disabilities.

It's not just a case of 'get on your bike and look', in this instance.

I really hope the lady somehow manages to get the support she needs. Until you've experienced the inter generational poverty of these isolated deprived areas it's hard to actual understand it. Hats off to you OP for trying to help. We've got a community hub which is a fantastic support in my deprived area and does provide functional skill level educational training.

I know exactly what you mean OP and it is a million times harder than people on this thread think. Ok yes there are other single parents on this thread who have juggled similar, BUT given they're on mumsnet, I'm going to take a wild guess and say that they have literacy and critical thinking skills that the woman you are supporting does not. And that absolutely changes everything.

I've worked with folk similar. Is there a local organisation who provide 12-week courses in literacy/job skills/etc that also have a childcare fund/cheche?

Or are there any community organisations that provide childcare to vulnerable children? She sounds fairly vulnerable so I'd assume her son falls under this too. In the last city I lived in she could have went on a course that doesn't affect her benefits and also pays her travel, whilst her son would have had a referral to a local childcare/support organisation that would be able to take care of him throughout.

That would buy some time to figure out what to do next - maybe using that time to move him to a school with wraparound care, or to a school that a childminder drops to/from. It's nearly summer holidays so he could start afresh from September. Are these options?

To those who are asking on this thread 'what do you expect society to do?', tbh I would expect for more training courses and better childcare support for vulnerable parents who have school-age children.

I was in a similar situation (except that I had good general qualifications and was suitable for many roles) and it's shit. I got so sick and tired of ignorant people telling me that they'd "just clean toilets". I couldn't get a bloody cleaning job!

I fell pregnant while I was at uni and had to drop out. I ended up becoming a single parent living on benefits on a council estate. My son's dad pretty much washed his hands of any parental responsibilities. I couldn't afford to learn to drive and couldn't afford to move anywhere else (other areas were more desirable and therefore more expensive). I couldn't swap because my home was privately rented (no council properties available). I couldn't study anything which would give me a direct route into a job because the job centre would sanction me as I should have been job hunting in the time that I was studying. I thought that was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard - the college course was actually free for people in my situation but I was unable to attend because I could have been applying for jobs I had no chance of getting. I really hope that has now changed. I had no childcare options available to me that I could use and still get to work on time using public transport. To be honest, most jobs I found were shifts with unusual start and end times, or weekend work, so childcare wasn't an option then anyway. No family available to provide that either. I had very poor mental health (unsurprisingly!) and was swapped to a different job seeking service aimed at people with health problems struggling to find work . My advisor told me that there was absolutely nothing wrong with my CV and I was applying for loads of jobs but I was essentially unemployable because of my childcare issues. I couldn't work from home as I didn't have wifi and my landlord wouldn't pay to have it put in. Somebody gave me an old laptop and I paid for a dongle every month to get access to the internet, but it was more expensive than normal internet whilst being slower and having limits. It was like mobile data - once it had run out I couldn't use it anymore. I couldn't afford the upfront cost of having normal internet put in. I couldn't work as a childminder because, again, the house was unsuitable and I was unable to make any changes. The only thing the job centre could do was threaten to sanction me and offer me a basic course on reading and writing. I had no previous work experience and this all happened during a recession so there were hundreds of applicants for every role. I was even turned down for all of the volunteer roles in my local area because there was such high demand, so even if a magical job which worked around childcare and public transport had come along, I wouldn't have been considered anyway because I couldn't even get voluntary experience! I could see no way out at all and it was such a depressing existence.

The only way I got out of it was getting a boyfriend who asked us to move in with him and I could finally stop visiting the job centre and start studying. He had a car so arranged his shifts at work to get me to a local college (also an issue with public transport and childcare). I found a volunteer role which I could use as a stepping stone to paid work. Then I learnt to drive. I now earn more than him. Nobody wants to believe that a person could find themselves in this situation and find it difficult to get out because everything is stacked against them. It's much easier to believe that these people are just lazy, stupid and feckless. I was a high achiever before this happened, but I come from a poor background and had absolutely nothing to fall back on.

I'm sorry, I really don't have any advice because there was no real solution available to me other than a boyfriend financially supporting me instead. It's absolutely shit and the real problem is lack of childcare.

I think that as a start you need to forget about work. Do the minimum to keep the job centre happy and in parallel look at how you get her difficulties recognised.

Look at adult basic skills courses, literacy and numeracy, if she’s on a big sink estate I’ll be there’s a local provision. Perhaps also support her in starting the process of an assessment for SEN. If she doesn’t have the executive function to organise herself she might qualify for PIP once she has a diagnosed condition.

If you can get her LD diagnosed she may also be able to get a work capacity assessment done which will get the job centre off her back long term.

