Tracey is really pleased to announce that yesterday evening, after an intense period of development, the Family Friendly Accreditation was launched at 11 Downing Street. There has been a lot of hard work to ensure that the Accreditation is a robust and useful process for all members of the Family Childcare Trust, and it has been tested with a mix of different organisations that is representative of their membership base. 

She would like to also wish a huge congratulations to Bradfields Academy in Chatham, Gatwick Airport and Trafford Family Information Service, who were the first organisations to be awarded the Family Friendly UK Accreditation last night.

Tracey said ‘I am extremely proud of what they have achieved at Bradfields, it is one of my favourite places to visit in my constituency.’ she went on to highlight the importance of this campaign, ‘There are 315,000 working age carers in the UK who had to leave work because of caring responsibilities and remain unemployed.’

Bradfields Academy have undertaken a great amount of work to achieve this, more details of which can be found here.

Family Childcare Trust Chief Executive, Anand Shukla, explained ‘The way we work is changing. The demands of a global business environment and new communication technologies mean the lines between work and home life are gradually blurring. Skills shortages make retention of talented employees ever more essential in an increasingly competitive environment. And customers are able to make purchasing choices as never before.

Family Friendly UK is the Family and Childcare Trust’s nationwide membership scheme to help organisations get the very best out of their employees and stay ahead of competitors by putting families at the heart of their customer offer.

Because the Family and Childcare Trust has more than 40 years of experience of research into family life, we are able to help organisations understand what families really want, as customers and as employees. Through our links with experts in workplace, product and service design, we help organisations on their journey to becoming more family friendly.

Through accreditation to Family Friendly UK, member organisations can benefit from improved recruitment, retention, productivity and reduced absenteeism. Satisfied customers are likely to spend more, repeat purchase and recommend the products or services of those organisations who value families.

We are proud to have organisations such as Gatwick Airport, Travelodge and English National Ballet among our Family Friendly UK members, as well as schools, local authorities and small businesses. We look forward to working with many organisations to realise our vision of a more family friendly UK.’

The Accreditation will now be open to all existing members so that they can begin the process. The documents that explain the process will be available from their website this week, alongside the policies that govern the Accreditation.

For more details on the campaign and why it is important please see the attached information.