Lone parents can be defined as either a mother or father and whilst the needs of single parent males needs to be addressed in the main loan parents are mainly found amongst women’s groups.
There has been some considerable activity in funding opportunities to encourage women into business and these opportunities are particularly prevalent at present in different forms across the region. All the other relevant support systems are open to women but specific women’s networks and women only workshops have been established across a range of organisations mainly funded through either the local Business Links or Learning and Skills Council.
These are in the main but not exclusively supported by Prowess which is a national network with a membership and describes itself as:-
“Prowess is the UK association of organisations and individuals who support women to start and grow businesses, through the development of an effective women-friendly business support infrastructure and enterprise culture. We achieve this by raising awareness, providing capacity building support to organisations which provide enterprise support services and by lobbying and advocacy at national, regional, European and local levels”.
Similarly there is a Women in Rural Enterprise (WiRE) which describes itself as:-
“A dynamic networking and business club which aims to help rural women in every way possible towards starting and maintaining their own rural enterprise. It comprises around two thousand members and its conference attracts nearly five hundred women entrepreneurs annually. Regular networking events and seminars are held in different regions of the country and information is made available to members via newsletters and the website”.
The two National networks are very much orientated towards existing women in business although support the idea of training and support provision on the ground, WiRE being very much an e-support network.
Some of the localised projects have attempted to raise awareness and provide mutual support but find it extremely difficult to reach out to the “hard to reach” groups and engage with them. The very nature of awareness support and training even when completely free tends to attract the higher socio-economic groups rather than the lone parent who is socially excluded through economic and accessibility limitations. Whilst the programmes are a success therefore they have not found a means by which to engage the bulk of the socially excluded.
Woman Wisdom short précis on their project.
One recent project Work4Yourself is funded equally by the local Area Investment Framework partnership and Business Link Wessex is a project aimed at women who are socially excluded in the deprived areas of South East Hampshire and has provision between 2005/2008 to support educate and train 720 women of which of which 115 have already been engaged and the target is to see one in six of the participants setting up in business with other soft outcomes achieved by directing participants to further education/training and possibly employment.
The programme specifically recruits on a localised basis through partners in Social Services, Sure Start children’s centres, neighbourhood forums, community centres and community groups, college course tutors and adult learning facilities and any women’s groups within the locality.
The programme has undertaken some advertising and has disseminated a huge number of posters and flyers. Delivery of the programme has been designed specifically for the client group utilising the language of “the benefits of working for yourself” rather than “setting up in business” and there are numerous workshops all being of limited duration.
Provision for loan parents does exist and in certain deprived localised areas has operated to a successful level. It is however important to stress that whilst in the main lone parents tend to be women there are men in a disadvantaged position through circumstance or personal tragedy. Esteem building and the essential child care support with on going support after starting a business all fall relevant to this group and common to all groups is the need for comprehensive in-work benefit advice.
There are a number of other initiative many of which are of a localised nature in both their funding and their delivery, although many are tied to “networks” that run through county and regional levels.
