The Relationships Foundation has submitted its response to the Independent Review on Poverty and Life Chances chaired by Frank Field.
We welcome the review and are particularly interested in their plans to create an index of life opportunities. We have long held the view that relational poverty should be seen to be as important as material poverty, and made visible in official figures. Relationships provide both resilience against adversity, as well as enabling change and progress. It is significant that the General Household Survey suggests that 20% of people have neither a ‘satisfactory friendship network’ nor a ‘satisfactory relatives network’. For vulnerable people who lack supportive relationships within the family, the nature and quality of their relationships with voluntary and public sector agencies becomes a vital ingredient in their future life chances.
Our submission also considered the importance of enabling secure and stable attachment as the basis for healthy maturation. This draws on our current project in collaboration with Sharon Willmer from the Child and Adolescent Studies department at California State University, Fullerton. Without secure attachment, the capacity to form and conduct work, family and community relationships is compromised, leading to many forms of disadvantage.
In looking at the aspects of the home environment that affect children’s life chances, we highlighted key findings fromour studies on the impact of working atypical and unsocial hours. Working parents claiming housing or council tax benefits are more likely to work weekends than other parents. For parents working unsocial hours, the average couple mother spends eight hours less a week with her children, and single earner fathers ten and a half hours less.
We hope that the review will lead to a stronger family policy that protects the relationships that have the most impact on children’s future prospects – their family.