Statement of Principles

Human beings need nourishing relationships and yet today, many of us struggle to find a world where we belong and one that feels welcoming, hopeful and sustainable for ourselves and future generations. As individuals, couples, families, teams, organisations and communities we all witness how breakdown in relationships so often leads to isolation, competition and conflict over resources.

At Relational Change we believe that a better world can be built through better relationships: both between people and with our non-human environment.

We judge this aspiration is best served by a new global vision of interdependence; one that recognises the interconnected nature of our lives on this planet. Vitally, this means learning skills to live and work with awareness and understanding of our fundamental interdependence - emotionally, economically and ecologically.

We appreciate that better relationships flourish in supportive environments and contexts, where we care about both our impact and our intentions.

Together with our international partners and emerging communities in the Relational Movement, we aim to help develop and sustain such environments.

From this, a number of key principles follow:

• Health is social, physical, spiritual, emotional and psychological; well-being is holistic and inter-connected.
• Demonstrating compassion, interest and support are building blocks of nourishing relationships.
• Valuing diversity and practicing inclusion builds strengths in groups and organisations.
• Attention to and appreciation of strengths, resources and skills builds capacities for resilience and well-being.
• Collaboration and shared leadership promotes more sustainable solutions.

At Relational Change we aim to support these principles and develop key skills through developing a community of values, training initiatives/capacity building and locally based shared leadership projects. In the spirit of these values, we welcome and celebrate diversity and difference. We aim to stay curious, respectful and in dialogue with all expressions of human nature, including gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, ability, class and age. In particular, we hope to support providers of health/social care, therapies, education, organizational and community projects to collaborate on sustainable local initiatives.

Finally, we also recognize the need to speak out and act in the face of anti-relational practices that create conflict, bullying, destructive competition, environmental harm, exploitation, isolation, violence and oppression for individuals, couples, families, teams, organisations and communities.