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this page Newsletters - The International Year of the Family
Wales - Change and challenge.
During the past few years, Dioceses here in Wales have developed their own projects and work with children and families. This was necessitated by the withdrawal, due to financial reasons, of The Children's Society - a major voluntary organization linked with the Church of England and for many years the Church in Wales. The projects developed have included a network of small family centres in the Diocese of St David's, and a healthy-living centre in the Diocese of Bangor. The Diocese of Llandaff already had extensive amounts of work being undertaken - growing out of long established work at a mothers' and babies' project. Here in the Diocese of Swansea and Brecon, the major focus of our work over the past few years has been in the City of Swansea, a coastal port of some 200,000 that had been at the forefront of industrialisation in Britain but now struggles with finding a post-heavy industry future with all the social and economic challenges that this brings.
Our social responsibility work in the Diocese is centred on two large Family Centres which act as the base for a range of children and family-focused work designed to create the potential for social change and growth in some of the more socially challenged areas of the city. Two new centres are planned for 2004/2005.
A recent visit from the Compass Rose Society of the Anglican Communion enabled us to explore and explain our work and to articulate that one of the great joys over the past few years in our work in Swansea is that it has been done in partnership with others - with local communities, other voluntary sector agencies and with the State. This has enabled the work to have a far greater impact than if we had simply “gone it alone”. During 2003 the Diocese of Swansea and Brecon was the recipient of the Lord Mayor of Swansea's Community Regeneration Award for the Most Supportive Partnership Agency. Traditionally, in Britain, the Church had been at the forefront of the development of welfare provision which was then taken up by the State. It is good to see that the Church is again being recognised as a valued partner in this field. Our work in Swansea and Brecon continues to change and develop as we seek to make the best use of the small resources we have available. Increasingly, the emphasis of the work is taking a longer-term view of social change and growth. Evidence suggests that many of the problems and difficulties encountered by individuals in their later lives are rooted in early childhood experiences and development; consequently, child-centred initiatives to develop self-esteem from an early age are now the focus of many of our activities.
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