Working Families

Working Families is the UK’s leading work-life balance organisation. The charity helps working parents and carers and their employers find a better balance between responsibilities at home and work. The organisation began in 1980 - by a group of mothers who met in Clapham to discuss the problems of going back to work and childcare. They formed what was to become the Working Mothers Association (WMA). In those days working mothers and those working flexibly felt sufficiently unusual and isolated enough to need their own support organisations but, as the 80s wore on, employers increasingly recognised that they needed to offer more to recruit and retain the female workforce. WMA changed its name to Parents at Work (PaW) in 1994 to reflect the needs of both parents to spend time with their families. Both NWW and PaW published a number of ground-breaking publications during the 90s, while continuing to support working parents, collaborating with sympathetic employers and successfully lobbying policy-makers for change. In 2003, PaW and NWW decided to combine forces to “change the way we live and work” and merged to form Working Families.