To wonder wtf the government expects single parents to do?

[RocksThatIGot]

I have just been given a place on an access course, as I want to study to become a social worker. I am a single mum to two dc, and I have had a nightmare few years having been in an emotionally abusive relationship, and subsequently had to go to court several times (13 and counting) to face my abusive ex. So I have been earning money where I can but the court thing has taken over my life for the last 18 months or so and because of legal aid taking any money I do earn in contributions, it just hasn't made any sense to earn money, especially with the stress of what has been going on.

I am aware of the changes coming to benefits with the universal credit, which it seems are going to adversely affect the lone parents who are self employed, like me! So I have applied to college as I have inspired by the social workers dealing with my court case, and I want to be able to give my dc a better life. I know it will be a long slog with 4 years of study, but I am determined to do it.

So I just got a place at college, and went to see about getting financial help with childcare and travel costs (the nearest college doing the course I need is 40 miles away). And it turns out that, guess what, the government has scrapped all that financial help, as of this year! I have been told that i can apply to the college for a bursary but this is not going to be very much and unlikely to even cover half of my travel costs. So I have no idea how I am going to survive the year of this course. I'm just so angry that the government are doing everything they can to make it impossible for people to be on benefits, but at the same time they are making it impossible for single parents to study and get into employment! Am I missing something here?

The mentality of, 'Well, this low-paid work is bollocks, so the government should make it entirely possible for me to study as I choose, because I'm me, and consider it a privilege I'm doing them this favour and leaving those low-paid plebs behind,' is astonishingly snobby and entitled.

Expat, please explain what is snobby or entitled about pointing out that the government financially supports a) unemployment b) low-paid work to a greater degree than study? Who does that benefit, exactly?

Expat, believe me the last thing in this world I am is snobby or entitled, you are talking out of your extremely opinionated arse.

there aren't many jobs a the moment. so it does not make sense to train people who need childcare to do non existent jobs.

however when the dcs are in school, the op will be able to train. I don't think waiting for what you want when others are paying for it is a major problem. annoying and frustrating yes.

Hi Faster, can you explain how it makes better financial sense to support someone in unemployment, or in government subsidised low paid work, rather than to retrain?

Given that there aren't many jobs at the moment, so employment prospects are not great, with or without retraining, and people have to do something (including be unemployed) while waiting for their DCs to start school.

If expecting the government to sort out your childcare and travel so you can study full-time on an access course or you are doomed to life on the dole or low-paid work isn't entitle, I don't know what is.

Expat, I wonder if you would like to explain how it makes better financial sense to support someone in unemployment, or in government subsidised low paid work, rather than to retrain?

Expat, I wonder if you would like to explain how it makes better financial sense to support someone in unemployment, or in government subsidised low paid work, rather than to retrain?

Becuase the risk is you will make it a more sensible choice for people to opt out of suporting their own carrer deveolpment, education and training if you render it far cheaper and less onerous to participate in if accessed by dint of unemployment, or gov. sub. low paid work. In which case the sheer numbers of people manipulating their cirucmstances to gain the better access deal will render any additional help untenable.

Plus, education and training is only half the story. You need the grit and determination in the face of challenges, the problem solving skills that were developed and honed by a willingness to seek solutions aspect inorder to improve the prospect of education/training being translated into better paid work for participants. People being required to make a personal investment into their ed/training opportunities improves stickability, outcomes and the chance tout learned skills/knowledge to the test in the real world.

My region offered free English lessons (with transportation costs covered) for various groups when it was cash rich with EU money. The attendance and improvement rates were appalling. Now it is subsidised rather than fully funded it is still totally over subscribed, but attendance and outcomes are significantly better.

Tis a human thing I think. We perhaps place less value on opportunities we are handed "on a plate" than we do on that in which by necessity we are required to invest in ourselves to some degree.

I paid for my own initial training. It took every penny I had from the end of my first marriage. All of it. Make or break.

It was the most intensive experience of my life and I gave it all I had till I was running on fumes and coffee.

I got a really high grade. I still can't believe that me, dislecksick me of all people, did so well.

Later I got offered fab advanced training courses for free, with hotel and transport paid, by my employer. Could I pull out the same determination to milk every last bit of value from the oortunity ? Could I buggery. The magic element of something invested by me was missing. I am not a bad, ungrateful or lazy person (well, not all the time ) so I think there really is something to be said for the need for the key ingrediant whereby an individual views opoortunities as less like a gift and more like something they have created for themselves by dint of some personal contribution. A sort of sense of ownership and being an active architect of one's own attempts to achieve a sucess perhaps ?

