This Common Reference Framework for safe an inclusive activities is intended to provide a structured set of principles, standards, guidelines, and processes that provide a shared understanding and consistent approach for achieving goals, solving problems, or managing activities across the organisation. It acts as a blueprint or foundation for how COFACE operates in all its activities and how it works with key external organisations.
COFACE Core Values
COFACE – FAMILIES EUROPE is a network promoting the well-being, health and security of families and their members in a changing society. And serves as a trusted entity for family mainstreaming and for the voice/needs of families in the EU and beyond.
COFACE Families Europe is rooted in a set of six core values:
COFACE key activities
We advocate for families of all types without discrimination, bringing their voice to the table of European Union decision-making, ensuring that EU policies and legislation work in the general interest.
Furthermore, we support transnational exchanges between COFACE members (civil society organisations representing and supporting families) in the form of expert meetings, trainings, campaigns, conferences, webinars and more.
COFACE members are regularly updated and partners via the Families Corner newsletter, and interact with our social media communities.
Act NOW for families of today
COFACE Families Europe together with its members is very active in addressing the social challenges faced by families of today and advocating for policies to support their well-being. Here are ten specific actions (also available in Easy-to-Read language) which we would like to see integrated in the programme of the European Union from 2024 to 2029.
HIGHLIGHTED COFACE NEWS
Latest articles
European Parliament callls for stronger family dimension EU Disability rights Strategy
The European Parliament has adopted a report on the EU Disability Strategy post-2025. The text was adopted on 27 November 2025. It includes a chapter on families.
POLICY BRIEF. Making families visible: Closing EU data gaps for better policies
This policy brief explores the role cross-country comparative data plays across Europe in achieving positive outcomes for families and society.
EU POLICY REVIEW : Work-life balance of parents with disabilities
The COFACE Disability Platform for the rights of persons with disabilities and their families has carried out a review of EU policies in the fields of employment and work-life balance, to assess whether they provide for targeted measures in support to working parents with disabilities.
Explore more of COFACE work
COFACE develops different types of publications
including position papers, studies based on feedback from families, briefs on family and EU policies, meeting reports.
Our latest publications include a list of economic principles to help build an economy that cares.
You and the EU
The European Union develops different actions and laws to ensure family and child well-being.
And we at COFACE try to shape these actions based on our core values. These actions include:
- key guidelines and laws for national governments to strengthen their social and family policies;
- different long-term action plans to support governments;
- funding mechanisms to boost NGOs and families.
European Family Lab
Family supports & resilience in challenging times
Family supports are an essential part of making social rights a reality, and civil society has grown over decades to create a wide range of supports to families and children to ensure health and well-being.
Now, more than ever, it is important to connect professionals in real time through transnational exchanges in order to tackle the social impacts of different transitions (digital, green, energy, health) on families and children.
We believe the European Family Lab is the place to connect them, serving as an innovation incubator for ideas and cross-country knowledge transfer to help family professionals deliver the best possible supports for Europeans. We are building the Lab virtual room by virtual room, with a newly launched Education&Training programme for upskilling of professionals and families: the L.I.N.K. Programme.
COMING UP with COFACE
Events
Online workshop on EU funding for family support projects
Online workshop on EU funding for family support projects
This workshop aims to build capacity of the COFACE community to apply for EU funding, in order to boost their work on family support in their communities.
COFACE Working group on work-life balance
COFACE Working group on work-life balance
COFACE is hosting an online working group meeting on work-life balance with members and partners to discuss key topics such as adequately paid leaves, take up of leaves by men and the childcare gap.
Families in the age of Artificial Intelligence: Rights, inclusion and empowerment
Families in the age of Artificial Intelligence: Rights, inclusion and empowerment
Co-hosted by COFACE Families Europe and KMOP, this expert meeting will convene researchers, policymakers, tech experts and civil society to discuss the impact of Artificial intelligence on family life and inclusion, with a focus on rights, equity and empowerment in the ...