Single Mother Families Australia (SMFA) was conceived in 1973 as a lead national voice with policy insight and expertise. We commenced life as the National Council of Single Mothers & their Children Inc and changed our name to Single Mother Families Australia in 2023 as part of our 50 year celebration. SMFA is an organisation dedicated to single mother families. We have an unrelenting quest and commitment to seek safer lives with agency, control and economic certainty for single mother families.

SMFA works to reframe the dialogue and ensure that single mothers' strengths, their voices, and their lived reality are central to policy determinations. The ambition is undertaken knowing that single mothers are disproportionally harmed by entrenched financial distress, poverty, and gendered violence. Moreover, single mothers encounter systems and assumptions that have unconscious and conscious biases, too often steeped in prejudice whilst ignoring the gendered dynamic. SMFA also provides a ‘soft entry ~ light-touch’ online platform through a public Facebook page. Creating a safe and affordable online community for single mothers. The Facebook page disseminates information and responds to single mothers' requests.

One of our greatest strengths is our expertise and commitment to working with and for the advancement of single-mother families harmed by poverty, hardship, and gendered violence.

We know that poverty entraps talents and limits single mothers potential including studying and we’ve been an active voice to seek paid placements. Our message at the Jobs & Skills Summit. The possibilities are endless if we view single mothers as an asset. For too long we have expected women to work as if they don’t have children and to parent as if they don’t have paid work. See our message to the 2022 Jobs and Skills Summit.

We have been a determined voice seeking respect in the public discourse. Examples include our advocacy for policy changes and aligned to cultural changes in 2022; helped remove third-party verification of welfare recipients claiming Parenting Payment Single and Jobseeker in 2021; and publishing an article in 2017 which salutes single mums with all of our guises, diversity and differences.

Single Mother Families Australia (SMFA) is a not-for-profit organisation. We are governed by an elected Board, the Members are predominately single mothers themselves providing rich perspectives on the work we do.

We are Incorporated in South Australia, uphold the requirements of the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission and have DGR status so that all donations are tax deductible.

Single Mother Families Australia (SMFA) is a not-for-profit organisation. We are governed by an elected Board, the Members are predominately single mothers themselves providing rich perspectives on the work we do.

We are Incorporated in South Australia, uphold the requirements of the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission and have DGR status so that all donations are tax deductible.

Pic: 

About Terese Edwards, CEO, Single Mother Families Australia.  Terese has been a leading advocate for single mother families since 2009 when she was appointed CEO of the National Council for Single Mothers and Their Children (the previous name for Single Mother Families Australia).  Terese has campaigned tirelessly on key issues affecting single mother families.  Jess Hill writing in The Monthly December 2023 How to change a bad law said of Terese “one woman in particular had been campaigning relentlessly to restore the single parenting payment…pounding the corridors of parliament since 2009.”  Terese is known as a long term advocate for an emergency domestic violence payment (recently made permanent by the Prime Minister), has advocated for single mothers caught by the illegal Robodebt scheme; campaigned against the punishing Parent’s Next program and is involved in designing a new support program.  She has also proposed important child support reforms to increase payments to children and reduce the ability for it to be weaponised against women.  Terese speaks with single Mum’s most days advising them on how to navigate complex systems to get the assistance they need.  Often these calls are harrowing, detailing brutal domestic violence, financial abuse and heartbreaking stories of what they can’t afford to provide for their children.   

Terese also co-produced 10 Stories of Single Mothers which premiered in Parliament House in 2014, is a published author and was inducted to the South Australian Women Honor Roll 2023.  Speaking when she won The Unsung Hero Award in 2019, Terese said, “I want women to feel proud.’  She has a Masters in Business Administration and Management from Flinders University and is close to completing her PhD. 

Email hello@filmstretch.com.au  

Text 0439211493. It is an efficient way to start a conversion. It allows Terese to read your message while in between meetings or performing other tasks.  

Single Mother Families Australia (SMFA) was conceived in 1973 as a lead national voice with policy insight and expertise. We commenced life as the National Council of Single Mothers & their Children Inc and changed our name to Single Mother Families Australia in 2023 as part of our 50 year celebration. SMFA is an organisation dedicated to single mother families. We have an unrelenting quest and commitment to seek safer lives with agency, control and economic certainty for single mother families.

SMFA works to reframe the dialogue and ensure that single mothers' strengths, their voices, and their lived reality are central to policy determinations. The ambition is undertaken knowing that single mothers are disproportionally harmed by entrenched financial distress, poverty, and gendered violence. Moreover, single mothers encounter systems and assumptions that have unconscious and conscious biases, too often steeped in prejudice whilst ignoring the gendered dynamic. SMFA also provides a ‘soft entry ~ light-touch’ online platform through a public Facebook page. Creating a safe and affordable online community for single mothers. The Facebook page disseminates information and responds to single mothers' requests.

One of our greatest strengths is our expertise and commitment to working with and for the advancement of single-mother families harmed by poverty, hardship, and gendered violence.

We know that poverty entraps talents and limits single mothers potential including studying and we’ve been an active voice to seek paid placements. Our message at the Jobs & Skills Summit. The possibilities are endless if we view single mothers as an asset. For too long we have expected women to work as if they don’t have children and to parent as if they don’t have paid work. See our message to the 2022 Jobs and Skills Summit.

We have been a determined voice seeking respect in the public discourse. Examples include our advocacy for policy changes and aligned to cultural changes in 2022; helped remove third-party verification of welfare recipients claiming Parenting Payment Single and Jobseeker in 2021; and publishing an article in 2017 which salutes single mums with all of our guises, diversity and differences.

Single Mother Families Australia (SMFA) is a not-for-profit organisation. We are governed by an elected Board, the Members are predominately single mothers themselves providing rich perspectives on the work we do.

We are Incorporated in South Australia, uphold the requirements of the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission and have DGR status so that all donations are tax deductible.

Single Mother Families Australia (SMFA) is a not-for-profit organisation. We are governed by an elected Board, the Members are predominately single mothers themselves providing rich perspectives on the work we do.

We are Incorporated in South Australia, uphold the requirements of the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission and have DGR status so that all donations are tax deductible.