The final report of the Commission of the Family "Strengthening Families for Life" contains a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of the issues affecting families and wide-ranging recommendations across several different policy areas.
The recommendations in the report will be fully considered in the context of developing coherent, progressive and effective policies for families as promised in the programme for Government, An Action Programme for the Millennium.
The Government is committed to adopting a "families first" approach by putting the family at the centre of all its policies. In line with this commitment and in response to recommendations from the commission the Government has established a new family affairs unit in the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs and has provided an additional £2.75 million for the development of family services in my Department in the last budget. That includes: £700,000 for a network of family and community services resource centres; an extra £600,000 for support for marriage counselling services; and an extra £600,000 for the expansion of the family mediation service.
The family affairs unit is responsible for support for the marriage counselling services and the family mediation service as well as a number of other family services, including a pilot programme to provide improved support to families from local offices of the Department through the one stop shop model and the introduction of an information programme on parenting issues.
The unit has been given a specific responsibility to pursue the findings in the commission's report following its consideration by the Government. In pursuing the findings of the report the unit will work with the other Departments which are affected by the commission's recommendations. An amount of £850,000 had been provided for the family affairs unit to include staffing and administration, the funding of the local office pilot project, a research budget and the programme of parenting information.