Focus on Family
February 11, 2009
When Premier McGuinty announced Family Day as a new civic holiday last year, Family Service Toronto, an organization which has been serving individuals, families and communities in Toronto for almost a century, recognized this as a gift, a unique opportunity to honour and celebrate families.
But who is your family? We offer people a broad definition of family: two or more people, related by blood, marriage, adoption or commitment to care for one another. This meaning embraces the range of families in our pluralistic society: extended families, lone-parent and multiple parent families, blended and step families, same-sex parent families, adoptive, foster and kinship families, nuclear and biological families.
It reflects the incredible diversity of the families we see every day in our work, and the diversity of families in our schools and neighbourhoods. Increasingly, we also see this diversity in institutions such as our courts which recognize that familial relationships transcend a traditional view of family and put a focus on our civil liberties to define family. Family Day is an opportunity to consider the incredible freedom we have in Ontario to create families built on loving and caring relationships.
In Toronto, it’s common to see families which cross traditional boundaries including race, sexuality, ethnicity, place of birth, ability and language. But the freedom which allows people to do this is uncommon by world standards. In Ontario, and Toronto in particular, we are at a place and time where families live and thrive in a multiplicity of ways not considered legitimate even a generation ago.
We believe that our society will be at its best when all families feel included in the community life of our neighbourhoods, schools, workplaces and places of worship and when all families receive the supports they need to be the best families they can be. As we approach Family Day, we invite everyone to visit the website at www.FamilyDayToronto.org to see a photo gallery which showcases the diversity of families in our communities and to share your own family photo and story. Let’s make Family Day grow into one of those great annual community celebrations which people anticipate and experience with joy.
Margaret Hancock,
Executive Director, Family Service Toronto
Family Service Toronto has been providing city-wide services since 1914. FST strengthens individuals, families and communities through counselling, education, social action, advocacy and community development.
