Executive summary
An extensive body of research evidence indicates that family functioning and circumstances significantly affect the wellbeing of family members, and the functioning of society and the economy.
Families carry out various functions that are critically important to society. They share resources, and support their members financially; they care for the young, the elderly, the sick and the disabled. Many commentators cite the family as one of the root causes of our most pressing social problems; nevertheless, the Families Commission’s research suggests that the importance of the family is not always reflected in public policies and services.
The Commission, with the assistance of Local Government New Zealand, is exploring the feasibility of increasing the focus on families in local body decision-making processes.
In addition to providing routine services, many local authorities have become involved in providing social housing and other community services, such as childcare, out-of-school programmes and community development.
Under the Local Government Act 2002 a key purpose of local government is to promote the social, economic, environmental and cultural wellbeing of communities. The Act requires a local authority to assess how its decisions contribute to community wellbeing.
This review set out to determine the key components of family-centred communities from the literature. It will contribute to an initiative by the Commission to encourage councils to take a family-centred approach to planning and decision-making. The report will also provide the Families Commission with knowledge about family-centred communities for future use.
The review exposed a general dearth of material on family-centred communities and planning. The literature tended to interpret ‘family’ as parents with children, with little recognition of other family forms. This reinforces the need for the Families Commission’s work.
The study also explored the literature on other local government models which seek to promote wellbeing, such as Healthy Cities; Child Friendly Cities; Age Friendly Cities; Safe Communities; and Liveable Communities.
Literature discussing the ways in which communities or councils cater for particular population groups, such as children, older people, youth or cultural groups, was considered to be outside of the scope of this review.
Principles of a family-centred approach
The review found a number of common principles associated with a family-centred approach to social service delivery and community development and planning:- Family participation – in identifying needs and in planning, implementing and evaluating services.
- Focus on the family as a whole – rather than on individual family members.
- Focus on family functioning – to strengthen interconnections and the capacity of families to function effectively, and provide opportunities for families to be together.
- Strengths versus deficits – the approach should enhance protective factors and internal resources.
- Building social capital – to help families build and draw on support networks in their family, between families and with community agencies and institutions.
- Interagency collaboration – working on many fronts simultaneously rather than single-agency approaches.
- Addressing inequalities – agencies should identify and support families in the most extreme economic or social need, putting efforts and resources toward preventing family problems before they become crises or chronic situations.
- Culturally appropriate approaches – to affirm and strengthen cultural, racial and linguistic identities.
- Diversity – recognising the variety in family forms.
- Evidence-based – up-to-date information on the status of the community’s families should provide a basis for planning and decisions.
Components of a family-centred community
The literature describing a community or city as ‘family-centred’ based this evaluation on a range of factors:- physical attributes (built and natural)
- service availability
- sense of community or social capital
- outcomes indicators.
A Family Friendly Community Checklist, produced by the Premier’s Council in Alberta in the early 1990s, provides a comprehensive description of the components of family-centred communities. The checklist describes features needed by various family members (for example, children, youth, older people and parents), rather than assuming that family-friendly equates to child- or parent-friendly. Like other local government literature, it treats family participation in decision-making as a core attribute of family-friendly communities. This was evident in both New Zealand and international literature.
This approach could inform the development of guidelines for New Zealand local government planners and decision-makers. However, the findings from the literature review do not suggest a simple ‘checklist’ for planning. Rather, they challenge the fundamental premisses and processes behind decisions.
Key local government processes
The literature review suggested that certain processes are central to ensuring that local government achieves family-centred outcomes:- developing a family wellbeing model
- gathering information on the status of families
- consulting with families
- multi-sector collaboration
- addressing inequalities
- building internal capacity.
This report suggests that councils adjust the following frameworks:
- Wellbeing frameworks – to ensure they capture the wellbeing of the family itself, over and above the wellbeing of individual family members.
- Indicators frameworks – to include measures of family wellbeing.
- Community outcomes frameworks – to ensure they include explicit outcomes for families.
- Consultation frameworks – to ensure families are engaged in decision-making processes.
The literature indicated that understanding a particular community’s families is a prerequisite to a family-centred approach. The effectiveness of a family-centred process greatly depends on the information or research evidence available to the policy analyst, planner or decision-maker. Under the Local Government Act 2002 councils are required to monitor and report on progress towards community outcomes.
This review suggests that a family-centred approach would be enhanced by an indicators model which included measures of family wellbeing. This could be supported by research.
A family-centred approach would involve councils applying their considerable skills and experience in public consultation and community engagement in efforts to target families.
The literature suggests that a family-centred approach would require collaboration between councils and other external parties and also across council functions.
The literature also suggested that councils need to develop internal capacity and skills in family-centred planning and development. The Families Commission has an obvious role in providing advice and support in these areas. This current initiative is an example of how the Families Commission can encourage local government to promote family wellbeing.