Written by: Danielle Baron, Senior Level Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Danielle Baron, an entrepreneur for equality and fairness and Ms. Great Britain Finalist, has built her various endeavours upon the fundamental foundation of ensuring breaking through stereotypes and ensuring equitable treatment for women and children. Her roles encompass that of an educator, youth mentor, and therapist, as well as a women's coach. In addition, she has established a business, DIVEINC, aimed at facilitating conversations on diversity, equity, and inclusion within educational establishments and corporate settings.
My journey began as a teacher, where my unwavering commitment to fairness led me to swiftly address any instances of bullying under my supervision, fostering a supportive and tranquil classroom environment. Having personally endured numerous unjust situations throughout my life, particularly during pregnancy and while caring for a newborn, I have a deep-seated empathy for those facing similar challenges.
During my initial teaching assignment at a primary school during my NQT year, I encountered mistreatment due to having a newborn precisely when I needed additional support. It was disheartening to sense that fellow women, including the headteacher, were questioning my ability to manage before they had seen me in action, seemingly determined to make my life more difficult. While I persevered through this toxic atmosphere longer than I should have, it fuelled my determination to prevent others from enduring such hardships in the workplace.
My teaching career followed a diverse path, culminating in an assistant head role. In my final teaching position, news of my pregnancy coincided with an eleven-month induction period, providing the school with a pretext to let me go. Astonishingly, even in an all-girls school, the absence of support for their own female staff member was glaring. The realisation that such treatment could occur at a time of heightened vulnerability for a woman ignited my resolve to help.
When they attempted to reduce my maternity pay, I fought ardently, as they had trapped me in a scenario where finding another job while expecting a baby seemed impossible. The experience instilled a profound sense of injustice within me, spurring me to defy their expectations.
My journey took a new direction as I founded an educational business, which swiftly flourished into a six-figure enterprise. While I take pride in my accomplishments, I'm also saddened by the lack of choice I faced. I had to either sink or swim, an untenable position for single mothers. Similar challenges arose in my housing situation; despite earning significantly more than my now ex-husband, I found myself shouldering the entire rent for three years. When the time came for the third renewal, I disclosed my status as a single parent. Ironically, despite not needing to prove my financial capabilities during the second renewal when they believed I was married, I was subjected to the stress of verifying my ability to pay.
I did raise the issue of sexism in one of my emails, imagining their reaction when they saw my substantial individual income. Yet, my thoughts turned to the countless single mothers who lack the financial means to easily demonstrate their capacity to pay rent. They are subjected to unnecessary hurdles and vulnerabilities, which landlords might exploit through financial manipulation or coercion. It is evident that single mothers require safeguarding and protection in these circumstances.
Jules Hawkins, a trailblazing force, founded SMBN (Single Mums Business Network) in 2019, driven by her personal journey as a single mother, in adversity, striving to succeed over multiple and significant barriers. Her accomplishments include publishing the Single Mums Business Magazine and penning 'Breaking out of Benefits Jail' available on Amazon or the SMBN website above.
When we discuss equality, we do so with the best of intentions. However, sometimes the way we categorise equal opportunities means that unrecognised minority groups miss out on the support they so desperately need to ensure that they too have an even playing field in this thing called life.
One of these unrecognised minority groups, not covered by the Equality and Diversity Act, are single parents. Why does this matter? By not ensuring that these unique challenges are recognised and addressed, we are creating unnecessary barriers that impact us all, not only the community that faces stigma and judgment due to the barriers to equal opportunity.
There are three key areas: barriers to work, homes, and finance. They are all interlinked, and all quite easily solved with the right legislation. Let's first look at barriers to work. If you have a disability, it is enshrined in law that reasonable adjustments should be made to enable you to continue with your professional development. No such adjustment is offered to single parents. While it is helpful that we have recently seen the introduction of the right to request flexible working from day one, my fear is that this will more likely lead to the screening out of candidates who may be likely to make this request.
