Forward Foundation
“Empowering Action to Move Forward”
Navigating life’s challenges as a community with Strength, Perseverance, Persistence, and Purposefulness
We are working with single parents who have encountered a life altering event resulting in financial crisis. Many parents fear they will be unable to work because they can’t afford the astronomical cost of childcare.
Our program requirements include completion of educational workshops led by our community partners. These consist of leading professionals in the financial, legal, career advancement, and family counseling fields. We provide our families with a multitude of educational resources, tools, and community support. In order to achieve long term sustainability and financial independence it is imperative that we equip families with basic knowledge in the areas they need to best care for their children.
In addition to the workshops, our parents are required to complete (2) volunteer hours per month. We firmly believe that our families need to be vested; we are not offering a handout, but a hand up.
Our Goal
- Foster resilience and financial independence
- Build community and gain valuable skills
- Bring awareness and advocate for this immense need
Program Requirements
- Are you a single working parent who is employed full time, going to school full time, or a combination of working while finishing up a degree?
- Have you encountered a life altering event which has resulted in financial crisis? (ie: divorce, death, illness, family member caretaker role, extended litigation, etc.)
- Are you utilizing, or in need of childcare?
- Are your children under the age of 12?
- Are you ineligible for DSS (Virginia Department of Social Services) services due to earning too high of an income?
Great Leadership Helping Our Community Become Stronger
Andrea Starr
Mary Miller
Soliél Lindsey
David W. Fuller
Pam Langfitt
Tim Amos
Bo Brown
Micah White
Amy Garelick
Dan Cherkis
KC Murphy
In 2010 Kimberly Baine-Tillem founded The Sophie House to assist single working mothers and their children during a time of crisis. The idea was based on being able to offer community support and resources to those that didn’t have any.
In order to make the biggest impact on future success of single parents, it was determined in 2020 the most crucial component needed was to provide families with financial assistance for childcare. This assistance would allow single parents to work while providing some financial freedom to care for their children.
The foundation was rebranded and launched as Forward Foundation in January of 2020.
Our new logo is derived from the triskelion symbol which represents movement and strength; symbolizing moving forward despite adversities we may face.
Did you know:
- One out of four homes in America are single parent households
- Childcare is one of the largest expenses that parents face
- Cost of full-time care for an infant or toddler costs approximately $15k a year
- Adults and children in single-parent households are at risk for adverse health outcomes, including mental illness (e.g., substance abuse, depression, suicide) and unhealthy behaviors (e.g., smoking, excessive alcohol use, food insecurity)
- Approximately five million children in the US aged five and under live in a single parent household
- In 2020 nearly 19 million children, amounting to 25 percent of all children in the U.S., were living in single-parent families. That percentage is nearly three times the level in 1960 of 9 percent. America’s proportion of children living with a single parent is more than three times the worldwide level of 7 percent.
2020:
- 10,719,000 – single parent families
- In 2020 nearly 19 million children, amounting to 25% of all children in the U.S., were living in single-parent families. That percentage is nearly 3x the level in 1960 of 9%. America’s proportion of children living with a single parent is more than 3x the worldwide level of 7%.
- Approximately five million children in the US aged five and under live in a single parent household.
Single mother statistics 2020
- Single motherhood has grown so common in America that today over 80.5% of single-parent families are headed by single mother; with nearly a third living in poverty.
- 40% of single moms had trouble affording food, whereas 27% struggled to afford shelter.
- If a single mother is able to work, her earning power still lags significantly compared with men’s, about 82¢ to a $1 for the same job — leaving a wage gap of 18¢ on the dollar.
- Single mothers often spend over half of their income on housing expenses and a third on child care, leaving them with less money for educational expenses.
- Single mothers earn income that place them well below married mothers in the income ladder. The gap between the two groups is significantly large. The median income for families led by a single mother in 2019 was about $48,098, well below the $102,308 median for married couples.
Single father statistics 2021
- 16.1% of single-parent families are led by single fathers. The number of single fathers has increased by 60% in the last ten years, and is one of the fastest growing family situations in the United States.
- 3.23 million children were living with their single fathers
- Although single fathers are less likely to be living in poverty than single mothers, they are still significantly more likely to be living in poverty than married parents: 8.4% of related children in married families were in poverty in 2016, compared to 19.9% of related children in single-father families
- Single fathers represent a unique and growing share of single-parent families for children. While they differ in important ways from single mothers, single dads need some of the same supports.
- Single dads need more community-based and online support groups and resources that are geared toward the needs of fathers.
Access to Childcare
- On average, single parent households spend 34% of their household income on child care.
- Child care subsidy, if eligible, is hard to come by. In 2019, 15 states had wait lists, or had frozen their intake for child care assistance, with wait times ranging from 90 days to two years.
- Nationally the annual cost of center-based infant care averaged over 40% of the state median income for a single mother. About 32% for a school-age child.
- About 40% of U.S. single parents were employed in low-wage jobs and often had no access to paid leave.
Links
https://www-cnbc-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/03/01/from-jobs-to-pay-the-coronavirus-pandemic-has-hurt-women.html
https://raisingchildren.net.au/grown-ups/family-diversity/parenting-after-separation-divorce/single-parenting
https://www.wtvr.com/news/local-news/richmond-single-parent-households-are-growing
The gifts we receive are used to support and enrich the lives of single parents and their children, hence enabling them to go from instability to stability.
Your donation to Forward Foundation helps single parents take a step forward by helping them build community and gain valuable skills.