The International Anglican Family Network (IAFN) started work with a series of international consultations culminating in a report for the 1988 Lambeth Conference when the Network was welcomed and affirmed by the Bishops. Since then, IAFN has built up a regular series of newsletters on particular themes important to families. Articles for the newsletters are contributed by a wide range of people – both men and women, lay and clerical – from many different countries within the Communion. They provide an educational resource to increase mutual understanding within the Anglican Family, and in telling of practical projects, a stimulus to further action by the Churches.

For this Conference, the Family Network has published a Lambeth 2008 newsletter, on key issues to be discussed by both Bishops and their Spouses eg The Impact of Globalisation on Families and Communities, HIV/AIDS and Children, and Faith in the Family. Information about the challenges, what the Church is doing, and suggestions as to further action, has been summarised from a decade of previous newsletters and two regional consultations. Additional copies of this newsletter will be available at the Spouses' meeting and on the Family Network's stand in the entrance of the Keynes Building. Copies of earlier newsletters, on a wide range of family issues, will also be available on the stand.

The two regional consultations, one held in Nairobi in 2003 and the other in Seoul in 2007, were attended by international delegates with practical experience of working with families. Representatives of these delegates are coming to Lambeth, at IAFN's invitation, to help facilitate discussion on family issues at Self-Select groups for both the Bishops' and the Spouses' meetings. The themes of these sessions are:

For the Bishops.

• The Bishop and Mission to Breaking and Broken Families (28th July 4.00 to 5.30 pm
• The Bishop and Mission to those Suffering Family Violence (30th July 4.00 to 5.30 pm)

For the Spouses:

• Modern Day Slaveries (July 28th 2.30 – 4.0 pm
• Issues facing our Children (Aug 1st 2.30 – 4.0 pm)

At the Spouses meeting, the IAFN Co-ordinator will be a staff member helping with several of the global concerns groups and will also be taking part - with other IAFN representatives - in a Self Select Session on the ACC Networks.

Since 1996, the IAFN newsletters have been published as an integral part of Anglican World and so had an international distribution. The decision in 2007 to suspend the publication of the printed Anglican World (for financial reasons) has meant that, in order to continue, the Family Network has to obtain the funds to print and mail out the newsletter separately. Funding is actively being sought, and a Questionnaire has been sent out (copies will also be available at the Conference) to help ascertain how much the newsletters are valued, build up a wide-ranging mailing list of those working in family ministries in the different Provinces, and discover who would like to receive the newsletter by e-mail. But the voluntary Management Committee (President Bishop John Paterson and Chair Bishop Pat Harris) are clear that much of the value of the IAFN newsletters is their printed format which can reach those parts of the Communion which do not have access to electronic communication. The aim is to secure the funding to ensure that the 2008 Lambeth Conference does not mark the end of the International Anglican Family Network and the newsletters which are read and welcomed by many within the family of the Communion.