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CSJ - Why we’re backing the #SortItOut campaign
Our political director, Frank Young explains why the Centre for Social Justice is backing the #SortItOut campaign.
The #SortItOut campaign calls for immediate action to reduce the damaging impact of parental conflict on an estimated 1.25 million children in Britain.
We were keen to be one of the first signatories to this campaign which is led by the All Party Parliamentary Group for Supporting Couple Relationships and Reducing Interparental Conflict. The campaign calls on the Government to make relationship support free of charge to all parents in ongoing conflict.
Family relationships are consistently in the top three most common reasons why children contact ChildLine and campaigners want to highlight the damaging effect of warring parents on children’s mental health.
Research by the Department of Work and Pensions overwhelmingly demonstrates that exposure to frequent, intense and poorly resolved conflict between parents has a long-lasting and negative effect on children’s mental health and development.
This research states that how “couples communicate and engage with each other in managing relationship conflicts both affects their ability to engage in effective parenting practices and can influence children’s mental health outcomes in infancy, childhood, and adolescence, with extended impacts on academic/educational attainment, physical health and well-being, employability, and future relationship stability in later life.”
#SortItOut has the support of a broad spectrum of organisations including Tavistock Relationships, Relate, The Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition, the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy and the Association of Child Psychotherapists. The Sun newspaper’s Agony Aunt, Deidre Sanders (Dear Deidre – also agony aunt for ITV’s This Morning programme) is also both backing the campaign. We’re in good company.
The central objective of the campaign is to ensure relationships support is available – free of charge – to all parents in conflict. The campaign makes some simple asks. We need to get better at picking up parental conflict, local authorities, NHS services and courts should offer relationship support services to parents and the Government Reducing Parental Conflict Programme needs to be rolled out nationally. If you want to offer your support get in touch with the Centre for Social Justice and add your voice to the campaign.
