At Parenting NI, we want to gather information on the specific financial hardships that many separated and single parents face. Through our Solus project, we want to understand how the financial impacts experienced by separated and single parents can impact their mental and physical health to better understand how we can provide support.
The Need for the Solus project:
In the UK, it is estimated that more relationships will break down than stay together, leaving more than 1 in 4 children experiencing parental separation by 16yrs (ONS).
In addition, single parent families are nearly twice as likely to experience financial hardship and be in poverty, with 67% of single parents reporting financial struggles (Gingerbread, 2015). This can have a detrimental effect on psychological well-being, with more extensive use of mental health services reported by single parents (Cairney and Wade, 2002). Furthermore, in our Cost-of-Living Survey, single parents identified money (69%) and mental health (63%) as their biggest challenges to parenting (Parenting NI, 2022)
To date, there are no other organisations working specifically with parents to address these issues or carry out research of this focus.
Solus aims to… 
How will Solus achieve these aims?
The Solus project will work by involving single and separated parents to voice their opinions and concerns and help them to share their experiences regarding financial challenges. This will work through surveying separated and lone parents to collect information on what the main factors reducing financial well-being are, how this is affecting their mental and physical health, and how this could be affecting their parenting.
We will be offering support to parents through a dedicated Parent Support and Participation Officer via:
- Top Tips sessions
- One-to-one support via telephone call and face-to-face.
Parents can be signposted to a Top Tip session, support line, or another organisation depending on situation/needs.
The next Top Tips session is:
Contact Us: For more information on Solus, or if you are a single parent interested in taking part, please feel free to contact us at: solus@parentingni.org