And one of the their initiatives which is bearing fruit is based at the garden allotments in Kelty.
Cowdenbeath Rotary Club heard about the work of Fife Gingerbread in Central Fife, at Thursday’s meeting when guest for the evening was the organisation’s Families and Children’s Operations Manager, Karthryn Miller.
Karthryn pointed out that the Glenrothes based group had people helping lone parent families in every part of Fife, but the Cowdenbeath-Lochgelly area saw an awful lot of hard work going on to provide key support for many lone parents and their children.
(Image: Fife Gingerbread)
She said: “Lone parents are an incredible pool of untapped talent, but they often face significant challenges when trying to enter or re-enter the workforce. “We meet lone parents who are eager to work, however, struggle to find flexible opportunities for fair work that enable them to juggle being the sole carer for their children.
“Our Lone Parent, Poverty & Work initiative works closely with lone parents to understand their needs, advocate for change in the workplace, and break down the barriers they face.
“Through these conversations, a clear need emerged. Many lone parents wanted term-time roles to remove the need for childcare, and employment opportunities like these are a bit of a unicorn in the labour market. We also heard about the strengths of lone parents with amazing transferable skills such as budgeting, organisational, autonomous, problem solving, creativity and adaptability.
“All of this led us to identify Pupil Support Assistants as a great career for many lone parents. We learned that locally our colleagues in education often faced challenges in the recruitment and retention of Pupil Support Assistants, who play a key role in our local Schools.
“This led to the development of an exciting partnership with Fife Jobs Contract, Education, and Fife Gingerbread. We focused on creating a tailored traineeship programme, which offered lone parents an alternative and supportive pathway into these roles.”
(Image: Fife Gingerbread)
Karthryn added: “We worked collaboratively to plan the Traineeship to set the parents up for success, and to ensure that this pilot developed an alternative recruitment pathway that could be scaled up.
“Goal-setting and career progression were also key aspects of our support. We encouraged ‘blue sky thinking’, helping parents get a vision of their next steps while building their skills and experiences.
“Fife Gingerbread provided employability support, hosting in-person sessions to develop their CVs and application skills which highlighted their achievements.
“The combination of holistic whole family support and ongoing development opportunities ensured that trainees felt equipped, valued, and ready to build sustainable careers in education”.
Karthryn also talked about the Allotments Project in Kelty: “A small group of men and woman managed to start developing one of the plots at the Kelty Allotments in Earl’s Row, and it gathered pace.
“During the summer there was a lot of work which saw a variety of vegetables grown and people of all ages involved and picking up useful growing skills.
“There was an excellent open day held which saw people of all ages learning a great deal of knowledge of how to grow items which can be of valuable use.
“The event was a great success and saw many lone parent families in the area having a great time.”
Karthryn concluded: “We are committed to helping lone parents and their children in the Cowdenbeath-Lochgelly area, and throughout the county, create better days and brighter tomorrows.”
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