Our strategy

We're Relate. We provide accessible support in the ways people need it so that everyone can enjoy thriving relationships in every part of life. From colleagues to co-parents, from married couples to best friends -- we believe every relationship is worth investing in and every person should have access to the tools they need to make that investment in their wellbeing.

Our vision, mission, and values

Our vision

Thriving relationships in every part of life.

Our mission

To provide accessible support in the ways people need it so everyone can enjoy thriving relationships.

Our values

Accessibility

We believe in the possibility of every individual to have thriving relationships, irrespective of their background or identity.

Continuous improvement

We are committed to staying ahead of the curve, anticipating the evolving relationship and well-being needs of our communities, and continuously innovating. We ask questions, seek feedback, and adapt to ensure we remain significant.

Excellence

With a foundation rooted in expert knowledge and deep skills, we measure our success by the tangible, transformative outcomes we achieve. Every initiative is undertaken with a commitment to excellence and making a lasting difference.

Safety

At the heart of our work lies a commitment to safeguarding every individual's well-being, dignity, and rights. We emphasise the paramount importance of consent, creating an environment where personal boundaries are respected and upheld.

Our ambitions for our users and communities

Users

We'll focus our efforts on the services and support our users want and need.

  1. All new relationship and wellbeing support resources and services will be designed and developed in collaboration with users.
  2. We'll consistently seek to learn and improve by ensuring every user is given the opportunity to provide feedback on the support they receive.
  3. We'll provide relationship and well-being support to more people in this period than in the last three years.

Relationships

We'll help build a society in which thriving relationships are seen as a foundational part of a happy life.

  1. We'll make accessing relationship and wellbeing support standard practice in most people's lives by designing and delivering services that can be accessed by anyone in the ways that work for them.
  2. We'll demonstrate that all relationships are important by diversifying our support offers, including counselling, for friends, colleagues, and families.
  3. We'll help people maintain their relationship health and wellbeing by providing preventative services that equip people to strengthen their relationships before problems begin.
  4. We'll continue to deliver and improve our existing services, including reducing parental conflict (RPC_, children and young people's counselling, family counselling, individual counselling, psychosexual therapy and relationship counselling.

Partnerships

We'll work in partnership with others to ensure we're able to provide people with the support that's more relevant to them in the ways they want it.

  1. We'll seek out partnerships with a diverse range of charities, corporations, and public sector institutions to ensure our support can be tailored to the needs of a wide variety of people, at low or no cost where possible.
  2. We'll maintain our connection to local communities by seeking to partner with the institutions that sustain them, like schools and local councils, making the most of the connection our Centres have with their communities.

Our ambitions for Relate

Diversify our income

We'll have a more sustainable funding model by exploring new ways of bringing in income and strengthening those already proving successful, such as retail.

  1. We'll continue to make informed expansions in funding arenas that are already seeing results, such as retail, contracts, and bursaries.
  2. We'll see an increase in the percentage of income coming from sources yet unexplored, such as fundraising, legacies, merchandise, or corporate partnerships.
  3. We'll look to explore ways to support our core counselling offer to make it more accessible to more people, such as with group work, peer support, or digital downloads at a price point that works for our users and us.

Verification and validation of our expertise

We'll ensure we're always providing expert relationship and wellbeing support by drawing on our experience in clinical practice, research, and lived experience and seeking independent validation where possible.

  1. We'll seek independent accreditation to ensure the value of our services.
  2. We'll provide holistic continuous professional development (CPD) opportunities to all our staff, either in-house or by trusted external providers.
  3. We'll be transparent about the application and benefits of all our services to ensure our users can make informed decisions about which service is best for them.
  4. We'll keep abreast of the newest developments in relationship and wellbeing support and research to ensure our offer is keeping up with the wants and needs of people in England and Wales.
  5. We'll endeavour to always improve on what we do by running regular appraisals and supporting staff to develop within the organisation.

Coalition

We'll work together across the Relate Coalition to ensure we can provide the best support to the most people using the power of connection to our local communities.

  1. Relate National will act as a convener, constantly seeking opportunities for coalition members to collaborate and learn from one another.
  2. We'll move from a top-down Federation to a collaborative coalition.
  3. Every Federated Centre has the choice to opt into joint ventures with other members of the coalition. 
  4. We are committed to sharing, supporting, and helping each other with an open culture where the strengths, successes, and lessons learned within the whole coalition are shared for the benefit of all.

Culture and social responsibility

We'll be a relevant, curious, and impactful provider of relationship and wellbeing support that champions equality, diversity, and inclusion. 

  1. We'll make sure our resources are accessible and relevant to all regardless of their socioeconomic status, ethnicity, disability, sexuality, or culture.
  2. We'll ensure all our staff are gender, sexuality, and relationship diversity (GSRD) aware and that support is available for everyone regardless of their gender, sexuality, or relationship style.
  3. We'll ensure new development opportunities to allow us to recruit and retain the next generation of relationship support staff.
  4. We'll seek to have the diversity of our employees reflect the national distribution of protected characteristics. 

Commercial training

We'll ensure our counsellor training programmes are a gold-standard, industry-leading offering. We'll extend our expertise into bespoke commercial training partnerships, enabling workplaces to foster healthier relationships among their staff.

  1. We'll understand the commercial benefit of our external training offering, by understanding competitive pricing and delivering training at a positive margin for RElate.
  2. We'll deliver comprehensive training programmes that create exceptional counsellors, who live our values and feel a sense of loyalty and connection to Relate.
  3. We'll ensure our training remains relevant by ensuring it's regularly reviewed and updated with new counselling methodologies, tools, and research findings.
  4. We'll diversify our income by expanding our commercial offering, by designing bespoke training programmes for use in the workplace, aimed at helping employees manage workplace relationships more effectively.