Kerry Jones, Child Maintenance Project Coordinator shares information about the Transforming Child Maintenance Partnership Project, ahead of the Confident Conversations Training Session she is delivering for Edinburgh Advice Network members on Tuesday 11th February 2025.
'Over the last year Fife Gingerbread have been part of the Transforming Child Maintenance Partnership Project (TCM) with One parent Family Scotland (OPFS) & Institute of public police and research (IPPR). Our vision ‘A fairer system for children and families’. Each organisation brings their speciality to the project and here in Fife we have been delivering a ‘test & learn’ project not only supporting parents to navigate the current system but also delivering training to practitioners in Fife & over Scotland to increase confidence to discuss child maintenance when supporting families.
We believe children have a right to fair financial support yet as of June 2024 there was £654,000,000 unpaid Child maintenance through Collect and Pay arrangements. National Statistics show in Edinburgh alone, in the quarter April – June 24 there is 1334 unpaid collect and pay arrangements, affecting 1606 children . This does not include any unpaid maintenance with the other types of child maintenance arrangements where stats are not collected. If the unpaid collect and pay arrangements were paid at just the lowest flat rate of £7pw this would be £9,338 per week for children in Edinburgh & the Lothians. This can potentially be the difference between a child living in poverty or not.
Child maintenance can often be an emotive and difficult subject to discuss and isn’t really being discussed in financial inclusion discussions, the training aims to support practitioners to increase their confidence to embed child maintenance into discussions. The course leaflet attached below gives a brief overview.
Information around the Transforming Child Maintenance partnership can be found here including the research: Transforming Child Maintenance - One Parent Families Scotland'
For more information about the training session and to book visit the eventbrite page Confident Conversations
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