Family Life
Community Service in Johannesburg

Family Life Centre was one of the first to introduce Trauma Counselling in South Africa.

David Murray, the director of the Social Affairs Department in the Johannesburg City Council, was a visionary of his time. Through his initiative, in 1949 the Council made a small grant to found the Johannesburg Marriage Guidance Society, which was later to be renamed The Family Life Centre. One of the first clinical psychologists to practice in Johannesburg, Joan Philips (pictured right), was a founding member on this panel. Joan continued to play a central role in the development and running of the organisation from this time on, and was one of the first psychologists to work in schools, assisted by Father Eric Richardson, another founding member. The Society continued to invite more experts to visit and share their expertise in their fields at regular intervals, and so ensure a firm foundation of knowledge in the organization. Her visit lasted for three weeks, and aroused a lot of interest. The first conference on family therapy ever to be held in South Africa took place in 1974 and was attended by Family Life Centre. In the early days, single parenthood was seldom addressed, because it was not acceptable to talk openly about sexual matters. Although the stigma of divorce was gradually fading, illegitimacy was still condemned. It was quickly recognized that many adolescents and even adults lacked knowledge and self-understanding about relationships and sex, and talks at schools to help children deal with puberty and peer relationships rapidly developed into the Education for Living programme that is still widely offered in schools, frequently updated to incorporate social and technological change! Our counsellors were working with unmarried couples who were living together. Joan likened a failure to adapt, to an attempt to repair a computer with pre-War technology. From the start, the founders made special efforts to reach out to black communities. As many problems as white families had, these were dwarfed by the difficulties black families faced, due to laws and regulations. Counselling, training and educational services were set up in communities to address issues such as marital stress, divorce, remarriage, unemployment and migration. This has enabled countless couples to prepare their relationship for marriage, or to enhance their relationships in existing marriages. The Peer Counselling concept was started in community schools and grew rapidly into a widespread youth development programme, addressing life skills. In 1987, Prof. Wilma Hoffman from the Department of Social Work at The University of Witwatersrand took a sabbatical to The United States where she trained in Mediation by the mediation guru, John Haynes. Support and education groups were developed to meet the needs of parents in understanding their young and adolescent children, and also to deal with divorce and the resulting family adjustments. The current Director, Pam Gillingham, has re-invigorated the organisation and with support from the Executive Board, inspired all the workers to continue to work to meet the needs arising and to survive financially and addressing self-sufficiency of the organization in our Parkwood Office. Our mission Is to promote and maintain stable, satisfying relationships within individuals, families, marriages and community life for all people of South Africa. Training courses and counselling services are offered to these communities as well as those reached by the Parkwood offices. Numerous community-based programmes, ranging from support groups for teenage mothers and HIV/Aids positive people, to self help and income generating groups, rape, child abuse and violence awareness, student and adult education programmes, counselling and training, are offered by volunteers or social workers employed by The Family Life Centre. Trained over 60 new Mediators over the past year in Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth.