Knowing Families

Dr Katherine Rake's speech at the launch event - 30 March 2010

I am eager to share with you all tonight what FPI has been hard at work on over the past few months.

I also want to appeal directly to you. I want you to help us with our new plans - so that we can join forces for a truly family friendly society.

But firstly, an organisation such as ours, which seeks to be a voice for Britain's families, must be based upon firm principles. So please allow me to share with you the five principles which guide our work.

  • We aim to be influential - by working to improve family life.
  • We aim to be innovative - by finding new ways of working to get results.
  • We aim to be accessible - by prioritising the things that matter most to families and making all our work clear, purposeful and readable.
  • We aim for all our work to be evidence-based - by developing our case from the voices of families themselves.
  • Most importantly, we aim to be collaborative - engaging with families and those who work with families.

With these principles in mind, we commissioned Populus to conduct a poll earlier this month on what British families really think about family policy. The results were startling, and should be of major concern to everyone in this room tonight. Our respondents had a dim view of Britain as a family friendly society, with the country scoring only six out of ten in terms of family friendliness. In fact, just six per cent of respondents viewed Britain as a 'very family friendly' society. We have a ninety-four per cent transformation still to go.

I'm sure you would agree that this simply isn't good enough. Evidence such as this motivates FPI to be a bridge across the void between Britain's families and Britain's policy makers. Evidence such as this must galvanise us all for change.

Most crucially, our pollsters asked people what should be the priority of the next government to make Britain truly family friendly. It might come as a surprise, but the most pressing family issue for respondents was not that of childcare. It was care for the elderly. Concern of heavy financial burdens stemming from personal elder care clearly runs deep among British families. We, the family sector, have a duty to respond to that.

The second-highest concern was the issue of flexible working. In third place, respondents said that the issue of public transport was also vital for Britain to become more family friendly.

These responses demonstrate the pressures of money, geographical distance and time on the contemporary British family. They reveal the need to concentrate on the whole family unit, incorporating every generation - rather than just parents and children in a single household. Not many families fit under one roof, after all.

These particular concerns of the contemporary ordinary family, highlighted by our poll, need to be understood far better. This means we need to know more families more personally.

In 2009 we released our well-received Family Trends publication which detailed how British families had evolved since the 1950s. The publication provides a vital statistical overview of UK families as a whole.

Image: Images/General/AboutFPI/KF.jpgBut now we also need a deeper knowledge of issues on the individual family level. I am delighted, therefore, to announce that FPI is launching an initiative we are calling Knowing Families.

Knowing Families is a major project which aims to reveal the concerns and needs of British families themselves. We will be mapping the issues of elder and flexible working, public transport and benefits, as our kep areas of work over the next year.

Knowing Families will see the launch of a vital effort to synthesise the available quality research on all types of British families. This, of course, will require teamwork with our friends in the family sector.

Also, in a major interaction acrosss the length and breadth of Britain, we will talk face-to-face with thousands of ordinary British family members.

The knowledge gained will be shared with Britain's key decision makers and influencers through a major series of seminars and briefings.Knowing Families will therefore provide accessible and relevant information summarising the best available evidence, brought to life with families' own experiences.

Practitioners stand to be empowered by this research, as they will be provided with the knowledge to respond to the real needs of families. Knowing Families will help to inform our Family Friendly initiative, which sees FPI assisting the Department for Children, Schools and Families in ensuring services are fully family friendly.

If Knowing Families is about understanding UK families and what they really need, Family Friendly is about making sure their needs are met in practice - in schools, doctors' surgeries, Sure Start centres and so on.

To celebrate the launch of Knowing Families tonight, we have created a book of the same name as a gift for you. As I said, one of our five principles is making sure our work is accessible and clear. We hope this book is a fun and simple way for you to see what British families are like today.

I am very excited indeed about Knowing Families . A venture of such scope and scale, led by an independent organization such as ours, is truly unique in the family sector. But it will only work with your help. Knowing Families is an opportunity to work in partnership with you, our friends and collaborators.

None of us alone can truly champion families, and push family issues to the top of the agenda, unless we get to know British families better. This is our special chance to do so.

Our strongest motivations, greatest fears and brightest joys stem from our family lives. With that in mind, let's move forward together and build a truly family friendly society. Thank you very much for joining us this evening.

 

See also:

Knowing Families

Last updated: 28th June 2010 at 04:06:16