The Relationship Makers’ Toolbox
Practical resources to help you put relationships at the heart of what you do
Explore our resources:
Case Maker | Pattern Library | Relationships Map | Resource Repository | Permissions Game
Kit For Councils | Community Weavers’ Companion | Bridge Builders Handbook | Relationships Heatmap
Case Maker
Few people argue that relationships don’t matter, but many feel they don’t have the time, capacity or permission to prioritise them. The Case Maker assembles the evidence base for putting relationships first, describing why relationships matter, what great relationship-centred practice looks like, and how it could make an impact in your context.
Pattern Library
The Pattern Library will be a digital, community-built wayfinder which provides support and guidance to those looking to embed relational ways of working into their community, organisation or system.
The Library will be framed around recurring challenges and questions that come up in relational work, and the approaches that help to overcome them (‘Patterns’). Help shape the Library by sharing the most pressing questions you face.
Relationships Map
On the Relationships Map we have begun to plot hundreds of organisations and individuals who are putting relationships first. The Map is more than a directory. It’s a meeting place; a space for finding one another and sharing ideas and resources. Please put your story on the Map, find kindred spirits and help to spread the word.
Resource Repository
The Resource Repository brings together blogs, podcasts, books, training, frameworks, tools and more from across the field of relationships. Whether you’re a relationship-centred healthcare practitioner interested in measurement and evaluation, a community weaver wanting to learn about relational approaches to disaster recovery, or a service provider seeking support for building digital connections, we hope you’ll find something useful.
Permissions Game
Every community and every organisation is shaped by norms, assumptions and rules. They condition our behaviour, determine what is and is not permissible, and mould our relationships.
The Permissions Game invites you to explore the rules and norms that influence how we work and what we prioritise via a series of engaging scenarios. Gather your team, download the pack and press play!
Relationship Makers Guide
The Relationship Makers Guide shares 5 simple steps to help you to strengthen the relationships in your organisation, community or business. Anyone, anywhere can use the guide to help them on their journey to becoming a Relationship Maker.
You might want to work through the guide with a partner or in a small group to get the ideas flowing.
Kit for Councils
What is the appropriate statecraft, in style and substance, for enabling strong and connected communities? How does the state open possibilities without undue risk, and raise the game without controlling and constraining? This kit lays out a set of principles and resources for putting relationships at the heart of how councils operate.
You might also be interested in the Relational Councils Network. Bringing together councils from across the UK, our Relational Councils Convenings provide a space for learning about how to create a relationship-centred council.
The Community Weavers Companion
How can we nurture strong communities in the good times as well as the bad? How can we sustain the community activity we saw in the early lockdowns without controlling and constraining it? How do we build a positive Covid legacy and resist the pull back to old ways?
The Community Weavers Companion draws together all that we learnt through Side by Side: our 18 week peer learning programme for Community Weavers across the UK.
Active Neighbours Field Guide
Covid-19 saw an outpouring of community-led support in which 9 million ‘volunteers’, or 15% of the UK’s population, stepped forward to help out. What are the stories behind these statistics? What factors have shaped their desire and ability to contribute and care? What’s needed to support and encourage them to carry on caring?
Our Active Neighbours Field Guide explores these questions and presents five Active Neighbour groups.
Bridge Builders’ Handbook
Over the course of the Covid pandemic, our communities have achieved an extraordinary amount. We’ve met people we have never met before and we’ve gained an insight into how others live down the road. At the same time, we’ve spent an unprecedented amount of time apart and tempers have, understandably, frayed.
As we move forward, we must focus on healing divisions and building strong, connected communities. We’ve teamed up with Neil Denton and the After Disaster Network at Durham University to create a Handbook to inspire and guide those willing to embark on this journey.
You might also be interested in The Sense of Connection. Weaving together the crafts of conflict transformation, disaster recovery and community development, this report explores the need to build strong communities in crisis and beyond.
The Relationships Heatmap
Where are the warm and cool spots in your relationship-centred practice? The Relationships Heatmap is a diagnostic tool that will help you build stronger, more impactful relationships, by identifying the strengths and areas for improvement in your approach. Use it yourself or with your team as a springboard to identifying practical things you can do to strengthen your relationship-centred practice.
More from the blog
A glossary of relational phrases
In brief Over the last few years, many of us have been talking more and more about the importance of putting relationships first in our organisations, systems and communities. In being party to some of these brilliant conversations, and developing our own thinking,...
Two years of bringing people together
In brief Back in July 2021, we shared our proposal to the National Lottery Community Fund’s Bringing People Together Fund. In July 2022, we shared what we got up to in the first of our two years of funding - from recruiting the Relationships Collective to bringing...
A letter from Birmingham
In brief On the 12th July 2024, 120 relationship-centred practitioners came together in Birmingham to explore how we can change our permissions to put relationships first. It was a day full of relationships, new and old, solidarity and celebration. Here, we offer our...
