Single Parents

Strategies for Success

• Emphasize nontraditional career that offer greater earning potential resulting a better quality of life (i.e. improved self-esteem, confidence, health benefits, etc.)
  
• Provide a career planning program that includes resume writing, goal-setting, stress management, wardrobing, and job shadowing experiences.
  
• Provide support services such as child care, transportation, books, tuition, and uniforms.
  
• Ensure that school staff members provide a welcoming, accessible and understanding environment.
  
• Contact community agencies and philanthropic foundations that can assist learners with fees, transportation, childcare, books and tuition.
  
• Contact the Local Workforce Investment Board to access employment opportunities.
  
• Market materials that feature photos and testimonials of single parents.
  
• Provide multiple measures of assessment, such as tests, interviews, inventories, and hands-on work samples that measure basic skills, aptitudes, abilities, interests, and support services.
  
• Be sensitive to emotional, environmental, and social factors affecting single parents’ attitudes and motivations.
  
• Arrange for transportation for learners to attend job interviews, CTE programs, and/or worksites.
  
• Consider providing a textbook rental or textbook lending library.
  
• Provide workshops related to appropriate grooming, dress, punctuality, and workplace ethics.
  
• Ensure that staff members understand the implication of legal issues that affect single parents (e.g. child/staff ratios in childcare facilities, Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, etc.)
  
• (Postsecondary) Include a statement in the intake process describing the services and supports available for single parents and displaced homemakers. Make sure individuals are aware that answering the question is voluntary, but by self-identifying they may be eligible to receive services.

 

Illinois Resources

• Single Parent Nursing Students: A Self-Sufficiency ‘Booster Shot Kaskaskia College New Look Project '06 profile
  
  
• Supporting single parents and displaced homemakers for success brochure (download as pdf ) and supplemental materials (word doc). Normal, IL: Illinois State University
  
• Illinois KidCare
  KidCare is now part of All Kids, Governor Blagojevich’s program for all Illinois children who need health insurance.

Resources to Explore

Childcare Resource and Referral Network
Resources for early childhood care, education, and growth.

Women Work! The National Network for Women’s Employment
1625 K St. NW, Suite 300
Washington, D.C. 20006
Ph. 202-467-6346
Fax: 202-467-5366
womenwork@womenwork.org

Using Title IX To Protect the Rights of Pregnant and Parenting Teens

Chutes and Ladders: The Search For Solid Ground for Women in the Workforce.
(An Update on the Status of Displaced Homemakers and Single Mothers in the United States).

School-Based Programs For Adolescent Parents And Their Young Children: An Overview

Providing Services to all Teen Parents, both Non-TANF and TANF

Supporting Young Families: Challenges to Implementing Contemporary Welfare Policy

The Education Connection: Helping CTE to Meet the Challenges Faced by Pregnant and Parenting Students in Illinois (Final Project Report).
Beth Ann Weigand, IOES
2450 Foundation Drive, Suite 100
Springfield, IL 62703
800-252-4822
217-786-3013
Fax: 217-786-3020

Single Parent Association
Is a membership organization of single parents. Single Parents Association (SPA) was formed to provide education, resources, friendship and cama raderie, as well as, FUN activities for single parents and their children.

Single Parent Network

Quick Reference & Fact Sheet for Teen Parents
Provided by the March of Dimes

One Young Parent
The One Young Parent, mission is to Support, Care For, and Encourage those young pregnant and/or parenting women

Providing Critical Service and Support to Teens and their Children - The Center for Assessment and Policy Development review of research evidence and best practices has identified a set of critical services that should be available through a comprehensive school-based approach in order to ensure the best outcomes for teen parents and their children.

Helping the Education System Work for Teen Parents and Their Children

Foster Care And Early Child Development: Implications For Child Welfare Policy And Practice

Topics for Teen Parents— Ohio State University
Being a parent is one of the most important roles in your life. It is also one of the most challenging. Babies depend on parents to meet their needs. The way you care for your baby determines how he or she will develop as a child and as an adult. The topics for this fact sheet were selected by a group of teen parents.

US Teen Pregnacy Statistics
Each year, almost 750,000 teenage women aged 15–19 become pregnant. The teenage pregnancy rate in this country is at its lowest level in 30 years, down 36% since its peak in 1990. A growing body of research suggests that both increased abstinence and changes in contraceptive practice are responsible for recent declines in teenage pregnancy.