Advocacy
Remember ParentsNext? Want to help design a better version?
First of all, let’s take a moment to remember how awful ParentsNext was and how good it was to have it stopped. The end of ParentsNext was a huge victory over a punitive mandatory program. The government agreed in May 2023 to stop almost all compulsory aspects of...
Single mother wins, then and now
Friday 5 May was a momentous day. Early in the morning, an announcement was made of the end of mandatory participation in ParentsNext, affective immediately, with a new co-designed voluntary program to be ready by July 2024. CSMC and our colleagues have been...
Federal Budget and single parents: a deep dive
On Budget Night, Tuesday 9 May, single parents had a significant victory: the Parenting Payment Single will now be accessible to single parents until their youngest child turns fourteen years. This is a terrific outcome - even if it is not a silver bullet for the...
Pushing for change
There are a number of issues that CSMC is always working on. ParentsNext, a fair deal for people on JobSeeker and in Workforce Australia Employment Services (the old JobActive), and the growing rate of poverty among single mothers and their children are three of...
Movement on ParentsNext
As soon as the Labor Government took office, single mums began contacting us to ask if anything will change around ParentsNext, and we started nudging the government. What we discovered was that the providers who are paid to run ParentsNext have been telling...
The latest attempts to change the punitive ParentsNext Program
Council of Single Mothers and their Children have been advocating for the rights of single mothers caught up in the ParentsNext Program for over four years, and can vouch for the damage that the mandatory and punitive aspects have had on the lives of the women in...
