Hilary Cottam spent two decades working in international development before turning her attention to the failing welfare systems of wealthy nations. This book presents her experiments in redesigning social services around human relationships rather than bureaucratic categories. Cottam, who trained as an economist and worked for the World Bank, describes five projects that created new ways of supporting people in need: circles of support for isolated elderly people, collaborative approaches to chronic health conditions, new models for housing the homeless, reformed employment services, and redesigned children's services. Each project begins by asking what capabilities people want to develop rather than what problems need fixing. Cottam draws on Amartya Sen's capabilities approach and relational sociology to argue that the twentieth-century welfare state, designed for industrial workers facing predictable risks, cannot address twenty-first-century challenges of loneliness, chronic illness, and precarious work. Her experiments demonstrate that relatively modest changes in how services are organized can produce dramatically better outcomes at lower cost. The book combines policy analysis with vivid portraits of individuals whose lives changed through these new approaches. Cottam writes accessibly about complex ideas, making the case for relational welfare that prioritizes human connection over managerial efficiency.