Dunno. Do know that people are distressingly complicated though. Self included. I could kick myself now for past opportunities I failed to make enough effort to fully profit from.

Becuase the risk is you will make it a more sensible choice for people to opt out of suporting their own carrer deveolpment, education and training if you render it far cheaper and less onerous to participate in if accessed by dint of unemployment, or gov. sub. low paid work. In which case the sheer numbers of people manipulating their cirucmstances to gain the better access deal will render any additional help untenable.

So you think that people will actively exclude themselves from well paid work, so that they can take advantage of subsidised training, so that they can gain access to well paid work?

Sorry, but that just doesn't make any sense.

And it overlooks the fact that the very same people who would be in training are still being subsidised by the government anyway, whether it is through housing benefit and unemployment benefit, or working tax credit, housing benefit and subsidised childcare. So why single out study as inappropriate and unworthy of support?

Headsup paying for someones family, training and childcare is extremely expensive. If you remove training and childcare, you cut a lot of the costs.

someone else will be doing the job she could do after more training so there are no more unemployed people.

Excellent post Carpe

It is expensive to pay for training and childcare, but it is also expensive to pay for someone to be unemployed, or to work on a very low wage. What's the massive difference?

Thoughtful and insightful post carpe. I'm sure many of us can relate to what you're saying.
The OP has been given several perfectly reasonable solutions- distance learning (which actually is far easier now technologically than ever before)... Or wait until her children are in school... Seems she expected to get it all on her terms.

perhaps you could do the same as my son and practically every other student does and get a student loan? sorry haven't read whole thread. why should you be different to everyone else just because you are a single parent?

not sure you're cut out for SW given the disparaging comments and name calling about people with MH problems

can't stand the poor me attitude u hear from LPs sometimes. And I say this as a LP to 5 who has a good job that I worked for by starting at the bottom when I would have been much better off financially by claiming a lot of benefits. But now I'm nor facing universal benefits.

So you think that people will actively exclude themselves from well paid work, so that they can take advantage of subsidised training, so that they can gain access to well paid work?

In a parallel universe where there are only two kinds of jobs, low paid and well paid, I doubt it would be an issue, no.

Back in the real world where there is a range of income levels rather than just the two extremes, yes, you can create a notable strata where it no longer makes sense to be relatively self sufficient, given that it hampers your economic and "free time related" access to education and training.

And additional issue is the risk of creating a breeding ground for resentments.

The OP would like gov funds to ease the time/responsibility restraints of being a parent that prevent her from undertaking education right now.

Another person might also like gov funds to ease the time/responsibility restraints of being employed (in an "ok but not great" paid job that they seriously do not love and really can't face another 2 decades of)...that prevent them from undertaking education right now.

Ease the burden of one, but not the other and you create enough sensation of "unequal access to opportunities" in the public which in turn supports governments that claim to be wanting to cut just the fat of the welfare state, all while they sharpen their knives ready to start hacking at the very bones of it.

It's a lot more complicated than than just the cost of X number of hours of childcare v Y being the hypothetical presumed final income of the person supported in access to education should they complete their studies and then go on to find work in that field.

The whole caboodle stands or falls on a public willingness to support a safety net above and beyond the bare minimum in cases of abject necessity.

I'm not sure the Uk can put its hand on its heart and say they managed that balance adequately, and the people on the soggiest end of an unlevel playing field will likely be the ones who end up paying the highest price of that miscalculation.

It's not even like a lack of paid for childcare has to block the OP from making a re-entry in education Right Now.

GCSE Bitsize is a good place to start placing the groundwork for future study if she is missing the required GCSEs for entry into social work. I didn't find the teaching for the required maths GCSE on my access course anything like enough given that I hadn't been that brill at maths at school and I was well rusty. Not while my poor brain was trying to cope with all the other things I had to learn (essays etc.) all at the same time. Wish bite-size had been around back then, I would have spent a whole year on it trying to get past some of my bigger "maths issues" before it mattered.

This free course from the Open University via OpenLearn is a great introduction to academic writing, which is a bit of a learning curve on an access course when you are going in cold.

