A successful project to help lone parents into work is to continue for another year in one of Fife’s unemployment blackspots.
Fife Council’s Levenmouth area committee is ploughing £25,000 into the Making It Work programme to ensure it is maintained in the area.
Run by lone parent organisation Fife Gingerbread, the personalised development programmes help single people with young children improve their employability prospects.
They include training opportunities and access to education and volunteering.
Workers establish links with local employers to develop work placements, while organising childcare, financial support and advice.
Support is also available for those with family issues which may be affecting someone’s chances of finding and keeping a job.
The result is more people with the skills and confidence to get work and fewer people being hit with benefit sanctions.
More than 60 people are being helped in Levenmouth every month and it is hoped the additional funding will let even more lone parents access the support.
Project manager Claire Neill said Fife Gingerbread and the Making It Work project team were absolutely delighted to have secured additional funding.
“We are especially grateful as we appreciate how tight current council budgets are,” she said.
“This funding highlights the success of Making It Work’s employability model, which is unique in Fife, offering a genuinely holistic approach to helping lone parents overcome any barriers to employment they may have.”
Councillor David Graham, vice chair of Levenmouth area committee, said he was highly supportive of the Making It Work approach.
“This project helps some of our most marginalised citizens get the right skills to enable them to get jobs in a very competitive jobs market,” he said.
“Everyone should have the chance to be employed in interesting and fulfilling work and the Making It work project helps to improve the prospects of those who have traditionally struggled to gain access to these jobs.”
Research has shown that lone parents have to overcome multiple and complex barriers to access and sustain employment and training opportunities.