...that high marriage rates are characteristic of the middle and upper classes, whereas family instability is concentrated amongst those on low incomes. The true divide on the family is about poverty not politics.

New research evidence collected for this book shows that most people want the same things, regardless of their politics, class or sexuality. Committed couple-parenting is seen to be the ideal. Therefore, in a liberal, secular society, marriage is a majority aspiration because it is seen to signify commitment. Focusing on the New Labour government, Second Thoughts on the Family demonstrates the way in which Labour’s nominally inclusive position is actually harming those it seeks to support.

Drawing on a specially commissioned opinion poll and 27 interviews with opinion-formers, Second Thoughts on the Family presents a new way of thinking about family policy that transcends all divides. Hide text

• Action for Children: Explains the work and aims of the charity - supporting and speaking out for the most vulnerable children in the UK - and provides information about what visitors to the site can do - from fostering to fundraising to campaigning and reading about policy.


• Care for the Family: Website offering support and practical advice for families, including Support Net help-sheets, covering topics such as bereavement, eating disorders, divorce and adoption.


• Children's Links: Children's charity website informing parents and carers about current and past projects, the charity's services, their childcare providers, and products such as a 'traditional playground games pack'.


• The Children's Society: Committed to 'making childhood better', this charity's website provides information about how people can help them achieve this aim: via campaigns, fundraising events, volunteering, social events etc. There is a 'Kids Zone' to give children a voice and inspire them to get involved in family activities.


• The Family and Parenting Institute: Provides information about the Family and Parenting Institute: their events and campaigns, their research, and their news. Also offers visitors a chance to express their opinions of issues currently facing families, via the Family Voice venture.


• Looking at Life: A colourful and easily accessible website, which seeks to provide a platform for those in their twenties and thirties to 'ask questions, to share stories and to offer practical advice' in areas of life such as parenting and relationships.


• Family Action: Provides non-judgemental information and statistics on issues such as 'families and mental health', 'families and domestic abuse', 'families and young carers', and 'families and poverty'. Connects visitors to support networks in these areas.


• One Parent Families: Aimed at single parents, provides financial advice, holiday advice, fire safety advice…all sorts of helpful information for single parents.


• Gingerbread: Website with sections for single parents and for professionals in the field, providing factsheets about single parenting, press releases on topical matters, links to useful organisations, policy information, and work experience.


• One Plus One: Aims to strengthen family and couple relationships by providing information from research. Provides links to other supportive websites, access to the Information Centre on Relationships, and advertises events such as parenting workshops.


• The Couple Connection: An interactive website seeking to 'provide you with resources and practical tools that will enable you to improve your relationship', covering a wide range of areas from affairs to conflict to children to romance.


• DadTalk: Designed as a social network for fathers, offers legal, financial, and practical advice, and invites fathers to sign up to 'the Dad pledge', encouraging them to be responsible fathers. Also offers a 'Dad's Toolbox', with suggestions for games to play with children, health and fathering tips, and 'why dads matter'.


• Parentline Plus: Parenting advice, guidance and support via a 24hr helpline, as well as through locally provided services.


• Working Families: Seeks to unite families and employment in the most positive way possible, by offering advice and solutions to the problem of a good work-life balance. Provides access to their policy and research and the Balance at Work consultancy, and has different sections for families and employers.

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