I think people genuinely just don't see the barriers @Sortilege. It is outside of their experience and they lack insight into the very real challenges that some in our society face.

I guess it's privilege in action, isn't it? Most of us simply don't realise how much we take for granted. And we can't imagine what life would be without those fundamental things in place.

How is she going to pay for the insurance, the supplies, the transport to get there? If her reading and writing skills are poor, how is she meant to stay on top of the accounting side of things? It's not as easy as you're making out.

From what you've said OP, it sounds like this person has a limited capacity to work and should be in receipt of the LCWRA element of Universal Credit. That should get the job centre hounds off her back. From there, a volunteering role could be a positive step to build skills and confidence?

I think she probably fits into this category.
She doesn't have an obvious learning disability, but she may have something. Possibly something along the ADHD line.
People have jumped on that and talked about seeking a diagnosis. Honestly I think getting a diagnosis for an adult is a bit like finding hens teeth at the moment. I am not sure that she is 'bad enough' to persuade anyone to pursue it.

I know a few people who are similar, they have low capacity, but not actually a learning disability. It is not a PC thing to say, but some people do have very low IQ. They don't qualify for anything, but they find every day life quite tough.

I didn't include it in the OP because well, having a low IQ isn't a reason not to get a job is it?
As to not including lack of support from dad in the OP, many single mums have no support from dad. That is hardly a shocking revelation!

Thank you for all your input. I have taken some great things from here which I will suggest. In particular I think that the care jobs might be the way to go. I only have her report back from those care agencies though, it may by that they let her down gently by saying no jobs available for those hours? I honestly don't know. She would be lovely in care, but she might not be able to follow written instructions.
She has been volunteering in a charity shop on the estate to build up experience and job readiness, but she does back of the shop stuff.

Does she have learning or mental health issues? Is she getting support for those or any kind of disability related benefit? Are social services involved?

The thing with diagnosis is that it can be the gateway to disability related benefit...and yes I know its not an easy thing to get.

If the OP had said from the outset that her friend is barely literate, has a chaotic lifestyle and probable learning difficulties, lives in a deprived area, and her partner was dead, the answers would have been very different, and I modified my second reply in the light of these important details.

But making the situation sound like a purely logistic issue at the outset of course gave rise to replies addressing only those aspects. Those of you jumping on the earlier replies should stop now.

Commuting is only a barrier when it's combined with limited fixed hours of childcare. If you have to be at school at say 9 and 3, working 20 minutes away gives you a lot more working time than working an hour away. An hour's commute drops hours to 10-2 which is even less available than 9.30-2.30!

It's also a financial barrier as it means more time paying for childcare while not actually earning money to pay for the childcare. 1 hour commute = 10 hours of childcare per week not directly offset by money earned (not in this exact case but in holidays).

I'm particularly amused by the idea that she deliberately "choose" the school - rather than it being realistically the only one with spaces in the area (other than the similar one with a similar lack of wrap around) - the leafy middle class schools with full wrap around generally have tiny catchments and massive waiting lists ...

There are lots of assumptions on here about disability benefits. A lot of people struggle but don't meet the threshold for getting help, unfortunately. It would be lovely to think that, as a society, we would have a real safety net for people who cannot easily manage everything for themselves, but what we have has gradually been eroded over the years. There are an awful lot of people who need help and struggle to get it.

Sounds like your friend has a job in perfecting excuses!

I just find it endlessly interesting that people can exercise their empathy and imagination when motivated to do so, but not for this.

If you post about refugees in dinghies on MN, most people are very enlightened and sympathetic, but for some reason they can’t apply the same empathy to homegrown problems.

My grandma’s family were immigrants in the restaurant trade. Visiting all the cousins when I was small, I got to see lots of different, sometimes impoverished, areas. It takes a lot of energy and ability to thrive from nothing. Of course not everyone has it. Of course many people have learning difficulties, logistical challenges and chaotic lives. It’s not rocket science.

This lady would probably do best to focus on her parenting, for example. If her child ends up in care, ££££s will be spent on his placement. It’s ridiculous that a small fraction of that isn’t available to keep a birth family together.

In the old days income support for single mums was available until their youngest child was 12... society clearly used to recognise that working with children was very difficult.

@steppemum

Your last post was enlightening.

I am really, really going to struggle to type this as just writing it down feels wrong (even though technically I know it's not), but do you feel your friend is, in old money, 'educationally subnormal' - a phrase I think used to be used to apply to people who were gauged to have an IQ of below 70?

If so, I think this does now count as a learning disability and there may well be additional support available?

just to add, no social services are not involved.
She has contact with her older kids, but they live with their dad. Complicated.