As our three years exploring family resilience comes to an end, we present concrete proposals for how our insights can be implemented at the EU level to help real families in real life. The roadmap is a product of our research and work with our Policy Lab made up of key individuals from European family organisations, EU policymakers, social partners, and analysts. These proposals complement our work to develop 15 policy principles that are relevant for all European countries when taking stock of how they can greater improve families’ capacity for resilience.
Our practical recommendations span across three essential areas where EU action can support families:
- Utilising funding from the European Social Fund + to develop local family support services
- Rolling out European peer exchanges on family support through the European Child Guarantee
- Improving data and monitoring on family diversity and care
Funding
Without funding, there is no policy. In this recommendation, we highlight the role of the European Social Fund + makes and can make in providing direct support to families through projects which promote employment, social inclusion, health, and education. We focus in on how the ESF+ can be used to roll out family centres with a particular focus on how countries have been active in this area already as part of their commitments to support families under the European Child Guarantee. We hope these examples can inspire other countries to consider similar approaches in the next three years of the current ESF+ programme and to prepare a clear stream of family support for the ESF+ under the new 2028-2034 budget of the EU.
Peer exchange
We see a trend towards the development of local preventative models of family support, with many European countries rolling out interesting models and referring to them in their commitments to the European Child Guarantee. With only five years left to implement the objectives of the Child Guarantee, the time is right to deepen the exchanges between the countries with integrated approaches to support children and families through a structured peer exchange programme which examines the effectiveness, costs, and coordination of local support services targeting families.
Data
Crucial research highlighted that European social surveys, such as the EU-SILC, struggle to identify family relationships, obstructing how we can observe the care relations in and between households. This means that family types such as multi-generational households, single parent families, and blended families can be hidden from view which of course has implications for policy interventions (or the lack of) to support these families. To attempt to address this, rEUsilience developed the ‘Families in Households Typology‘ to propose a new way to identify families in and between households, helping us to better see all families in their diversity. We also propose blueprints for EU-SILC and ESS ad hoc modules concerning ‘Adult Care & Work‘ which will allow to monitor and understand the extent and intensity of care for adult relatives or other close persons in European households. A key action to help us in the implementation of the European Care Strategy.
The full roadmap for boosting the rights and resilience of European families is available here.