Through Thick and Thin
How an infrastructure for relationships could unlock the collective action we need to accelerate progress towards a world designed for and around relationships
Lots of people in lots of different spaces are doing amazing work around building better relationships, but the connections between these nodes are often weak or non-existent. Drawing on conversations with over 100 people in late 2020 and early 2021, we (led by Iona Lawrence) explore the challenges we share in prioritising relationships in the places that we live and work and the work that needs to be done to address those needs.
Our shared and uniting goal is to build a world that is designed for and around relationships: a world where relationships are the first mile, not the extra one.
Building a Relationship Collective: Our Proposal
Building on the insights unearthed in Through Thick and Thin, we submitted an expression of interest to the Bringing People Together Fund at the National Lottery Community Fund to bring to life the idea of an infrastructure for relationships. Drawing inspiration from Joe Mills and friends in the democracy centre, we decided to publish the proposal in the open so everyone can see what we’re hoping to do and more easily explore ways to collaborate.
In short, the expression of interest we submitted is for a two year project to design, test and build the necessary infrastructure to support shared learning and collaboration in the field of relationships and relationship-centred practice in the coming decades.
We are delighted to say that our application was successful and, as of Autumn 2022, we are focused on developing the infrastructure for a thriving field of relationship-centred practice. Find out more about our plans for the next two years below.
Developing the Framework: A paper for discussion
In brief In our report 'The Moment We Noticed: Learning from 100 days of lockdown', we invite you to join us in exploring how we might sustain the positives from the pandemic. This paper forms the backbone of our fourth invitation: to join us in developing the...
Shifting Power
In brief In this, the latest in our series of lockdown reflections by our network of observers, Relate's Director of Services, Ben Collins, reflects on what lockdown has taught us about power within service delivery. Another busy week in lock down – feeling...
On Power
In brief In this timely contribution to the Joining the Dots series, Hannah Hoare explores the theme of power and inequality, describing the efforts that The Blue Thread are taking to redress the power imbalance between funder and grantee. Hannah reminds us that power...
Observatory Sighting #8: Taking Stock (part 2/2)
Following on from last week’s Sighting, we continue to take stock of what we’ve observed over the past few months. In this, our eighth Observatory Sighting, we scratch beneath the surface to reflect on the changing undercurrents which have driven changes in our behaviour.
A Message of Hope and Solidarity
In brief In this beautiful message of hope, Khaled A reflects on the similarities between his experience as an asylum seeker and our shared experience of lockdown. He says “the mutual experience can help us all to understand each other better.” Khaled is originally...
Connected Communities: Investing in our social fabric, post-crisis
In brief In this blog for The Relationships Observatory, Sam Julius and Jessie Powell from Local Trust explore the value of relationship building in communities and how we can look to sustain the recent surge in local connection after COVID-19. To find out...
Observatory Sighting #7: Taking stock (part 1/2)
In this, our seventh Observatory Sighting, we begin to take stock of what we’ve learnt about the response to the outbreak of coronavirus.
Intergenerational Solidarity in the Coronavirus Era
In brief In this blog for The Relationships Observatory, Cares Family CEO and Founder Alex Smith reflects on the importance of intergenerational solidarity for socially isolated older people and economically isolated younger people. The Cares Family is a group of...
Building Back Better
In brief In this short blog, David takes stock of what we've learnt from The Relationships Observatory and offers a positive reflection on what we take forward as we rebuild. This blog has also been published as part of Compass's #BuildBackBetter series. 750,000...
Observatory Sighting #6: Coming together and moving apart
In our sixth Observatory Sighting, we explore the ways in which we've both come together and moved apart, and ask how we can do more of the former and less of the latter. We have been looking at where communities are coming together across faiths, geographies...
