Transitions

As a director of wellness, I have always been interested in how we as humans cope with or engage through transitions. Change is an inevitable part of life and whether we like it or not, we do have to engage. The ease of those transitions is often very much to do with our approach, our own personal level of self-awareness and our ability to research, reflect, re-engage and so on.

Last year, I was approached through One Family the Irish national organisation for one-parent families, by researchers from Trinity College Dublin and University College Cork . They were conducting a specific body of research looking at transition. They had received my name from One Family as I had previously used the service for support and social connection while parenting my daughter alone.

In this instance, the transition being researched related to the changeover of one-parent families from the Irish Department of Social Protection (DSP) One-Parent Family Payment (OPF) to Job-seekers Transitional Payment (JST).

Job-Seekers Transitional Payment

JST was a new social welfare payment measure introduced in the 2013 Budget which was and is still widely known as an austerity budget. It was one of those budgets where our government tells us we have to cut our cloth to suit our measure – or for those of us a little older, the kind that would have mentioned “we are living beyond our means…” while shopping for Charvet shirts from Paris!

Yes! That ‘incident may have been in 1991 but it was galling to know in 2013, two decades later, our Irish Government was still peddling the same story i.e. “there’s no money in the kitty, the poor and vulnerable will have to be penalised. It’s okay, they’ll be so busy trying not to drown, they won’t say anything.” That is a drama of many parts (and failings) and a story for another day.

Single Parents are Resilient, Let Them Utilise That Resilience

The introduction of JST in 2013 was supposed to be an efficient and economic scheme whereby parents parenting alone, would move from the full support of the DSP and OPF payment to a ‘lighter touch’ support, the JST, as an incentive to gain full-time employment. A great idea in theory however there were a couple of important factors that ‘someone’ who should have known better, failed to consider.

The first, most crucially important, was this transition would happen when your youngest child or only one, turned seven years old. At seven years old, ‘someone’ decided it was high time your child began looking after themselves, and as a single parent, the parent could go back to work.

We are not going to even look at the elephant in the room in terms of the laws around leaving minors unsupervised or what child abandonment looks like.

The second element was you would be transitioned once more from JST to Job-seekers Allowance (JSA) after seven years on JST, when your youngest child, or only one, turned 14 years old because again ‘someone’ decided your new adolescent needed even less parenting than they did at 7 years old.

Loss of Income

Markedly of importance here is that transition from OPF to JST meant a drop in income, and transition from JST to JSA meant a further drop in income which for most amounted to anything between €50 and €120 weekly. So as the child gets older, has more needs and is ultimately more expensive to rear, the funds provided are reduced twice.

Those were the fundamentals of the scheme. You can read all about the various payment comparisons online at Citizen’s Information, the DSP website or just look up historical government records. If you do, be sure to look at the various restrictions of each scheme.

The New Research

You can find the full report of the findings of the research and report launched today, online from One Family and other sources. The report is entitled ‘In Transit?: Documenting the lived experiences of welfare, working and caring for one-parent families claiming Jobseeker's Transitional Payment’. To make life easy, here is a link.

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The Launch

Today, Thursday 26th May 2023 marks the launch of the findings of the research in a comprehensive report which it is hoped will inform change and further, more positive, more sensible, and more holistic transitions for this cohort of our communities. We will have a budget in October 2023 in Ireland, and it is hoped the findings contained within this report will have a significant impact on the decisions made in support of one-parent families in Ireland.

It would be great if it did.

It would be great if, after funding being provided to conduct the research, and conscientious participation from the very demographic the research and change would impact the most, that the government actually listened to the findings, heard the experts, acknowledge the voices and lived experiences of those directly affected and implemented change for the better.

Forgive me for being a tad cynical but after five decades living in Ireland, we’ve all gone around these houses before. That said, I will reserve any further judgement until October and Budget Day.

Lived Experience

While attending the launch which took place at noon today, I was moved by Senator Alice Mary Higgins and her synopsis of the report and its findings. I tuned in via the audio while out and about but found myself returning home to watch and listen to the rest because I was actually moved to tears.

To hear my lived experience spoken of with such grace and attention was validating.

I went through this transition. My experience is in this report.

After returning to full-time education when my daughter was just seven years old, I was told at the end of year one that my supports, would be ‘transitioned’.

The very supports I had checked and re-checked with DSP before embarking on a momentous task as a single parent, with no familial support and limited finances. I knew my part-time self-employment which supplemented my OPF payment while I completed an honours degree in psychology would help me get through. The aim of taking on this challenge was to improve our lot in life, increase my chances of employment and make a difference to this existence we found ourselves in because of domestic violence.

When The Chips Are Down, They’re Down

We already had odds stacked. We really didn’t need any more.

I fought hard to push back against these changes being forced upon me and managed to demonstrate I was already in the midst of the process the JST was supposed to be encouraging, so it would be detrimental to the completion of my studies if my circumstances were to change at that time.

To give context, I was receiving OPF, was able to work part-time self-employed and still receive a SUSI grant as our household income met the thresholds. This in turn meant I had just enough to pay the bills, pay for breakfast club and afterschool care and my transport to get to and from college.

