Valerie Riches

Valerie Riches was Founder President and remains a trustee of the Family Education Trust (formerly known as Family and Youth Concern). She also served as a Director of the Trust until 2000 Riches was married to fellow moralist campaigner Denis Riches who died in December 2007 and was the founder of Family Publications which published their joint autobiography in the same year.

Valerie Riches and Denis Riches co-written autobiography, published by the company that Denis Riches founded, Family Publications, 2007.

Background

Riches worked as a social worker before she joined Family and Youth Concern (first known as The Responsible Society) in the early 1970s. She explains that:

I was impressed by its approach to the social problems brought about by the ravages of permissiveness. There was a need to analyse the social influences which gave rise to escalating figures of divorce, one-parent families, children in care of the local authorities, illegitimacy, abortion, venereal disease and the many other emotional and physical manifestations of human distress. It seemed more sensible to approach these social problems with the aim of prevention rather than coping with the effects. Why, for example, despite all the sex education and availability of contraceptives, were illegitimate pregnancies and abortions rising? The more we investigated, the more we were astonished by what we discovered. In particular; I was amazed at the extent to which I myself had been indoctrinated with the current permissive assumptions.

Resources

• Catherine Bennett Valerie's moral lead The Guardian Thursday 14 December 2000.

Publications

• Valerie and Denis Riches Built on Love, Family Publications, 2007.
• Valerie Riches, Sex and Social Engineering, Family and Youth Concern (The Responsible Society) 1986. ISBN 0 906229 04 9.