Efforts to keep families together
By Yvette D’Unienville
The Community Affairs Department is determined to trim down the number of broken families through counseling.
Even though there is no act or law that spells out that couples who intend to get a divorce must go through a counseling program, the Social Development Policy corporate Plan, to be implemented next year will see that such an act is developed.
When asked why the Department has to protect couples from breaking apart, Community Affairs officer Teuleala Manuella says, whole families are of great value to the development of the community and the nation as a whole, especially the development and of their children who are caught in the unfortunate turn of events between their parents.
She adds that the broken family issue may be duplicated by offsprings of divorced parents.
The department has made an arrangement with the Office of the People's Lawyer for divorce applicants to be counselled before actually going to Court for the final declaration of divorce.
Manuella says, it has been seen that for some divorced couples, after all the hard work done by the office of the People's Lawyer in preparing divorce documents, even after the court has approved their divorce, they get back together.
The department has started and is still offering its counseling services.
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