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.
Observatory Sighting 14: Lockdown and deep-tissue damage
In this Observatory Sighting, we explore acute, long-term and easily overlooked 'deep-tissue' damage resulting from relationship upheaval during lockdown and enforced separation. As we move towards the Out Turn, we must recognise and repair this damage. We recently...
Lookout Sighting #1: School, stress and a summer of catch-up
Over the past 18 months, we’ve been hearing about adults’ experiences of lockdown through The Relationships Observatory. Now, in partnership with Summer of Play, we’re hearing from children and young people about how the past year and a half has been for them, and...
Covid, Cohesion and Building Bridges
In brief In this blog, Neil Denton lays out the importance of building bridges across lines of difference as we move into the next stages of the pandemic and shares an invitation to get involved in our Bridge Builders pilot. Neil is a leader in community mediation and...
The Relationship Collective: A proposal
Before now... In the summer of 2020 I set out on an open-ended research journey exploring why relationships matter and whether people who put relationships at the heart of their work feel connected to others doing the same. I was lucky to collaborate with The...
Frauke – Spirit of Lockdown #7
As part of our open call to Share your Story, we received this #SpiritOfLockdown account from Frauke. Frauke set up and managed a local Whatsapp group in her community which Basil the dog played a big part in, keeping spirits high and helping forge community...
Kate – Spirit of Lockdown #6
As part of our open call to Share your Story, we received this #SpiritOfLockdown account from Kate*. Lockdown offered a Kate the opportunity to take a step back, reassess her life and reflect on the relationships that really matter to her.Setting the Scene: Life...
Designing connection into care
In brief Covid has shone a light on the relationship between social care and social connections. With the UK Government's social care reforms on the horizon, Sam Dalton makes an argument for social care models in which care and connection come hand in hand.Sam is...
Making relationships the first mile
After a year of research into simple, ordinary, human relationships, Iona Lawrence shared her initial findings in Through Thick And Thin. In this report, she illuminated a set of shared concerns, identified through hundreds of conversations around the state of our...
Measuring relationships: What’s the problem?
Over the course of hundreds of conversations about relationships, Iona Lawrence identified a shared challenge around measurement: We don't know how to measure relationships or whether the game of measurement is futile. In this blog, we seek to kickstart a generative...
Relationships are Everything
In brief Enrol Yourself takes a relationship-centred approach to lifelong learning, connecting adults into peer groups that help each individual multiply their learning over 6 months. Enrol Yourself train 'Hosts' who lead these peer groups. We're featuring a mini blog...
