Relationships Australia's Manifesto for Families, launched earlier this year called for the use of family impact statements to assess the impact of government policies before they are implemented. This arises from the principle that all major policy decisions impact directly or indirectly on families.
This took up one of the central themes of the International Year of the Family; to place the family at the centre of public policy.
Along similar lines, in a major Budget Statement this year (Strengthening Families), the Hon Judi Moylan indicated the Coalition's commitment to ensure that the needs of families remain at the centre of public policy.
These public statements acknowledge that the family is the core social unit in our society. They also raise an interesting question - 'How do we define families in the context of public policy?'
Given the changes in social structures over the last few decades - few of us in the late '90s would limit our definition to that of a traditional nuclear family; two parents, two children, one breadwinner.
How we define families has implications for formulating social policy, is important for service providers and important for an individual's understanding of community.
Households, families and social support
A major factor in looking at family composition is the distinction between households and families. For statistical collection purposes, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) defines family as two or more persons living in the same household who are related to each other by blood, marriage, de facto partnering, fostering or adoption.
Statistics on household composition show that a considerable proportion of households are outside couple relationships; around 22% of households are people living on their own and nearly 24% live in households with multiple income units (ABS 1996).
The trend over the last decade has been:
In reality, family bonds and social, emotional and financial support extend beyond households. The following examples provide a picture of the diversity of families and ongoing supportive family networks.
Implications for social policy and community service provision.
How this broader view of families can be incorporated into social policy and community services raises a number of crucial issues. This paper looks briefly at just a few of these.
This paper is titled 'Defining families for policy'. At this point I think it is useful to draw the distinction between 'describing' families which allows flexibility and 'defining' which by its very nature sets boundaries of inclusion and exclusion.
Implications for public expenditure
A major difficulty for Government is the resource implications of adopting a broader description of family .
Most Government benefits are entitlement driven with legislation or guidelines defining who is eligible and who is not. These definitions reflect, to a large extent, Government priorities for available resources rather than being based on a particular view of family structure. The outcome can be conflicting, implicit assumptions about the roles and responsibilities of families. For example, the Family Tax Initiative in the last Budget allows for dependent students up to 18 years, while for income tax purposes dependent students are up to 25 years.
The whole area of defining individual and family eligibility for benefits and taxation measures requires attention to avoid inequities between families which could be providing the same level of support but have different eligibility and also to ensure that families in need do not fall between gaps in provision. This applies to the effects of decisions within Commonwealth programs, across Commonwealth programs and between Commonwealth and State Government programs
How families are defined also has implications for funding agreements with service providers as well as for direct payments to individuals. The goal in moving away from submission based grants to formula driven funding was equity between funded services. A by-product of this process towards equity has been more and more inflexibility in the way programs are delivered. This is seen most poignantly in aged care where couples who after 50 or 60 years together are in danger of being separated between hostel and nursing home care, if their levels of frailty and need for care are different.
Alternative funding models have been implemented in some programs and are being considered for others. Models such as purchase of contracts could have the potential to offer flexibility in service delivery, depending how they are implemented.
For example, in relationship support services funding for a given number of hours of services could reduce the current boundaries between sub-programs such as relationship counselling and relationship education.
Relationships Australia sees this boundary as artificial. Relationship education encompasses the full range of support services across the life cycle of a relationship; from establishing a relationship, development, enhancement, conflict resolution, and where this occurs - separation, divorce, recovery and, in many cases, reformation of a new intimate relationship.
In any flexible funding arrangement, a considerable barrier to achieving equitable access to services across the whole community is in gaining recognition of the diversity and complexity of family issues. The resulting drain on an organisation's resources through endeavouring to meet these more complex needs reduces the overall level of service provision unless the funding base takes account of a wide spectrum of needs.
A major research report 'Contracting for Care' (CACOM 1996) provides valuable information on new funding approaches and their implementation.
The ongoing need for community infrastructure and support
A detrimental result of acknowledging the strong elements of social support in our society would be to believe that the strong drive to family formation and support means that Government and the broader community can give up responsibility for supporting families.
There is an increasing tendency to expect the family to be totally self reliant. We believe that this is not possible. In fact the family has never been totally self reliant, having been supported in the past more than the present, by the church, village social structures and the like.
Families and individuals have always needed strong community infrastructure to support them through the life cycle, and in their caring and support roles.
