Hereford & Worcester Chamber of Commerce member Julie Hawkins, who founded the Single Mums Business Network (SBMN) in 2019 has now joined the Advisory Panel of Working Families, the UK’s work-life balance charity, whose mission is to remove the barriers that people with caring responsibilities face in the workplace.
Julie has been passionate about removing these barriers since her own caring responsibilities as a single parent significantly decreased her job prospects, income, pension, and ultimately pushed her onto benefits and led to the repossession of her home. With a very strong work ethic since age 14 Julie was mortified that 20 years of full-time work could not be slightly flexible to work alongside her new childcare barriers, and is acutely aware of the knock on effect this has had and continues to have on the economy.
Through the SMBN, and prior to setting up the SMBN Jules has seen so much pain around the desperate battle of primary carers to make work work and the consequent vulnerability that brings.
She believes that every primary carer, and every single mother, should be able to enjoy the stability of income that comes with employment but also enables you to be there for your dependents.
Self-employment is often a side effect of needing this flexibility and that is why the SMBN is committed to helping members with extra external exposure (i.e what isn’t free outside of social media) to give them a better chance than they would have fighting solo.
In 2019 Working Families celebrated 40 years of support for working parents and campaigning for flexible working for all. They provide free legal advice to parents and carers on their rights at work and they give employers the tools they need to support their employees while creating a flexible high-performance workforce