The Family and Parenting Institute is an independent charity in the United Kingdom supporting families and children. It works with charities, businesses, and public services to offer practical help to families. Its campaigns and research work focus on building a "family friendly" society by offering insights into current and future family life. It runs the Family Friendly scheme, which aims to help public and private organisations to better understand diverse families and meet their needs. The Family and Parenting Institute merged with the Daycare Trust in January 2013 and is now called the Family and Childcare Trust.
The Family and Parenting Institute was established by the Labour Government as the 'National Family and Parenting Institute' in 1999, in response to a recommendation made in the Supporting Families Green Paper 1998. The Institute modified its operating name and brand to 'Family and Parenting Institute' in 2006, though the registered name remains the National Family and Parenting Institute. [1]
The institute describes its values [2] as follows:
As well as research, policy and public affairs, the Family and Parenting Institute is engaged in the following projects:
The institute has run Parents’ Week since 1999 – an annual week-long celebration of parents and families through events and projects throughout the UK. At the launch of the 2011 Parents’ Week, Minister of State for Children and Families, Sarah Teather MP stated that parenting issues were at the “top of the agenda” for the Coalition Government [3]
The Family Friendly scheme was launched by the institute in summer 2011 with the aim of making the UK a more family friendly society. Public, private and charity sector organisations joining in the scheme take a ‘Family Friendly pledge.’ They are then given a framework and resources for putting the pledge into action, focusing on customers, staff and services. Families themselves are given the opportunity to give feedback, via the scheme's website, on the quality of the service they received.
Since 2010, the Family and Parenting Institute has produced a “report card” on the UK's progress towards becoming a family friendly society. The 2010 report graded the UK on the following factors: costs of raising a child; maternity and paternity leave; elderly care; work-life balance; child and pensioner poverty; childhood commercialisation; neighbourhoods and green spaces and care of vulnerable children.
The Family and Parenting Institute contributed to the 2011 Bailey Review [5] which examined the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood by advertisers, corporates and the media.
The Family and Parenting Institute is in the process of a two-year research project to track how the UK's economic problems are affecting family life. The project has launched two reports, Families in the Age of Austerity, in January 2011, and The Impact of Austerity Measures on Households with Children, in January 2012, in conjunction with the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Both received widespread coverage in the media. The project's final report is expected in January 2013.
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Family Voice is a project that started in 2011. It explores the use of social media to find out how to engage more with families.
The Family and Parenting Institute coordinates a coalition of 15 leading family charities to attend party political conferences in the autumn.
This all-parliamentary forum was established to provide impartial and progressive debate between politicians, parents’ groups, charities and researchers.
This project brought together the evidence focused on the vital role of parents in securing good outcomes for children, providing information on how to plan and deliver effective services to involve parents in their children's early learning.
From March 2004 to March 2011, the Family and Parenting Institute managed the Parenting Fund on behalf of the Department for Education (formerly the Department for Schools and Families). The fund reached hundreds of thousands of the UK's most vulnerable parents through grants made available to grassroots organisations. The impact of the Parenting Fund was assessed and a report published detailing the achievements. In particular:
The Family and Parenting Institute regularly receives coverage in the media. Its aims and work has been welcomed and supported by the Coalition Government led by Prime Minister David Cameron [3] [6]
Recent coverage has included FPI's claims that the Coalition Government's cuts package will hit families with babies hardest,[ citation needed ] the FPI's focus on the costs of raising a child,[ citation needed ] and its findings on the impact of austerity measures on households with children [7] [8] [9]
This section needs to be updated.(December 2017) |
The welfare state of the United Kingdom began to evolve in the 1900s and early 1910s, and comprises expenditures by the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland intended to improve health, education, employment and social security. The British system has been classified as a liberal welfare state system.
Sarah Louise Teather is the Director of Jesuit Refugee Service UK and a former British Member of Parliament and Minister. As a Liberal Democrat politician, she founded the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Guantanamo Bay and was chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Refugees. On stepping down as an MP, she joined the Jesuit Refugee Service as an advocacy adviser and was appointed as country director of JRS UK in December 2015.
The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) is a British child protection charity founded as the Liverpool Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (LSPCC) by Thomas Agnew on 19 April 1883. The NSPCC lobbies the government on issues relating to child welfare, and creates child abuse public awareness campaigns. Since the 1980s, the charity has had statutory powers allowing it to apply for help on behalf of children at risk. In the 1990s, the charity's publication, Satanic Indicators, fueled panic in social workers who went and accused parents and removed children from homes when they should not have. It operates a help line. The Paddington Bear character has partnered with the charity to raise funds for the charity. NSPCC operates telephone helplines.
Action for Children is a UK children's charity created to help vulnerable children and young people and their families in the UK. The charity has 7,000 staff and volunteers who operate over 475 services in the UK. They served a total of 671,275 children in 2021 and 2022. Action for Children's national headquarters is in Watford, and it is a registered charity under English and Scottish law. In 2017/2018, it had a gross income of £151 million.
Sure Start is a UK Government area-based initiative, announced in 1998 by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, applying primarily in England with slightly different versions in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It introduced a network of children's centres and other services to support local families with children under 5, including "health services, parenting support, early learning and childcare, and parental employment support". The initiative originated from HM Treasury, with the aim of "giving children the best possible start in life" through improvement of childcare, early education, health and family support, with an emphasis on outreach and community development.
