Providing advice for lone parents: from parent to citizen? [2005] CFLQ 55

This article draws upon research exploring access to advice for lone parents. In it, we argue that current advice provision for lone parents is insufficiently accessible to enable them to achieve adequate social integration. We explore the ways in which advice provision falls short of what is required, and suggest that access to information and advice should be conceptualised as an aspect of social citizenship, rather than as an adjunct to a narrowly focused legal system (which we term the 'legal model') or as a means of improving parenting skills (which we term the 'educational model'). We argue that such a conceptualisation would offer a better way of determining how to meet the needs of this group and, by implication, other such groups at risk of social exclusion.