Harry Benson: How to make Sure Start achieve what it was meant to do

Harry Benson is the author of “Let’s Stick Together – the relationship book for new parents” and Communications Director of The Marriage Foundation.

There is a fundamental flaw at the heart of current attempts at “early intervention”. Until recently, we used to have a terrific NHS post-natal system run by health visitors. Programmes lasted a few weeks, were preventive, educational, focused, supportive and extremely well-attended by as many as 40% of all first time mothers.

In the last few years, that system has more or less collapsed, supplanted by the broader Sure Start Children’s Centre early years support groups. The problem is that Sure Start is failing to attract anything like the same numbers of parents. Those who do attend tend to stay in their groups for many months in what feels less like early intervention and more like state-sponsored coffee shop.

For the last six years, I and my volunteers have run an early intervention for new parents in both NHS post-natal clinics and Sure Start centres in the Bristol area. We teach couples how to stay together through a single session relationship programme called “Let’s Stick Together”. It’s early intervention, it’s preventive and it’s evidence-based. Once people realise that they’re not being counselled, almost everyone finds it enjoyable and useful. Our programme is short and sweet but it accesses a higher proportion of parents than has ever been achieved in the UK. Over seven years, we’ve accessed 4,000 first time mothers in Bristol. My joint venture with a national charity is currently being evaluated, and funded in part, by the Department for Education.

The flow of our work in Bristol tells the story of early intervention. Within the last few years, we have seen at first-hand the near collapse of the post-natal system. Health visitors have been sucked away from routine post-natal care of new mothers into child protection and paperwork. Most of the post-natal clinics that we used to visit have shut down as a result. In 2008-9, NHS post-natal clinics made up 90% of our work. Today, it’s less than a third.

Harry Benson: Nearly one in two fifteen year olds experience family breakdown. That fact should shock us.

Harry Benson is the author of “Let’s Stick Together – the relationship book for new parents” and Communications Director of The Marriage Foundation.

The great majority of children want to grow up with both their parents. But today 300,000 fifteen year olds (45% of them) in England and Wales are no longer living with both natural parents. That’s just this year’s fifteen year olds. Next year, there’ll be another 300,000. And then another. And so on.

Few parents want to bring up children on their own. But today two million lone parents are looking after three million children.

Beyond the individual stories of pain, loss and disappointment, families and society pay a price. Family breakdown influences almost every key social indicator: well-being, health, truancy, crime, future relationships. The direct cost to the taxpayer of picking up the pieces is estimated at £44 billion per year, most of which on benefits and tax credits to support so many lone parents.

Despite this vast bill that exceeds the defence budget, there are no ministers, no departments, and no policies to address the problem of family breakdown.

Harry Benson: The Prime Minister's support plan for new parents won't work. Here's how to make it do so.

Harry Benson is Communications Director of the Marriage Foundation and author of Let’s Stick Together – the relationship book for new parents.

Having spent years teaching thousands of parents how to make their marriages and relationships work well, I am pleased that the Prime Minister wants to improve support for new parents.

Much of what is proposed seems sensible. Vouchers for parenting classes will encourage more parents to come along. Emails with general advice for new parents are a good idea. Early relationship education is also good.

The new initiative is supposed to be a preventive strategy that will ultimately cut costs. None of this need be the stuff of nanny state. But, as it stands, it threatens to become another waste of money. It won’t achieve high levels of access because it smacks of treatment rather than prevention. And it won’t achieve high levels of impact because it lacks foundation.

The first big issue is access. Once you get people through the door, parents find both parenting and relationships programmes helpful and not at all scary. But they are still perceived as being for those with problems – i.e: treatment. It doesn’t help that the new relationship support is to be offered by the big counselling organisations that specialise in treatment rather than the many smaller relationship education organisations that specialise in prevention.

Harry Benson: A wise woman should think long and hard before proposing to her man this leap day

Harry Benson is director of Bristol Community Family Trust and author of Let’s Stick Together – the relationship book for new parents.

By tradition, 29th February is the one day in every four years when a frustrated lady can pop the question to her hesitant or resistant man! But should she?

It would be easy to write off this old leap day tradition as outdated or even misogynist. But in fact, there’s some really good psychology behind it that can shed light on the current political debate over marriage.

Despite the sea of research showing a strong link between marriage, stability and outcomes, the argument continues over whether the link is down to the act of marriage or merely the kind of people who marry. Personally I think the evidence is clear that both are important. But which side we fall may boil down to our own personal bias, which probably means our own experience of family life.

What is rarely discussed in this debate, however, is how the act of getting married itself could possibly influence the way we behave.

What is never discussed is how the act of cohabiting, whether married or not, could also make an even bigger difference.

Harry Benson: Where is the Government's family policy?