Sexualization is the emphasis of the sexual nature of a behavior or person. Sexualization is linked to sexual objectification, treating a person solely as an object of sexual desire. According to the American Psychological Association, sexualization occurs when "individuals are regarded as sex objects and evaluated in terms of their physical characteristics and sexiness." "In study after study, findings have indicated that women more often than men are portrayed in a sexual manner and are objectified. In addition, a narrow standard of physical beauty is heavily emphasized. These are the models of femininity presented for young girls to study and emulate."
The Mothers' Union is an international Christian charity that seeks to support families worldwide. In addition to mothers, its membership includes parents, men, widows, singles and grandparents. Its main aim is to support monogamous marriage and family life, especially through times of adversity.
End Child Poverty coalition was set up in 2001 by a group of UK children's charities, social justice groups, faith-groups, trade unions and others concerned about what they considered the unacceptably high levels of child poverty in the UK.
Daycare Trust is the UK's national childcare charity, campaigning for quality, accessible, affordable childcare for all, and raising the voices of children, parents and carers. Daycare Trust advises parents and carers, providers, employers, trade unions and policymakers on childcare issues. The Family and Childcare Trust was formed from the merger of the Daycare Trust and Family and Parenting Institute in 2013. The Daycare Trust was established in 1986 and is headquartered in London. It is a registered charity and company.
Buttle UK, formerly known as The Frank Buttle Trust, is a UK charity that provides financial grants to children in need. Founded by Frank Buttle in 1937 but not operational until after his death in 1953, the charity has helped many thousands of people throughout the United Kingdom. In 2015–2016, it made 10,068 grants totalling just over £3.9 million.
Possible is a charity that enables people to take practical action on climate change, and combines these local actions to inspire a more ambitious approach to the issue at every level of society.
The Big Society was a sociopolitical concept of the first 15 years of the 21st century, developed by the populist Steve Hilton, that sought to integrate free market economics with a conservative paternalist conception of the social contract that was influenced by the 1990s civic conservatism of David Willetts. The Big Society influenced the 2010 UK Conservative Party general election manifesto and the legislative programme of the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition agreement. The relevant policy areas were devolved in Northern Ireland, in Scotland and in Wales, to, respectively, the Northern Ireland Executive, the Scottish Government and the Welsh Government.
Credos is an advertising think-tank established in early 2010 by the Advertising Association, as part of their mission to re-build public trust in advertising and maintain the freedom to advertise responsibly in the UK. It is funded by the advertising industry and overseen by an advisory board to assure the quality of its work. Credos' mission is to 'understand advertising': its role, how it works, how it is perceived and its value to UK society and the economy.
The UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS) was set up in 2008 under the Brown Government charged with bringing together government departments, law enforcement agencies, academia, private industry and third-sector representatives such as charities and voluntary groups to collaborate on strategies to ensure child internet safety. It is a group made up of more than 200 constituent organisations with a board chaired by ministers. It collates internet safety research, conducts its own consultations, gives advice to industry providers and publishes a code of practice. The remit of the Council began with the Byron Review and the group has subsequently drawn on diverse sources including the Bailey Review and the work of Professor Sonia Livingstone.
The United Kingdom government austerity programme was a fiscal policy that was adopted for a period in the early 21st century following the era of the Great Recession. Coalition and Conservative governments in office from 2010 to 2019 used the term, and it was applied again by many observers to describe Conservative Party policies from 2021 to 2024, during the cost of living crisis. With the exception of the short-lived Truss ministry, the governments in power over the second period did not formally re-adopt the term. The two austerity periods are separated by increased spending during the COVID-19 pandemic. The first period was one of the most extensive deficit reduction programmes seen in any advanced economy since the Second World War, with emphasis placed on shrinking the state, rather than consolidating fiscally as was more common elsewhere in Europe.
The Royal Foundation of The Prince and Princess of Wales is an independent United Kingdom-based charity which supports the non-profit work of the Prince and Princess of Wales. Their projects revolve around conservation, environmental issues, early childhood development, mental health, emergency services, and homelessness.
Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) is a non-profit organization operating in the United States that connects mothers pregnant with their first child with registered nurses, who provide home visits until the child's second birthday. NFP intervention has been associated with improvements in maternal health, child health, and economic security.
The Bailey Review was an inquiry into what was described as "the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood". It was commissioned by the UK Coalition government in response to the manifesto commitments of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties in the 2010 general election. The Coalition believed that children in the UK were "being pressured to grow up too quickly", and sought recommendations on how to address what they perceived as public concern about this. On 6 December 2010 Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education, appointed Reg Bailey CBE, Chief Executive of the Mothers’ Union to lead the Review. The results were published on 6 June 2011.
Together for Short Lives is the UK registered charity for children's palliative care. Together for Short Lives’ vision is for children and young people in the UK with life-limiting and life-threatening conditions and their families to have as fulfilling lives as possible, and the best care at the end of life.
The benefit cap is a UK welfare policy that limits the amount in state benefits that an individual household can claim per year. It was introduced by the Cameron–Clegg coalition government in 2013 as part of the coalition government's wide-reaching welfare reform agenda which included the introduction of Universal Credit and reforms of housing benefit and disability benefits. The government cited wide public support for the measure, despite it being highly controversial. The benefit cap primarily affects families with children, high rents, or both. By 2024, two-thirds of the families affected by the cap were single-parent families, half of which had a child under five.
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