Open Learn also has free access to a whole plethora of resources so the OP can examine the degree to which she is attracted to social work as an idea, or also as an academic endeavour

Again focused on improving written communication, a vital tool for university level study, especially for those of us who never got beyond compulsory education at school a course from Coursera that has already started and can be joined right now.

....and I am just quickly skimming the surface here of just a few resources. There is loads out there that the OP can access right now. She can start her journey into a better tomorrow via education tonight in a manageble self directed way that is aimed to set herself up to succeed and make later parts of the journey a little less "steep learning curve". Via resources that can help her hone and develop academic skills, gain a better understanding of the subject she intends to study before she is committed, to pique her interests in other areas that may turn out to be a better fit once she has had the change to try tastes of things that catch her eye.

All in all IMO a better re-entry into education than just funnelling her into a brick based course without giving her the chance to contribute any personal investment, time and effort wise, into exploring her capacity to develop self motivation, stickability, finding ways around the usual suspects that demand our attention away from the slog of study and creating supportive networks of people with similar interests in similar circumstances, so she already has a strategies and backup when the almost unavoidable fatigue of adult education mixed with adult responsibilities hits her.

I don't believe that just chucking money at childcare is the best choice for the OP's future study, the best use of funds, or the best way to avoid whittling away at public support for a safety net that I would prefer to see left intact enough so it can still help provide 2nd chances for those of us who don't hit the ground running the first time around, who instead fell flat on our faces at 16 (

Carpe, that was a really good, thoughtful detailed post. Thank you. A lot of what you said there sounds really convincing.

I'm not convinced that people would generally actively choose lower paid work so that they can access free training though. I just can't think of an example where that would make sense for an individual.

The issue you raise that there is a 'breeding ground for resentment' is relevant. Though it makes me sad, and I can't relate to that kind of resentment for and jealousy in people of difficult circumstances. I don't think that single parents should get support in education over and above other people who need financial help to return to study - and I worry that single parents can be an easy target for public anger - is that the basis we want to make policy decisions on? Because, to me, single parents with few qualifications and access to the job market look a lot like some of the "people on the soggiest end of an unlevel playing field": and those are the people who you say need protected from cuts.

I think it's great that there are lots of distance learning resources that the OP can use - and I hope that this thread has offered some genuine opportunities - rather than just spite from people who don't seem to think she ought to try and retrain. That said, I still don't think it's a great idea to remove funding from access courses if they are genuine prerequisites to degree entry.

Carpe- it's so refreshing to read your posts. The danger with any thread about govt funding, single parents etc is that we get the usual polarised views. It really is far more complex than that.

As you rightly say: it's a fine line to tread: creating incentive is a case of balancing opportunities with the importance of people being prepared to make a personal investment. When a significant strata in society doesn't have that incentive to strive then it has a really damaging impact on society as a whole.

Carpe - excellent posts.

Headsdown, I think you're missing the point. No one, not one single person on this thread, has said they would prefer OP to be on the dole than bettering her qualifications. It's obviously the right thing to do. But what's the wrong this to do, is to train at the tax payers expense, when, as detailed in lots of posts, there's alternatives.

I don't think it's strictly true that none of the alternatives involve government subsidy, though. The Open Uni receives a lot of public money, and low earners are still subsidised on distance learning courses. And while she's doing this distance learning, things will still be at "tax payers expense" because a low earner or non earner will still have to claim unemployment benefit/tax credits/housing benefits. Distance learning while not working only takes some costs out of the equation. So I can't really relate to posters who would get worked up about her retraining being supported by the government.

"takes some costs out of the equation". Exactly.

Move to Scotland, where they understand education is investment in the future.

I'm not convinced that people would generally actively choose lower paid work so that they can access free training though. I just can't think of an example where that would make sense for an individual.

It was going on my access course even back in the 90s when the tories were still in power.

Wherever you have a cut off point you can't really avoid creating a strata above where the loss of a potential benefit/subsidy costs more than any additional income causing aerson to fail to slip under the barrier..

The time question is almost as important as the cold hard cash. It is much quicker and less stressful to acheive your goal if you aren't forced into very part time (with so many balls to juggle that the pressure is massive) study while working.

