Gingerbread

Gingerbread works nationally and locally, for and with single parent families, to improve their lives. We provide expert advice, practical support and campaign for single parents.We give single parents the knowledge, skills and confidence they need to lead the lives they want. Expert advisers answer our helpline, our website is packed full of useful information and we offer training, employability and confidence-building programmes directly to single parents, and through the advisers and practitioners who support them. And because we’re a national charity, it’s all free.Over 30,000 single parents are members of Gingerbread, giving them a place to share experiences, hear about discounts and special offers and get involved with our work. For over 90 years we’ve been campaigning to achieve our vision of a society in which single parent families are valued and treated equally and fairly. We listen to the views of single parents, and we act on what we hear, so we know our work will directly help single parents and their children improve their lives. www.gingerbread.org.ukwww.facebook.com/gingerbreadTwitter @gingerbread

We value the diversity of family life. Single parent families can rely on us for support and we speak out where we see the need for change. We are practical, committed and realistic.As an organisation that understands the needs of parents, we offer a range of options to our staff for balancing work and family. These include:• Flexible working options, including flexitime and working from home. All staff have the right to request flexible working from the start of their employment• Care leave for dependants• Enhanced maternity, paternity/partner and adoption leave • Childcare voucher scheme• The opportunity to take an unpaid sabbatical after two years’ employment• Generous annual leave entitlement of 28 days per year plus bank holidays (pro-rated for part time staff), including paid office closure over Christmas • Access to counselling support and legal advice for staff and their family through our employee assistance programme.

To help us meet the Family Promise we are committed in 2013 to get these areas of our work right for families:

• We will continue to shape our services based on single parents’ needs. We’ve made information and advice one of our top priorities because single parents said it was so important, and we’re committed to finding the best ways to deliver this
• Our campaigns and media work will reflect the diversity of the 2 million single parents in Britain, and we will always base our work on evidence and the real voices of single parents
• We will work to widen our reach to ensure even more single parents are able to use, engage with and help shape our services
• We will continuously review our HR policies to make sure they give our staff the flexibility they need to achieve a good work-life balance