“The Government believes that strong and stable families of all kinds are the bedrock of a strong and stable society.” The Relationships Foundations warmly welcomes this statement found in the recent government coalition document. In particular we like the subsequent commitment: “We will put funding for relationship support on a stable, long-term footing, and make sure that couples are given greater encouragement to use existing relationship support.” (1) This is important because stable couple relationships are key to strong families and a thriving society.
We would, however, be very sorry to see this most welcome development interpreted as only support of the ‘therapeutic’ approach, ie, attending to disordered relationships once they have gone wrong. We argue that – as is so often the case – prevention is better than cure and that what is needed is more Couple Relationship Education for those entering relationships. (2)
The Relationships Foundation has recently drawn together work which shows that how relationships form is critical to how they function. Relationships are vital to our wellbeing – increasing health, happiness and life expectancy. But relationships are fragile, easily broken and under pressure in our busy, individualistic society. When it comes to one of the biggest decisions – who we want to spend our lives with – people are often ill-prepared. Given this, it is not surprising so many relationships go wrong, resulting in significant private and public costs. (3)
RF Executive Director Michael Trend comments: “Couple Relationship Education is not a silver bullet, but it is a missing piece of the jigsaw in terms of the government’s response to the increasing number of failing couple relationships. CRE is for everyone, whatever stage they are at. It does not need to be a one-time event but could happen regularly in people’s lives as their situations change – for example the birth of a child can put new and different pressures on a relationship. Most people nowadays go to pre-natal classes before they have a baby because it is a new experience for them. It should be the same for couple relationships. And many people don’t have a model of a stable couple relationship.”
The evidence shows that it works. The most comprehensive review of CRE to date found that, “the average person who participated in a premarital prevention program was better off after the program than 79% of the people who did not receive a similar educational experience.” (4)
The government picks up the tab when things go wrong – a bill of over £40billion each year. We hope the new government will significantly invest in CRE, preventing problems arising rather than trying to pick up the pieces later. Helping build strong and stable couple relationships will help fulfil their bigger pledge to make Britain more family-friendly.
ENDS
NB This is the RF’s fourth press release for National Family Week which runs between 31st May – 6th June 2010. For more information see www.nationalfamilyweek.co.uk
1 See page 20 of The coalition: our programme for government http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/409088/pfg_coalition.pdf
2 See Building Strong Foundations and Built to Last
3 See When Relationships Go Right/When Relationships Go Wrong (2009) updated for 2010 in Counting the Cost of Family Failure
4 Carroll & Doherty. ‘Evaluating the Effectiveness of Premarital Prevention Programs: A Meta-Analytic Review of Outcome Research’ in Family Relations, 2003, Vol 52, No 2, pp 105-118.
For more information please contact: Peter Lynas:
p.lynas@relationshipsfoundation-org.stackstaging.com 01223 341286 07899 898066