Let me be clear, there was nothing extra. There were no luxuries unless you class having a car a luxury. No social expenses, no clothing purchases except the necessities but I managed. For four years, I managed because I did one year of ‘back to education’ to ensure I could manage the learning process of the three year degree.

Resilience

I did manage. We managed. My daughter wasn’t enamoured by no longer having me at the school gates, or being able to have pals come home after school and indeed she missed out on quite a lot as there was only me to provide the support, guidance, play and care. We got through it though.

I limped through it if I’m honest. The loss of my mother at the end of year one, having repeat exams that year because I was so busy running between home, college, childcare, my mother’s hospital and work that I got run down and sick, failing some of the first semester exams. When it came to repeating them in the summer, I buried my Mum and walked into an exam four days later.

Being spiked on the only evening out with friends in over a year, at the beginning of third year, resulted in a chemical imbalance and the need to take medication for about five months to re-establish equilibrium and get me through my thesis and final exams. I limped through, but we did manage.

I Never Saw It Coming

I had thought I’d reached the end of a very difficult road and felt good about the future. I graduated, albeit later than my peers. I had some money put by to launch my training and development business and was ready to meet the world head on and show my daughter the struggle had been worthwhile because things were about to change for us, in many ways but most importantly financially.

No more living hand-to-mouth. No more trying to make the most from larder stores and spending the minimum on fresh foods. No more never having a family day out that only involved the local woods or playground because there was no money for anything else.

That was until I finished my final exam of 3rd year and three days later a letter arrived in the post to say I had been ‘transitioned’. I was now going to receive JST and not OPF anymore.

In theory I thought that was okay, it was a sign of the changes that were ahead for me and it was a milestone marker for me to set, that when JST support disappeared in three years’ time* I wouldn’t need to transition to JSA. I would be self-employed and working while my daughter was in school and still having sufficient income to pay the bills and spend time with her as she entered secondary school and adolescence when she would need me (although not necessarily want me) a bit more.

*I began college when my daughter was almost 8 and finished when she was 11 years, moving to JST at that point and so only had until she was 14 years.

Massive Loss of Earnings and Ability to Earn

When that letter arrived in late-May 2017, I received no notice, no warning and most importantly had not been notified that a) my payment would be reduced by €120 per month and b) I would not be allowed to work as self-employed while on JST. That meant an additional €50-€70 per week I was going to lose from our household. I could not afford or sustain that.

I spoke to DSP to find out what my options were and it was recommended I apply for the Back To Work Enterprise Scheme. I had to be unemployed for a minimum of nine months to qualify and as I had been studying and one OPF that sufficed.

It seemed the most sensible thing to do as I needed to get my business off the ground, and this seemed to be a way that would support that. I would receive the same financial support as the JST payment, and it was guaranteed for a period of two years. Additionally, it would be tax free while I started my business. I had €5,000 in seed money to start my business, so it all seemed to add up on paper.

Oh here’s a little kicker for you. I was told at this point, had I applied for BTWEA while still on OPF, I would have been automatically transitioned from OPF to BTWEA, never passing JST (an not getting €200) AND I would have been transitioned on the same money as was received on the OPF support. Now that really does stick in the craw, so I try not to think about much, if at all.

The Problem with Paper

Theory is wonderful. Reality is another thing. I completed the application forms for BTWEA and what ensued was nine months of complete debilitation.

Today, during the launch it was mentioned that difficulties in the ‘system’ and the lack of awareness and training within the department in question, meant that when conducting future training for staff, a trauma-informed approach would be advised, I second that wholeheartedly.

I approached DSP in May 2017 with my seed money for my business to start on the BTWEA Scheme. It was supposed to take a maximum of nine weeks to process the paperwork. I thought I could figure out the nine weeks, knowing I’d have to use approx. €750 from my ‘business pot’ but it was a means to an end, and while I wouldn’t be allowed to work, I could complete the Business Options course and do some research and study for myself which would carry me over, mentally, and figuratively. I have an active brain that needs feeding.

My paperwork was ‘lost’ four times. On the fifth occasion I told DSP I was not filling out the pages and pages of documentation again by hand and they could make do with a copy of the last, or next to last or second or first form that I completed for them.

Nothing Left

By January 2018 I was beaten. The nine weeks had become more than thirty-five. My seed money for my business was gone, used to pay the ongoing household bills that the reduced JST payment didn’t cover. St. Vincent de Paul saw us through Christmas that year. As did the local Women’s Refuge. A food hamper from each and a goodie hamper for my daughter meant we literally had food to tide us over the week and something under the tree for my daughter.

After struggling through three years of a degree to make our lives better, we were poorer than we had ever been. We weren’t on the breadline. We had no bread. The line was so far in the distance, some days I wondered if I would ever even see it again.

The Lunacy

We had NO prospects because I was required by DSP to be unemployed to qualify for a programme intended to allow me to become self-employed. Meanwhile my personal details rattled around floors, desks, bins or whatever in the DSP offices. By the time the BTWEA was sanctioned in April 2018, I had no money, was over €3,000 in debt.