Put yourself in the place of somebody who wants a job that means something, teaching, nursing, accountancy (no I don't understand the attraction either, but I know somebody who dreams of getting out of supermarket lower management and becomeing an accountant becuase that floats her boat in ways that defy my immagination) .. currently stuck in a job that pays OK, but is going nowhere, their life is spent doing something that they can't stand and they feel they will go round the bend if they have to do it for the next two decades before dropping dead in a retirement spent regretting where most of the hours of their life went.

What price not taking a temp. income drop in order to escape to the life they want. And won't get (due to econmic/time contraints) if they don't bite the bullet and take short term pain for long term gain.

I can understand that it seems counter intuative unless that is a choice you've faced. But if it is your only way to change direction in a life that is killing you one pay slip at a time, well, it looks differnet from that angle.

Because, to me, single parents with few qualifications and access to the job market look a lot like some of the "people on the soggiest end of an unlevel playing field": and those are the people who you say need protected from cuts.

I do want single parents protected from slashing cuts. I was the product of a lone parent family. My dad buggered off on the morning of the second day of my O levels and made us a single parent family without any consultation. On the day of biology of all days to do it. The one bloody science where I was tipped for an A. And ended up with a sorry looking U.

Being left to lose a stone (that I couldn't afford to do without) due to lack of money for food on top of that change in circs didn't help any. I am all for making sure that that degree of resource /need gap doesn't go on any more.

But I don't see a worst case scenrio of delaying a return to a brick based insititution until kids as in school as being on the soggiest end.

However my view is coloured by 18 years of trying to care for a very mentally unwell woman in an era when "couldn't give a fuck in the community" rules the lack of resources.

And nine years of watching my 70 year old neighbour trying to keep her head above water and phycically manage to wash, change, feed and care for her grown son with severe CP in the face of no real attempt to allieve the phycical, mental and emotional burdens she had to carry.

I have been active enough in the relevant forums over the years to know that the picture is no prettier in those areas of need in the UK than it is in Italy. There's the soggiest end. Where just waiting four years for kids to hit school age won't resolve the time/responsibility roadblock for access to brick based education. (Or sleep. Or peace of mind. Or freedom from being clumped and abused by very unwell people who really ought to be in a bed on a ward with actual professonals to hand when things go really bent) At the soggiest end there are no time limits before one is free to take up new opportunities. Cos mental illness, disability and serious medical conditions don't typically have a "not too distant" expirey date when things start to get less consticting and hard going.

There is a well respected access course offered by the OU. It is heavily subsidized and there is no reason I can see why the OP wouldn't qualify for the subsidy, meaning she would have to find 25 pounds for her first year. And study from her own home, around her children's needs. Hard, yes. But doable. She wouldn't need additional funds provided for childcare over and above the subsidized fees that all eligible candidates get if she were to apply for and get offered a place on that one.

I'm not suggesting she should be left to rot. I feel for her. I know what it feels like when your grand plan for escape from the thigh high shit your life is gets whipped from under your nose and you are left feeling hopeless and stuck and terrified that nothing you do will ever change anything and it will be this way forever. I am disputing that access to a brick based insititute, with childcare being paid for with public money, is a reasonable or a good use of very limited funds in the face of not so limited need in so many direction....for a variety of reasons. Especially when you consider the alternative routes to a return to education that are immediatley accessable.

Carpe, you're obviously coming at this issue from a much more compassionate place than some of the posters who have insinuated that the OP should have thought about her education before she had kids - which is spiteful and hateful and solves nobody's problems.

In terms of taking a drop in income to benefit from subsidised training...it's not as if it's actually possible to leave a job to become unemployed and still get those kinds of benefits though - and the income ceiling to qualify for subsidised training is set pretty low - I don't believe there are many people who would deliberately take a lower paid job just to try and get governmentally subsidised training. I can believe there are some - but I find it hard to imagine that there's a statistically significant number.

I suppose that I am just shocked by the hostility that the OP received from some posters. Especially considering how bitter people can be about parents on benefits who they say are not trying to look for work or retraining opportunities. Pointing out that there are other opportunities available is useful, but calling her entitled, as some people have, is a bit much. I am glad that there are distance learning opportunities open to the OP, but at the same time I worry that some people also resent that these opportunities exist too.

Could you put off the studies for a year or so when your youngest DC starts school to work like a dog for year and save up enough to fund their bsc/asc for when you do start your course? If you are working part-time, you will probably be low-income enough to get some sort of childcare assistance. It's a bit rich to say that earning money doesn't make sense for you but to expect others to fund you for four years. Sorry.