There is one essential difference for single parents suffering from a lay-off, especially if there’s no other parent contributing financially: It’s a lot harder. Often mitigating the circumstance is so critical, managing stress is a luxury. If a single parent manages to keep the stress off of their kids, you’re my hero.

So aside from the applicable ideas in PART 1 and PART 2, here are actions to try immediately:

1. Find another single parent to be your single parent crisis partner. This could mean carpooling to save gas, or just having someone else to work things out with, like picking up kids from school or activities if one person has a job interview. This is critical if there is no other participating parent, or nearby family. Having someone else to cooperate with makes more seem possible, and your ability to cope is reinforced.

Many single parents have someone like this already loosely in place for emergencies, but if you discuss that you are one another’s emergency contact, and you are both hereby in a state of emergency, it makes a difference. There’s also someone to vent to besides your kids, and ideas happen between two people. Who knows, you may end up starting an Internet business together, selling survival tactics, products and services for single parents.

2. Apply for food assistance. Again, try to take the shame out of this. It is not forever. And don’t tell your kids if you don’t want to. Food assistance only works if you have absolutely no source of income during a given week. Unemployment doesn’t count as income, and in fact you’ll need to file for unemployment before you can receive food stamps or food donations from your local food pantry. Talk to your kids’ school, too, in terms of school lunch. Get that ball rolling quickly if your circumstance is severe.

3. Tell the school, meet with the principal. You need allies. This is very hard, because it’s embarrassing. But an aware principal will watch out for your kids and signs of stress, they’ll help alleviate that stress, and they may have good ideas for you as well. Who knows, the school may need help in some way that can be monetized for you.

4. Get help from local churches or synagogues. Even if you’re not religious, local churches and synagogues are for members of the community. Find out what programs they have and how to be involved. There’s rarely a lot of bureaucracy involved, so if you need help you can get it now, not weeks from now.

5. Shop at thrift stores for great clothes and other department stores goods. They have great stuff. The Salvation Army is well known, but there’s also Value Village. I learned to shop at thrift stores from a very wealthy friend of mine who is an avid conservationist and environmentalist. She sees no reason to support a primary clothing market when there’s an enormous secondary market. In this economy, I’m glad I know about it. I personally prefer Value Village. And who knew I was being green at the same time.

6. Here’s a strange one: Learn to write grants. Sounds like a weird survival skill, but it’s something you can do at home, it’s formulaic, and grant writers make good money. Besides, you need to invest in yourself to make yourself more recession proof. Not only that, you tune into how many grants there are out there—and you might just find a way to get a grant of your own. Some are shrinking, but some are expanding: Think about stem cell research, autism research, green tech, global warming. Find the hot issues in the news, and there are grants for those areas.

As a university professor, I can tell you that tenured professors would pay good money to have some help writing grants to do research. That’s a great market in and of itself. And if they have tenure, they’ve got a recession proof job.

7. Join a community Time Bank–a brilliant volunteer-and-get-credit program. Check online at timebanks.org, and if you’re community has one, join it. Here’s the basic idea:  There’s a pool of people who volunteer for needs of the group. Any time you volunteer for something—you’ve grocery shopped for the elderly, babysat for someone—-you earn credits. You then can trade those credits in for a volunteer when you need something. Brilliant. Never mind a bad economy, it’s the green community path of the future. And you’ll meet great people. Part of digging out of any hole is widening your circle of people.

8. If you live in a rental property, offer landlord management services. Talk to your landlord if rent will be a problem, before that landlord approaches you. Once you’re approached, you’re on the defensive, and the conversation is limited. Offer to perform some apartment or rental house management duties in exchange for a temporary break in rent. My brother has been doing this for decades, everywhere he has lived, just because he’s cheap.

Everyone is overwhelmed and has needs. The trick is to find out what those needs are. The most important thing for a single parent is to do as much extra work at home, or nearby, to minimize latchkey kid issues. But remember, that’s what the single parent crisis partner is for, too. In any case, helping out on your rental property is easy on the parent guilt. Offer to paint, do small repairs, manage repair people. You can do it. You’ll be surprised.

9. Contact your local Chamber of Commerce. They will know anything about local business and employment opportunities. Many people don’t think of doing this, which makes it a good thing to do, while you’re putting your name out everywhere else.

Any other single parent war stories out there? Share them. One more word of weird advice: When the weather is warm, take your kid camping. There’s something about camping that hones your survival instincts.

Check back on March 24th  for The One-Year Plan. To be updated on new posts, you can also subscribe to our RSS feed,  Facebook and Twitter page. Just add us.