We received £814,000 from the Scottish Government’s Parental Employability Support Fund last year to help unemployed parents find work and support those in work to secure better paid jobs, increasing their family income.

A total of 203 people registered with Prospects for Parents including lone parents, disabled parents or parents with a disabled child; parents with three or more children or a child under the age of one, parents aged under 25, and parents from an ethnic minority.

They received personalised support to address barriers to work such as childcare, travel and lack of qualifications or experience. This included developing skills through workshops, training courses and accreditations in subjects such as driving, construction skills, administration and accounting.

Our Financial Inclusion Team provided advice on accessing benefits and budgeting, and parents also took part in a 12-week training programme to prepare them for the workplace.

To date 42 unemployed parents have progressed into work, 31 employed parents have increased their hours or wages and three people have been supported to become self-employed.

“Many of the parents who took part in the programme had been unemployed for some time and faced a number of barriers to taking up employment, so Prospects for Parents helped them retrain and upskill to get a job or progress within their careers,” Councillor Allan Graham, Convener of the Enterprise and Growth Committee explained.

“Finding a new job or moving into a better paid role has helped both the parent and their children, by increasing their income now and for the longer term and reducing the impact of poverty on their lives.”

Prospects for Parents is part of our Towards a Fairer North Lanarkshire Tackling Poverty Strategy.

The Scottish Government is expected to announce additional Parental Employability Support funding for 2022/23 which will allow more families to be supported through the Prospects for Parent initiative.