Community support provides the essential foundation and infrastructure for the economy to function more effectively. Without community services many workers involved in other industries would be unable to function at work because of dysfunction and competing demands in their family life.
Even more importantly, there is a return on that investment in the tangible, concrete forms of social cohesion and healthier individuals and families (Disney & Rogan 1993).
In the relationships support field, investment in community education, early intervention and prevention are more effective and more economically efficient than programs to address problems once they have become entrenched. It has been estimated that the community spends roughly only 4 cents per person per year on relationship education and around 46 cents per person per year on relationship counselling and yet $175 per person per year is spent for expensive legal processes when marriages end in divorce.
Most likely, figures of this order could be produced on the effectiveness or prevention in other community service areas; for example support, training and job creation for young unemployed against the financial and societal costs of long term unemployment.
A challenge for Government policy advisers is demonstrating the long term benefits of prevention strategies and the unfortunate tug for competing program resources between the crisis end of intervention and prevention.
A broader description of families points to the importance of an integrated approach to family services
Within Government, there is a strong need for integration of family programs between Commonwealth and State Governments. Families have reported to the Law Reform Commission on significant problems in the way Commonwealth and State legal and administrative systems treat children (Rose, 1996 ). Child adoption is generally a State matter, ongoing parental responsibilities in divorce are Commonwealth responsibilities, unless there is an issue about fitness of parenting when it becomes a matter for the Children's Court in the relevant State.
We watch with interest as to whether the stalled COAG process will be able to play a constructive role in better integration of family programs.
Currently, confusion and lack of co-ordination between Commonwealth and State Governments on respective responsibility for domestic violence exacerbate the difficulties in dealing with already complex service delivery issues. Senator Newman's Domestic Violence Summit planned for 1997 and the processes leading up to that Summit are welcome initiatives.
As well as the Commonwealth/State arena, there is also a need for integration across Commonwealth programs. The Jobs, Education and Training Program (JET) to assist single parents to enter or return to the workforce combines training, advice and access to employment and assistance with child care convincingly demonstrated the benefits of co-operative programs across three Commonwealth portfolios.
An area deserving similar attention is youth homelessness.
From a service delivery perspective, acknowledgment of broader community and family structures points to the need for a broader approach to service delivery and greater interagency co-operation on the delivery of services.
A number of programs within relationships support services can be used as examples of growing awareness and commitment to integrated approaches to family support:
Conclusion
Many of the issues presented in this paper are not new, but are appropriate to the theme of policy and research for this Conference. We need to understand types of families and influencing factors in the broadest sense to offer insights which shape broader thinking in family policy. This broader thinking brings challenges to Government policy makers, services providers and researchers. For Government policy makers and advisers, it involves, among other things, balancing resources and responsibility for community support and at the same time fostering individual responsibility and individual choice. For service providers, it involves innovation, co-operation with other agencies and a client focus which incorporates awareness of the effects of broad family and community support networks.
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References
ABS (1996), The Effects of Government Benefits and Taxes on Household Income, Cat 6537.0
ABS (1996), Australian Social Trends, Cat 4102.0
CACOM, (1996) 'Contracting for Care', Papers presented to a seminar, Sept 1996.
Commonwealth Government Budget Statement (1996), Strengthening Families.
Disney, H., Bateman, G., & Seddon, E., (1996) 'Healthy Families and Relationships', Family Matters, Issue No 44, pp8-11.
Disney, H., & Rogan, L., 'Community services - an industry to be reckoned with', in Beyond Swings and Roundabouts, Ed :Inglis, J., & Rogan, L., Pluto Press in association with ACOSS, Leichhardt, NSW.
Hartley, R., (1992), 'No more than a phone call away' Family Matters, Issue No 32, pp38-40.
Hartley, R., & McDonald, P.,(1994) 'The many faces of IYF', Family Matters, Issue No 37, pp 6-12.
McDonald, P., (1994), IYF: What are the issues?', Issue No 37, pp 4-5
Relationships Australia (1996), Manifesto for Families.
Rose, A (1996), press article, 'Many kids left out in the cold', Canberra Times 24 Oct.
Wolcott, I & Glezer, H ., (1989), 'Marriage Counselling in Australia: An evaluation', Australian Institute of Family Studies, Monograph No 8.