This Common Reference Framework for safe an inclusive activities is intended to provide a structured set of principles, standards, guidelines, and processes that provide a shared understanding and consistent approach for achieving goals, solving problems, or managing activities across the organisation. It acts as a blueprint or foundation for how COFACE operates in all its activities and how it works with key external organisations.
COFACE Core Values
COFACE – FAMILIES EUROPE is a network promoting the well-being, health and security of families and their members in a changing society. And serves as a trusted entity for family mainstreaming and for the voice/needs of families in the EU and beyond.
COFACE Families Europe is rooted in a set of six core values:
COFACE key activities
We advocate for families of all types without discrimination, bringing their voice to the table of European Union decision-making, ensuring that EU policies and legislation work in the general interest.
Furthermore, we support transnational exchanges between COFACE members (civil society organisations representing and supporting families) in the form of expert meetings, trainings, campaigns, conferences, webinars and more.
COFACE members are regularly updated and partners via the Families Corner newsletter, and interact with our social media communities.
Act NOW for families of today
COFACE Families Europe together with its members is very active in addressing the social challenges faced by families of today and advocating for policies to support their well-being. Here are ten specific actions (also available in Easy-to-Read language) which we would like to see integrated in the programme of the European Union from 2024 to 2029.
HIGHLIGHTED COFACE NEWS
Latest articles
Call for a child-centred EU budget: Joint reaction to the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) Proposal
The next European Union (EU) long-term budget has the potential to invest in all children, everywhere – by tackling child poverty and upholding their rights under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) – ensuring these rights are protected, respected, and actively promoted. As organisations working on children’s rights, we call on the EU to invest in all children, everywhere. Read the recommendations of the Child Rights Action Group.
Italian member CSB Onlus strengthens collaboration to engage fathers in early childhood care
On 28 January in Naples, COFACE member CSB Onlus gathered with local partners to reflect on the progress of the international project Engaging Men in Nurturing Care (EMiNC) and to discuss how to continue supporting fathers in early childhood development.
COFACE Member AGF published a new publication on the relationship between families and climate
We are pleased to share the recent work of our COFACE families europe member, AGF (Arbeitsgemeinschaft der deutschen Familienorganisationen). The publication “Families and climate: Socio-ecological challenges and perspectives for family action” is an in-depth study of integrating climate action and family policy.
Explore more of COFACE work
COFACE develops different types of publications
including position papers, studies based on feedback from families, briefs on family and EU policies, meeting reports.
Our latest publications include a list of economic principles to help build an economy that cares.
You and the EU
The European Union develops different actions and laws to ensure family and child well-being.
And we at COFACE try to shape these actions based on our core values. These actions include:
- key guidelines and laws for national governments to strengthen their social and family policies;
- different long-term action plans to support governments;
- funding mechanisms to boost NGOs and families.
European Family Lab
Family supports & resilience in challenging times
Family supports are an essential part of making social rights a reality, and civil society has grown over decades to create a wide range of supports to families and children to ensure health and well-being.
Now, more than ever, it is important to connect professionals in real time through transnational exchanges in order to tackle the social impacts of different transitions (digital, green, energy, health) on families and children.
We believe the European Family Lab is the place to connect them, serving as an innovation incubator for ideas and cross-country knowledge transfer to help family professionals deliver the best possible supports for Europeans. We are building the Lab virtual room by virtual room, with a newly launched Education&Training programme for upskilling of professionals and families: the L.I.N.K. Programme.
COMING UP with COFACE
Events
Online capacity-building: Empowering family organisations to engage in the European Semester process
Online capacity-building: Empowering family organisations to engage in the European Semester process
The European Semester is the EU’s annual cycle for coordinating economic, social, employment, and budgetary policies. It strongly shapes national reforms and EU funding priorities, yet it often flies under the radar of civil society. This online capacity-building sess...
Choosing inclusive education pathways for your child: communication and empowerment tools for parents and carers
Choosing inclusive education pathways for your child: communication and empowerment tools for parents and carers
This webinar will put the spotlight on the Belgian organisation Ouders voor Inclusie (Parents for Inclusion).