Good morning parents and carers, I hope you've had a lovely weekend.
Please find attached some information from one of our former parents, Stephen Walker about his Solo Parents United group and new football teams he is setting up for children of single parents.
'Solo Parents United was set up in 2020 however it was working offline in 2019 when myself and my friend started it creating meet ups in the community. I founded the group due to being a solo parent for nine years raising my son aged three and daughter aged 8 at the time. The purpose of the group is to connect solo parents to prevent isolation, reduce anxiety, depression and promote well-being in parents and their children. We believe we are stronger together by sharing ours skills and knowledge to overcome barriers in life. We are a non profit group which is run by twelve of us admins/moderators. There is me, three fathers and seven mothers all who are solo parents. We all come from different walks of life and we have admins who are experienced SEN parents as we create SEN events too. We did a successful day event for many families in winter last year 2023 who have children with SEN needs. We have a highly qualified legal adviser also a Solo Parent who works for Mckenzie Friends. She has helped lots of solo parents with free legal advice and unless further input is required she advises them of any potential costs. When approving new members we do thorough profile checks of facebook profiles as best we possibly can to safeguard members. We make all members aware of their responsibility in making their profiles safe using the privacy settings before joining the group due to potential DV perpetrators and not wanting someone to find their location. We organise holidays every year from camping to Haven and Parkdean resorts. We share our problems on posts and all parents give their perspectives on how to manage various issues we face as solo parents. We have 1.4k solo parent families in the group all supporting each other online and on events we meet at. I have registered our group with companies house but it is NOT a business. I registered it to protect our name for using for the group and football club. We have been on Granada Reports Television in 2022 due to our successful Christmas party and I personally have been on BBC radio Lancashire several times over the years, Radio 5 live and was recently on BBC radio Lancashire with Sharon Hartley only a few weeks ago.
Regarding the football club I have recently been interviewed by a panel of a private trust who approved a grant of £1,000 for our football club which I have now been given. The football club is registered with the FA and all insurances are paid. We go live with the football club mid April this year. The reason for the football club is many solo parents have children who visit their other parents at weekends which mean they cannot play for a local grassroots football club every weekend. We aim to change this by not entering a league and playing friendly matches fielding different teams each weekend and entering occasional tournaments for those children who want to be more competitive but our main emphasis is FUN. I believe with our team this football club and group is a very beneficial group to all Solo Parents out there across the Northwest and nationwide members who access our online content. I have attached the posters for you and please feel free to contact me with any questions.
We also have a solo parents united northwest facebook page that anyone can follow and solo parents united football page.'
