Partnerships With Families: Blended/Step Families

  What is a Blended family        The Vanier Institute as cited by Mitchell states that the definition of a family is “Any combination of two or more persons who are bound together over time by ties of mutual consent, birth, and/or adoption or placement and who, together, assume responsibilities for variant combinations of: physical maintenance and care of group members, addition of new members through procreation or adoption, socialization of children, social control of members, production, consumption, disruption of goods and services, affective nurturance-love” ( 2020, p.11).         Whereas blended family is defined as by Statistics Canada (2007) states “A stepfamily is when there are children who either biological or adopted from one of the spouses or common-law partners living in the home. A blended family has at least one child that is biological or adopted to the parents in the home at least one child is biological or adopted to only one spouse or partner” (as cited in Gibson,

          Supportive Environment for Blended Families      Children's family life may have a direct impact on their physical, economic, social, and emotional well-being, as well as their long-term life trajectory. Blended families are a n integral part of our society.      “The 2011 Census of Population for the first time counted the number of stepfamilies. In that year, there were 464,335 stepfamilies, representing 12.6% of all Canadian families comprising a couple (married and common-law) and children under the age of 25” (Statistics Canada) .              Blended families are unique in a way as member s of the family live under one roof despite the fact of biological relationship with all family members. T he members of b lended families have numerous benefits of living together but t he y may face many obstacles o n their way especially the children who need their both biological parents.      W e , the educators support blended families in a variety of ways. We believ