Gingerbread

At Gingerbread, we think single parents do a brilliant job.

We provide advice and practical support for single parents. Expert advisers answer our helpline, this website is packed full of useful information and we offer training too. We also campaign to improve the lives of all single parent families. And because we’re a national charity, it’s all free.

We have over 90 years’ experience of working with single parent families - from the days when our key campaigning activity was to reform the “bastardy laws,” right through to 2010, where single parents head up around a quarter of British families but still face big challenges.

Our vision is “a society in which single parent families are valued and where they (and their children) are treated equally and fairly.”

As the national charity working for and with single parent families, Gingerbread is trusted because our work is grounded in the needs, views and aspirations of single parents. 

Our accountability commitment:

When Gingerbread speaks out we aim to be clear whether it is with, for or on behalf of single parents 

We work to communicate real voices and to enable single parents to make their voices heard directly

We respect the diversity of the UK’s 1.9 million single parents and aim to reflect that in what we say

When we speak for single parents, we will be clear how what we say is based on evidence and feedback from single parents

If there are problems, we’ll make it easy for people to make a complaint and to know that it will be acted on.

How we work with single parents

As the national charity working with single parent families, it is vital that Gingerbread is in touch with the views and experiences of single parents.

When Gingerbread decides what services to provide and how to improve them, we need to be sure these choices are shaped by single parents’ needs. 

We made information and advice a top priority because single parents said it was so important, and we’re now trying to understand better how best to deliver this.

When Gingerbread talks to government or the media and calls for policy changes, we need to be confident these are the top concerns of single parents and will make a real impact on single parents’ lives. 

Our single parents’ manifesto and our policy reports are packed with the views of single parents. Our major campaign Let’s Lose the Labels which challenges stereotyping of single parents was a direct response to single parents telling us they wanted to hear us speaking out on these issues.

Gingerbread works hard to make sure single parents voices are heard by policy makers and the media.