Families, the core of society

FAMILY UNIT: In ancient Sri Lanka, the family was recognised as the basic element of social existence. It was regarded not only as a potential powerful agent for political, economic, cultural and social change, but also as a potent element for the care, protection and development of its members and their social roles.

What has happened today?

Today, families in our country are undergoing tremendous changes and continuing to experience difficulties in fulfilling their roles. The impact of the current socio-economic challenges has changed the face and structure of families. The social ills such as domestic violence, substance abuse, children living in the streets and others are all symptoms of disintegration in family units.

Rendering a comprehensive developmental service to families to enable them to fulfil a supportive role has become a major challenge to government as well as other partners in the non-governmental organisations and faith-based organisation sector. We cannot overemphasise the fact that unless communities and society take charge and instil the age-old values of 'your child is my child', we cannot possibly address the social conditions faced by families.

Research has proven that there has been an increase in the number of both single and extended households while there has also been a decline in the nuclear type household.

These factors, both on national and provincial level, have resulted in families being faced with many challenges that impact on the well-being of the members and communities at large. In addition, the fostering of children living apart from their biological parents shows a significant increase which impacts on the upbringing of children and the preservation of family life.

The family plays an important role in socialisation, which contributes to the broader family values and broader social, cultural and national values. Every single member of the family not only has an important role to play but he/she should be regarded as valuable and treated with respect. Self-esteem of each family member should be met within the family.

Family Policy

Over the decades, we never had an integrated strategy to preserve families. This resulted in the fragmentation of services to families. It is a sad fact.

It is time the Government with other civil society organisations develop a Family Policy for Sri Lanka. This is something quite overdue.

The policy should serve as a framework to guide services to families with the main aim of promoting and strengthening functional families as well as preventing their vulnerability.

Such a policy on families calls for strengthening of inter-sector collaboration to promote the positive benefits of well-functioning families, rebuilding and forging of sound relationships as well as provision of support mechanisms to ultimately regenerate morals in society.

The aim of a family policy is to create a safe environment for children to grow up in and to provide parents with the material and psychological means to have and raise children.

Ultimately, this comes down to supporting parenthood and family unity. Society employs various forms of financial support and child care arrangements to even out the costs of children for families.

In recent years, Sri Lankans have been starting families at an increasingly higher age. For many, the problem lies in reconciling starting a family with entering working life.

However, increasing demands for efficiency at work and greater uncertainty about job security also put added pressure on working parents. Work-related stress and pressure of time are all factors that make the lives of working families with children more difficult. Reconciling family life will therefore be one of the major challenges facing the family policy.

Policy decisions on housing, the environment, education and employment also have their impact on the everyday lives of families with children. Hence, these political decisions should also be part of family policy.

Human capital development

It is also important to emphasise that families are the main source of human capital development. There is thus a reciprocal relationship between families and society because families depend on the society for financial and material resources to perform their critical functions whilst the family is the vehicle to restore and instil societal values and norms.

Of course, in Sri Lanka, there are quite a number of programmes facilitated by the Department of Social Services, be it for women, children, the elderly, and people with disabilities or youth in conflict with the law. The Department renders excellent services in these fields within their financial and other resources. There is no doubt about it.

However, services and programmes to strengthen and empower the family to fulfil its obligations are not sufficient and clearly needs our focused attention.

The suggested National Family Policy will be more encompassing and will point out the importance of ensuring that all families will have access to essential services and resources such as shelter, health services, quality education, water and sanitation etc.