When life and relationships with children or adults feel confusing, complex or under pressure,
and everyone seems to have a different opinion, people are usually starting from different perspectives
A Relationship Health Approach informed by the I Matter Framework
helps you gain clarity
so you can respond with more confidence and consistency - at home or at work or in everyday life.
Choose Your Path..
Why this matters now
Many individuals, families and professionals are dealing with increasing complexity, uncertainty and pressure in homes, schools and workplaces.
Under stress, relationships struggle, communication breaks down, patterns repeat, and situations become harder to navigate.
Relationship Health offers a way of making sense of these patterns so they can be responded to more effectively.
The good news is it is never too late to turn things around or learn more skills. Organisations and individuals, can learn to respond in ways that strengthen connection, reduce escalation, build resiliency, repair old hurts, and improve outcomes for all ages.
What is missing in how we think about relationships?
Everyone knows relationships are important, but different systems focus on different aspects of health.
- Public health focuses on physical and mental health at population level
- Education focuses on developing skills in children and young people
- Mental health services focus on treating individuals
- Family and couples work focuses on repairing relationships
Each approach is important, but they often operate separately.
This means there has not been a shared focus on the health of relationships — what we might describe as “relationship health” — even though there is strong evidence that this key detail profoundly influences stress, wellbeing, communication, and behaviour.
A Relationship Health Approach, informed by the I Matter Framework, helps bring these perspectives together, introduces a language that can be shared and supports clearer understanding and more consistent responses across home, school, work, and community life.
Two questions to guide your learning
1. How is your relationship health?
2. What steps could you take to strengthen it?
The I Matter community learning approach, Let’s Talk Relationship Health uses workshops, graphic images, youtube, books and structured online learning to help build vital understanding and skills for everyday life.
Ways to begin learning about Relationship Health
Choose the route that best fits your situation:
- explore free content
- join an online introduction
- or access through an organisation
Begin using ideas in real situations straight away, and build confidence over time
👉 Learn more: Choose your path
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I Matter Training
The Kendal Integrated Care Community has adopted the I Matter Framework as a foundation for how we work together to support people who are struggling. Professionals and non-professionals are learning together.
Dr Amy Lee , GP Safeguarding Lead Kendal Integrated Care Community
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I Matter Training
We are working with increasingly complex and unmet needs in schools. I Matter helps give structure, shared language, and a foundation for working with families in a more connected way.
School Leader , Pastoral Roles, Class Teacher and Parent
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I Matter Training
Considering adults’ needs alongside children’s needs has been transformative. I realised how much my own stress was affecting my family, and that changing this changes everything.
Parent , Parent of teenager with challenges
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I Matter Training
I Matter has influenced my work and home life in very practical ways — from professional practice to parenting and business decisions. It has changed how I understand myself, and my clients, in relationships under pressure.
Independent Psychotherapist , Parent and Small Business Owner
This is also an active development project - are you interested in contributing?
Help shape the next stages of the I Matter Relationship Health Learning Journey.
What is Relationship Health?
What is Relationship Health?
Relationship Health is a new term that invites reflection and discussion. It impacts how we regulate stress and experience wellbeing with others.
The term relationship health invites us to consider whether what is happening between us and others is supportive and respectful or needs adjusting
Relationship Health is both internal and external and a community issue. In a fast changing world it is also a resilience and a maturity issue.
Health starts from a stance of I Matter–You Matter and builds on the skills of Connect-Contribute-Repair, across all life domains.
Like physical health, relationship health can be explored, understood, strengthened, measured and supported.
It is often easier to identify what is not relationship health, but as a lifelong process it strengthens as we develop new skills.
Relationship health is possible when adults and young people develop awareness so they can see, stay, and respond differently under pressure.
What Relationship Health learning is in practice
Most people don’t need more relationship advice — they need a way to make sense of it and use it in real life.
The I Matter Framework is a simple, visual learning system that helps people understand relationship health and develop skills for confidence
People learn step by step through entry level Get Started workshops and the I Matter Relationship Health Learning Journey, supported by Community Wheel sessions where they reflect, connect with others, and apply ideas in real situations.
It translates research in mental health, child development, resiliency, systems, and communication into practical insights for everyday relationships.
Learning I Matter is like gaining a map for real life relationships.
What this learning helps you do
With an understanding of relationship health and the I Matter Framework you and your teams, families and communities will be better able to:
- Become less reactive and respond more calmly and effectively under pressure,
- Make sense of confusing or repeated patterns and know how to respond more constructively
- Recognise stress responses in behaviour and communication and respond in ways that reduce tension and escalation
- Understand the process of conflict and repair in adult-adult and adult-child relationships
- Build confidence in supporting yourself and others in everyday relationships
People can begin applying ideas immediately in everyday situations, and develop confidence and depth for managing difficult situations over time.
Who will this interest?
This learning tends to appeal to determined people who are curious about relationships and want practical positive options for .
It provides starting points for a shared language between professionals and non-professionals so they can work better together.
It can support preparation, prevention and early intervention as well as offering a way forward for those in current challenging situations.
It can be progressed through self-paced or supported learning so offers an extremely flexible method of building professional and family confidence.
What are the Relationship Health Learning Pathways?
There are several ways to progress relationship health and I Matter informed learning - via Entry Level workshops or indepth online learning either independently or via organisations
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👉 Explore the I Matter Learning Pathways
A flexible approach for busy professionals and families
Many professionals want to support relationship health education more effectively, but do not have capacity for another large initiative.
I Matter offers flexible ways to begin and progress — it can support the deepening of personal understanding and the development of affordable learning pathways via locality hubs or via independent practitioners, that supports family engagement through building a shared language.
Small practical shifts in understanding and everyday conversations can make situations easier to navigate and support longer-term change.
Supporting Relationship Health
This work is part of a wider effort to make relationship health more visible, practical and accessible in everyday life.
You can support this through learning, partnership or contributing to community-based projects.
53 Stramongate
Kendal
La94BH
United Kingdom
