All across Europe, COFACE members continuously work to contribute to positive outcomes for diverse types of families in a changing society, including single-parent households. Organisations such as La Ligue des Familles and Single Parents Foundation have both recently and respectively put a spotlight on concrete ways to support and empower single parents in Europe from Belgium to Hungary.
Belgian COFACE member, Ligue des familles, recently published its family barometer report which provides a wealth of information on the state and evolution of families in Belgium. The barometer is published every two years, giving families a crucial chance to have their voices heard. The 2024 edition reveals the scale of some of the difficulties faced by families, as well as some problems identified as early as 2015 that remain persistent.
COFACE is part of the rEUsilience project which aims to understand how different families respond when they are faced with socio-economic shocks and major decisions regarding managing family life and securing a decent income. A key outcome of this project is a compendium of families’ risks, resources, and resilience which provides users with open-access data to understand the situation of families in Europe.
As we kick off the year, our president, Annemie Drieskens, shared a hopeful message along with warm New Year wishes.
We wish you and your family a prosperous New Year filled with collaboration, unity and continued efforts for our beloved Europe—one where families are at the forefront, and their health and wellbeing take center stage in our collective actions.
On 27th September 2023, COFACE intervened at a conference organised by the Spanish presidency of the Council of the European Union on the topic of social protection of families.The Spanish Ministry of Social Rights and 2030 Agenda and Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migrations brought together a wide range of Spanish, European and international speakers to look at existing data on family models and explored different policy solutions.
Will a better understanding of families lead to improved welfare states? That’s the hope of a big new Horizon Europe research project, rEUsilience, in six European countries. In focusing especially on families that may not be able to respond and understand the conditions that make for familial resilience.
