Thousands of solo parents on benefits must from today look for employment. Simon Collins reports on a sweeping welfare change.
Manurewa mother Lisa Bowden wants to work but she faces the classic solo parent's problem - who will look after the children?
Ms Bowden, 36, is one of 43,000 sole-parent beneficiaries who have received letters requiring them to look for work from today.
But her three children need her. Her eldest son, aged 16, has left school but lives at home and attends a business administration course at Best Pacific Education, which Ms Bowden also attends two afternoons a week.
Her daughter, aged 14, has a 1-year-old son. Ms Bowden shared the childcare with her daughter until recently when the daughter and infant were removed by Child, Youth and Family Services because of the criminal history of Ms Bowden's former partner.
She is working with a social worker from James Cook High School's teen parent unit, Taonga, to make the family safe enough to get her daughter and grandson home again.
"When they come home, I have to be here for them," she said.
Her youngest son, aged 12, has had a chequered school career and is in alternative education.
Ms Bowden has worked fulltime twice in the past three years - as a security guard for six months until April 2008, and looking after disabled people for four months later that year.
Both times she stopped work because of her son.
"On the days when he went to school, something would come up to get him not in the right mood for school, and the teachers couldn't leave him with the other kids," she said.
Ms Bowden has been on and off the benefit since having her first baby when she was still at school in 1989. That child died aged 6 in a car accident.
She went back to school for a while but had to leave because her mother had a new baby and needed her to look after him.
She started studying business administration in 2000 but stopped to look after her own children and has only recently taken it up again.
Her social worker has arranged job interviews for her and her eldest son at Eden Park tomorrow for catering work at weekend functions and during the Rugby World Cup.
"If it's mostly weekend work, I can find someone for my younger one," she said.
Her long-term plan is to use her business skills in a family business.
"I was sort of hoping I'd get a little shop like a dairy. My youngest one just loves food and he'll be able to go for that. The oldest one will be in the lawnmowing business and my girl will be in the laundromat," she said.
However, her budget adviser is helping her to apply for bankruptcy through the fast-track no-asset procedure because of debts totalling almost $50,000.
She will be bankrupt for a year and the procedure will stay on the public record for four more years, making it unlikely she will be able to start a business in that time.
"I know I don't want to be on the benefit all the time, but with the kids and the health and the family I don't really have much choice, because family comes first."