I was receiving a €50 handout from St. Vincent de Paul delivered ‘in secret’ late every Monday night which allowed me to hide it from my daughter and pay for her childcare. My mental health was on the floor to the point I was completely debilitated, and it took months for me to find my confidence to even consider reaching out to others for work.

I had knocked on the doors of my local DSP office so many times that the AOs, APs and POs knew my name. While grocery shopping one day, It was mentioned to me in confidence by someone with nothing to do with the DSP that I should be careful. It seemed the noise I was creating because of the inefficiencies and inadequacies of the system, the departments and the staffing was not appreciated.

I had written to government department head offices etc., with complaints and solutions. I had spoken to Ministers in person. I had also it appeared, gained a name for me which I was old would make it unlikely I would gain contracts from any local government body in the area of training or facilitation.

Perseverance

First, stand up, second dust yourself off and third get on with it. It is a format most single parents are all too familiar with because there is NO alternative. We have to do what we have to do.

My finances have never recovered from that period. In time I am certain they will. It was a struggle though to be recognised or even responded to when applying for contracts. Having no capital means you have nothing to ‘speculate in order to accumulate’. For a time the hamster wheel spun, but I’d fallen off.

Legacies

There is a lasting legacy when the system does not work. We know this. We see it daily in the judicial system, the health system, the education system and in the welfare system. This is not news to Irish people.

It is rotten though. It does not have to be this way. It should not take years of complaints and third party bodies having to compile experiences from department clientele, in order to get funding to study the failings, when if departments simply actioned the situations as they occur, on the ground, if they trained government staff adequately, if there were accountability measures in place, people wouldn’t have to be ‘let down by the system’. The rule books need to be written for humans, not scenarios.

For all that, Ireland has been for many decades seen as a quality place of learning and wonderful education, it is a shame that knowledge is not put to better use in government.

The Report

I very much welcome the launch of today’s report. If for no other reason, I can see my lived experience on paper, in a published document that government officials are going to have to read and respond to.

I am grateful to One Family , Trinity College Dublin , and University College Cork for giving me the opportunity to share my experience. If that helps to inform transitions for the better, for others who will be in my position of old, that is hugely positive.

Most importantly, I want to be able to give my daughter the report, in a few years’ time when she is better able to understand, so she knows I tried my very hardest to make our lives better. It might help her understand why it was often so difficult and why we lived a life of lack in too many ways.

What Ifs

Listening to the findings today has reduced me to tears. I rarely indulge in what might have been, but today I am. How very differently those post-college years would have been for us if I had not been ground to dust, so that to rebuild I was starting from absolutely nothing, with debt hanging over me. Today’s tears and the need to share these words, demonstrate to me that despite my resilience and perseverance, I have carried trauma from that period in our lives.

The sense of failure; The sense of despair that despite my abilities and skills, a government department would require me to sit redundant while they played with paper across desks that had no investment in our lives; The shame of poverty; The sadness in the eyes of a child who understands too much, too soon, too heavily; The stigma of the ‘poor unmarried mother with no money and no prospects’, sticking like a bad smell.

Yes there is trauma. I acknowledge that and I move forward.

Our Reality

We haven’t time for trauma caused by others in our house.

We have things to be getting on with in our lives. We don’t live in a place of ‘lack’. We live in a place of ‘just not yet’.

Any changes that come about from this piece of research will hopefully make a positive difference. It is too late for us though. My daughter is almost eighteen and our lives are in a different phase. We are still here, have come through that trauma, entered into the pandemic in a precarious position and have come out the other side much the same.

I can’t hide the inefficiencies of an inadequate governance anymore, nor can I hide the lack of accountability from people in positions of power and authority – people you would really expect to know better. That is as it should be.

I have always reared my daughter with an outwardly, world view. I have advocated looking to the bigger picture especially at times of challenge. These challenges are mere blips on the landscapes of our lives.

My daughter is growing up to be an informed citizen with a very clear view of what good governance could look like and how much better the world can be. Perhaps she will make an impact on that in the future but really unless she is an elected representative, it won’t be her job!

I am happy in the knowledge that she will make an impact on her own life despite the struggles and challenges of childhood.

In fairness though, it would have been nice if we hadn’t been ‘transitioned’ into a system that made no sense, was unfit for purpose, was devoid of any holistic empathy or understanding and removed the sense of validity from those in vulnerable positions, with so very much to offer.

My Thanks

Thank you again to the research team.

Thank you for taking the time to read. It was supposed to be a five-minute read…..

Most importantly, thank you to my amazing daughter who has dealt with so much, come through so much and is the most incredible, funny, compassionate human I know. Here’s to her future.

Sent with care and warm regards,

Sinead

P.S. If you want to talk to me about this, lived experience, overcoming trauma, resilience, perseverance, sense of self, self-awareness, big picture thinking or simply my take on the world and situations which appear designed to challenge us, get in touch via the website https://www.sineadckavanagh.ie