Harry Benson runs Bristol Community Family Trust, a local charity that is pioneering short relationship courses that teach couples how to stay together, and was deputy chair of the family policy group that produced Fractured Families and Breakthrough Britain.

Family breakdown now costs £42,000 million every year, according to a new study from the Relationship Foundation. By far the biggest contribution to this is support for lone parents. One pair of hands means fewer resources and greater needs. It should be no surprise to learn that over 50% of all lone parents receive housing benefit and council tax benefit and 50% also receive out of work tax credits.

Such an enormous bill to the taxpayer surely demands a serious and urgent policy response. It’s been nearly a year. But there is still no sign of a coherent family policy from the coalition. At least the first Blair government released a green paper “Supporting families” in 1998, even if its more interesting policies were subsequently ignored.

In its widest sense, family policy could encompass virtually anything from tax to education to employment. But I’m talking about family breakdown where the key issues are treatment – how to manage the costs and consequences of family breakdown – and prevention – how to stop it from getting worse. For decades under all governments, the emphasis has been almost entirely on the immediate need for treatment whilst ignoring the potential for prevention.

When the room is flooded, it’s no good spending all your resources on mops. This is a £42,000 million flood. Somebody needs to think about turning off the tap. There has to be some level of investment in what works.

Harry Benson: Labour’s family policy – new beginnings or same old hang-ups?

Harry Benson runs Bristol Community Family Trust, a local charity that is pioneering short relationship courses that teach couples how to stay together, and was deputy chair of the family policy group that produced Fractured Families and Breakthrough Britain.

On Thursday I went to the high profile DCSF “relationship summit” introduced by Ed Balls, Beverley Hughes and PM’s wife Sarah Brown. The one day conference was a response to the “Kids in the middle” campaign, about the need to support children and parents experiencing problems, separation and family breakdown.

DCSF have launched an accompanying paper Families in Britain: an evidence paper, which the Daily Mail was quick to pounce on as “Labour finally admits married parents are better for children”. Not surprisingly, much of the content and conclusions of both paper and conference mirrors the analysis and conclusions reached by the various CSJ family reports, produced by Dr Samantha Callan who attended the day with me. However there are also fundamental differences.

The relationship summit made lots of good noises. And whatever preconceived notion I might have had from his media exposure, Ed Balls spoke extremely well about his personal experience of family life and about the importance of both prevention and support.

Harry Benson: Would a wise woman pop the question tomorrow?

Harry Benson runs Bristol Community Family Trust, a local charity that is pioneering short relationship courses that teach couples how to stay together, and was deputy chair of the family policy group that produced Fractured Families and Breakthrough Britain.

Marriage may be declining these days but some things never change. Most men still pop the question and most women still like it that way. Above all else, asking for a woman’s hand in marriage is certain to inspire confidence and security about a man’s commitment to the future together as a couple.

Traditionally February 29th, the leap day, is the day when women who are fed up with waiting to be asked get to pop the question themselves. But is this a wise idea?

Before I explain why a wise woman might want to check out some of her assumptions before dragging her loved one up the aisle, allow me to show how this question can shed light on the much wider issue of family breakdown and policy.

For two generations under all governments, there has been a relentless rise in family breakdown, with a net 40,000 new lone parent families formed every year. Lone parenthood invariably makes family life harder and is often tied in with a cycle of negative inputs and outcomes. The cost of supporting Britain’s 1.9 million lone parent families exceeds £20bn every year. The purpose of Fractured Families and Breakthrough Britain was to suggest how government policy might help improve family outcomes, reduce family breakdown, and reduce the ever growing demands on the taxpayer.

Harry Benson: The fundamental flaws of sex education

Harry Benson runs Bristol Community Family Trust, a local charity that is pioneering short relationship courses that teach couples how to stay together, and was deputy chair of the family policy group that produced Fractured Families and Breakthrough Britain.

Yesterday morning the Today programme greeted me with the welcome news that David Cameron wants to address the growing sexualisation of children and society. But when the news item concluded that Mr Cameron’s proposed solution is yet more sex education, my heart sank. The official solution has always seemed the same. Sex education isn’t working yet because we’re not doing enough of it. So let’s have more sex education for ever younger children.

When I delved a little deeper into the story, it turned out that the BBC headline misrepresented Mr. Cameron. What he was actually saying was that more sex education should mean a different kind of sex education. But is he on the right track?

The epidemic of sexually transmitted infections, high rates of teenage pregnancy and vast numbers of abortions are all direct consequences of our liberal and tolerant approach to sex as recreation rather than simply procreation.

According to the Health Protection Agency, the relentless rise in incidences of STIs is especially pronounced amongst teenage girls. Some 42,000 teen pregnancies take place every year in England and Wales, roughly half of which are aborted. This is the highest level in Western Europe.