After a #yearofresilience, single parents need your support for the challenges ahead.

Can you step up and support single parents on Single Parents’ Day?

It’s been a very tough year for every one of us – but single parents have been very hard-hit in a number of ways that have hugely decreased their financial security, their well-being and their overall quality of life.

Since last Single Parents’ Day, single parents across the country have been sole breadwinner, teacher, parent and playmate 24/7 for an entire year. In the words of Victoria Benson, single mother to six and Gingerbread CEO, “it’s been relentless”.

With non-existent support networks, massively increased chances of having lost their jobs or being put on furlough and facing such practical impossibilities as not being allowed to bring their children with them to the shops and having no childcare options, single parents need your support now more than ever.

Besides the obvious implications, all of this can also lead to a lot of stress, which can negatively impact on mental health and cause further stress – making it even harder to cope during the seemingly endless lockdowns and social distancing.

• Two thirds of single parents work in sectors that have been hardest hit by furlough and job loss.
• Single parents are more likely to have lost their jobs, with:

            - Nearly one in ten falling out of employment.

            - One in three single parents having been furloughed.

• Single parents are twice as likely to lack the equipment to be able to home-educate their children during lockdowns.
• Single parent families were over three times as likely to have relied on food banks during the crisis, compared to coupled families.
• 49% of single parents reported taking on more debt since COVID-19.
• 69% of single parents in debt reported struggling with their mental health – 68% with depression specifically.

Single parents come in all shapes and sizes and the resilience they’ve shown over the past year has been absolutely inspirational. Gingerbread has been inundated with stories of how single parents have supported themselves – and each other – through the COVID-19 crisis.

Our community has shown its #singleparentstrength throughout.

And Gingerbread support has been there every step of way. We’re helping single parents to connect with each other in safe environments, through our forum and network of support groups. We offer expert and up-to-date advice including information on finances and contact arrangements, guidance on COVID measures and advice on coping with difficult situations such as bereavement through our free helpline and information pages. And we’re giving a voice to the country’s 1.8 million single parents through our research work and policy campaigning.

For Single Parents’ Day this year, we’re celebrating single parents and sharing their tales of resilience. But we also know that single parents are facing a lot of the challenges – and we know that new ones will emerge over the coming year.

Please help us us to continue providing this vital service.

• £50 could allow us to provide expert advice to a helpline caller.
• £30 could allow us to update an info section on our website every week.
• £10 could provide much-needed daily support for Peer Support Groups.