As young women, we are encouraged to earn a degree or join a firm as an apprentice so that we can look forward to healthy careers, long-term success, and financial stability. However, nothing can prepare you for the mismatch of childcare and working hours once you start a family and become a primary caregiver. You cannot physically be in two places at once, and we do need to keep creating. But for most of us, once maternity starts, our professional life starts to collapse. We are overlooked for professional development, leadership roles, or simply continuing our working life in a way that enables us to care for our children. This is not just about the working day; it's also about the working year. Many holiday clubs run from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., meaning that if you are lucky enough to work within an hour for drop-off, commute, parking, and reaching your car, you will still need an employer who enables you to work from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for 13 weeks of the year or at least 9 weeks once you have exhausted your annual leave. Until our country can provide better childcare provision for 48 weeks per year, we really need to give every working parent the opportunity to request reasonable adjustments to work. This would save the country millions in benefits and have a significant impact on our NHS due to health and well-being. Different areas of the country offer different childcare options, but very few cover 48 weeks per year from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. When our children are young, many of us want and need to work part-time to spend as much time nurturing them as possible. Unless you have a spare bedroom, you cannot have the kind of nanny who can live in and offer the full support needed as the breadwinner and primary caregiver.
This brings me to the topic of barriers to homes and unprotected characteristics to safeguard equality. Many single parents are still rejected by landlords, especially those receiving benefits, fuelled by the first barrier, the barrier to work. As your career takes a hit, the stigma, judgment, and misconceptions begin, and society no longer treats you as a respectable member but as a risk, a liability, and a burden. As a result, your mental health deteriorates along with your finances. Personally, I have had to pay a landlord more than the asking price for a rental in the past, just to "sell myself" to him and prove my worth. It is a terrible state of affairs and discriminatory at every level. However, you quickly lose your strength to fight and stand up for yourself, as you have already fought for your professional status and now your housing status.
As you manage an overpriced rental property, under-skilled and underpaid work, topped up with degrading benefits and interrogation by work coaches who do not understand why you are "only doing what you are doing," you are squeezed financially while still trying to maintain dignity. You use credit to pay your bills and feed your child, but as your need for finance increases, your access to finance decreases. You are charged higher APR, pointed towards payday lenders, refused finance due to work status, home ownership status, missed payments, and affordability measures. Now, as you fight back and consider setting up a business or working for yourself to generate more income, you are faced with your last barrier: finance.
Equal opportunity to finance is not available once you have experienced hardship. You are assumed to lack financial acumen and to be too high-risk to help. You are left to continue deteriorating when you could easily help yourself. Once your credit score is impacted, many doors close, such as doors to mortgages, doors to professional membership bodies, doors to employment, doors to rental properties, and doors to overdrafts, credit cards, or consolidation loans to press the reset button and start over with the knowledge you have. You are not protected; you cannot receive a grant as an unrecognized vulnerable group. You do not have equal opportunities when you do not meet any criteria to recognise the barriers you face.
All of this could be different with the most basic protection: equal opportunity to work, homes, and finance.
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Danielle Baron, Senior Level Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Danielle catalyses children and adults to rise like a phoenix from the flames 🔥 and to reach their optimum potential. She is an entrepreneur, inspiring 11+ and 7+ entrance exams tutor, rapid transformational therapist®️, business coach for overachievers, a life coach for all, and an NLP Master practitioner, and she is also certified by the ILM.
One of Danielle’s much-loved abilities is being an overachiever because she thrives on the excitement and follows her passion, which is to help people live fulfilling lives.
Over the last five years of her tuition business, Danielle has become extremely popular and respected in the tuition industry and is a mentor and coach to other tutors to help them increase revenue in their businesses, but ultimately to be the best tutors they can be. Her own tuition service incorporates coaching for parents and children throughout the exam process and NLP classes for children to help them with lack of confidence, bullying, and anxiety and to help them focus on the imminent goal of exams and to visualise and believe in their success.
Danielle’s second business, coaching and therapy, has been a long time coming and her personal interest in people and psychology led her to invest in the most high-quality courses to be the best for her clients. For her rapid transformational therapy ®️, she had the privilege of personally being mentored by Marisa Peer, a world-renowned therapist. Rapid transformational therapy is a combination of NLP, CBT, psychotherapy and hypnosis.
It has been Danielle’s personal experiences that have led her to where she is today. At age four, her father died of suicide, which installed in her a determination to help prevent people from ever becoming despaired again. Her best friend passed away at fifteen, which solidified Danielle’s determination to live life to the full. Growing up with a single parent, they struggled with money, but Danielle was very inspired by her mother’s work ethic, which had a huge impact on her.
As a teacher in some schools, the politics and bullying amongst staff were toxic and she suffered from depression, stress and burnout and was treated badly at her most vulnerable time of being pregnant and having a newborn and that’s why she’s passionate about helping teachers. She wishes that she had someone to help her at the time.
She has been through the journey of setting up successful businesses on her own while undertaking childcare as a single parent of two after she divorced and strongly believes anyone can achieve anything they put their mind to with grit, focus, and passion.
