"Focus” on Family Day
Family Service Toronto with Children’s Aid Society of Toronto, Jewish Family and Child Service of Toronto and the LGBTQ Parenting Connection invites you to join us as we officially launch the first annual Family Day On-Line Gallery on Feb. 4, 2:30 p.m. in Committee Room 2, West Wing, Queen’s Park. We are pleased that the Honourable Deb Matthews, Minister of Children and Youth Services, the Honourable Kathleen Wynne, Minister of Education and Barbara Hall, Chief Commissioner, Ontario Human Rights Commission will join us to mark this occasion.
“We are pleased to celebrate Family Day by launching this inclusive family campaign which recognizes the richness of all 21st century families in our community,” said Margaret Hancock, Executive Director, Family Service Toronto. “We define a family as: two or more people, related by blood, marriage, adoption or commitment to care for one another,” Hancock continued. “These include 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 and families that cross traditional boundaries including race, sexuality, language, ethnicity, place of birth, (dis)ability and language.”
Family Service Toronto encourages families to submit their own photos and stories at www.FamilyDayToronto.org. These snapshots will showcase the diversity of families in our communities and emphasizes social inclusion for all types of families. This grassroots campaign includes community engagement events and the volunteer involvement of University of Toronto Engineering Photography Club.
“It is important to respect the different ways that people choose to parent and not assume all families look alike,” says Rachel Epstein, LGBTQ Parenting Connection Coordinator. “This Family Day, we are happy to celebrate the diversity of family structures within which children and parents live and thrive.”
“We believe that communities are strong when all families are supported and children are nurtured and safe,” David Rivard, Executive Director at Children’s Aid Society of Toronto says. “Family can include anyone with a meaningful relationship to a child either through blood ties, community or culture.”
“While people define family in different ways, the one constant is that family remains at the heart of our society,” said the Honourable Kathleen Wynne, Minister of Education.
MEDIA CONTACT
Margaret Hageman
Manager of Communications and Marketing
Family Service Toronto
416.595.9230 x225
margarethg@familyservicetoronto.org
