It has become a common adage, that family life and marriages are under fire in the culture of modern socIety. Trends in the first world indicate that individuals can live lone lives with no family support system except that provided by the public social services of their local authority. For those in families, stories of neglect, child abuse, violence, rejection and hopelessness that stretched out often from generation to generation are unsaid in many homes. The initial expressions of such problems is silent frustration, quiet resentment and a coldness in relationships which limits communication to necessary business interaction. But when relationships reach breaking point in the home, open quarrels, cold wars of hatred and stonewalling become characteristic of most home environments. These dysfunctional set ups can easily develop into social problems and distress such as child abuse and absenteeism from school, domestic violence, substance abuse, gang violence and even homelessness. So these families become troubled and also cause trouble within their communities. The products of troubled families are troubled individuals who are likely to entrench dependence on the state social security system, and are purposeless and remain either unemployed or unemployable for generations. It has become a common adage, that family life and marriages are under fire in the culture of modern socIety. Trends in the first world indicate that individuals can live lone lives with no family support system except that provided by the public social services of their local authority. For those in families, stories of neglect, child abuse, violence, rejection and hopelessness that stretched out often from generation to generation are unsaid in many homes. The initial expressions of such problems is silent frustration, quiet resentment and a coldness in relationships which limits communication to necessary business interaction. But when relationships reach breaking point in the home, open quarrels, cold wars of hatred and stonewalling become characteristic of most home environments. These dysfunctional set ups can easily develop into social problems and distress such as child abuse and absenteeism from school, domestic violence, substance abuse, gang violence and even homelessness. So these families become troubled and also cause trouble within their communities. The products of troubled families are troubled individuals who are likely to entrench dependence on the state social security system, and are purposeless and remain either unemployed or unemployable for generations. 

While the challenges of society today can be blanketed or summed up as the breakdown of the family system, the lower layer which is the root cause are the men and women who create the families. At the individual level, these problems can be summed up as follows:

• Emotionally distant individuals who live for themselves and no one else, without the skill or internal emotional capacity to create healthy, interdependent relationships which last a life time.
• Confusion or crisis of identity in race, gender and even spiritual authority to enable them to navigate both the social and spiritual maze with confidence.
• An invasion by poor popular modelling of men and women's identities based on what you have or own, what you do, what people say about you or do for you, etc, which leaves no space for self reflection.
• A disconnection between the young and old about shared values and principles about life.

The consequence is rootless individuals who don't belong anywhere. Sometimes pseudo families are created for convenience. But these are usually unsustainable and may embrace and understand the individual for a season when it's convenient.  

Therefore Family Life inspiration would like to implement programs which ensure that individuals rise from dysfunction and embrace wholeness and develop sound emotional capacity for building healthy family relationships. Then each individual will get a chance to become a purposeful member of society who can contribute meaningfully to their community. Some of the positive benefits of building health family relationships are:

to get children back into school, reduce youth crime and anti- social behaviour, put adults on a path back to work and bring down the amount public services currently spend on them.