Over the years RF has worked on relationships in many contexts. Our current main areas of activity are around the following projects.
Over the past few years we have supported the High Court Judge Sir Paul Coleridge launch the Marriage Foundation (which received independent charity registration in January 2013). Our active involvement in the launch and the subsequent development of initial projects have been instrumental in enabling the Marriage Foundation to achieve a strong media presence and an influential voice for marriage. To find out more visit the Marriage Foundation’s website and Facebook Page.
The aim of the movement is:
The aim of the project is to increase family stability in the UK by promoting healthy, long-lasting relationships between couples that enable more children grow up safe, secure and nurtured by both their parents.
Being in a healthy, stable, long-lasting relationship can help with all parts of life and at every stage of life – but this takes work. We are working to connect young people with the tools and support available to help them work at their relationships and to help them decide who they want to share their lives with and one day create a family with. We want more young people to have the confidence and ability to experience a fulfilling relationship that lasts.
Relationships Foundation is working with Relational Research (formerly Relationships Global) to develop a Relational Schools Project. The Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) has argued that ‘the focus on delivering measurable outcomes has neglected the importance of human relationships’ and that it ‘risks reducing the complexity and texture of human experience to a simple number, leading to policies and services that do not address the core of a problem’. This project is seeking to work in schools from a number of countries, including the UK, to:
- Define the template for a relational secondary school in terms of organisation, curriculum and practice.
- Explore a new methodology for evaluating the quality of relationships amongst stakeholders in secondary schools and to gain initial lessons for building those key relationships.
- Explore the means by which relational practice can be fostered in schools.
- Determine ways in which schools and students can be assessed for their relational understanding and competence.
This project follows on from our earlier work on criminal justice and healthcare in seeking to build better understanding of how relationships define the goals of services, and the ways in which relationships are key to achieving these goals. Policy that neglects the role and importance of relationships will not secure the best outcomes for users of those services
Keep Sunday Special was started in 1985 to campaign against a proposed deregulation of Sunday trading in England and Wales.Its founder, Dr Michael Schluter, set up and ran the campaign as a conventional secular civil society organisation which had supporters from all political parties, from private businesses and the Trade Unions, and members of all faiths and of none. KSS enjoyed great success in its initial campaign. The Shops Bill of 1986 was defeated in the Westminster Parliament – only the second time since 1924 that a government bill was defeated at second reading. The legislative proposal was, however, brought back to Parliament by John Major’s government in 1994 and became law as the Sunday Trading Act in 1994, Find out more at Keep Sunday Special’s website. Keep up with recent developments at Keep Sunday Special’s Facebook Page.