Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Don­na Cox has con­firmed that the Trinidad and To­ba­go Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties Bill is ready for the fi­nal stages of ap­proval. Speak­ing at the Down Syn­drome Fam­i­ly Net­work’s World Down Syn­drome Day 2025 Con­fer­ence on 21 March 2025, Min­is­ter Cox said the bill is now pre­pared and on­ly awaits a fi­nal re­view be­tween the Pol­i­cy and Bill.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from the Min­istry, the bill in­cor­po­rates feed­back from civ­il so­ci­ety, the Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ties Com­mis­sion, var­i­ous gov­ern­ment min­istries, and per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties. Cox ex­plained that the aim was to cre­ate a bill that was "fit for pur­pose."

The leg­is­la­tion ad­dress­es key con­cerns of the dis­abled com­mu­ni­ty, aim­ing to en­sure na­tion­al ac­cep­tance, equal­i­ty of op­por­tu­ni­ty, free­dom from dis­crim­i­na­tion, and re­spect for dif­fer­ences. It al­so fo­cus­es on em­pow­er­ing per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties and en­sur­ing their full par­tic­i­pa­tion in so­ci­ety. The bill al­so stress­es the im­por­tance of cre­at­ing en­vi­ron­ments that sup­port the au­ton­o­my and dig­ni­ty of in­di­vid­u­als with dis­abil­i­ties.

The next step will see the bill go be­fore the Leg­isla­tive Re­view Com­mit­tee.

In ad­di­tion, Min­is­ter Cox dis­cussed oth­er ini­tia­tives aimed at sup­port­ing per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties. These in­clude the soon-to-be-opened Na­tion­al Ther­a­peu­tic and Re­source Cen­tre (NTRC) at Carlsen Field, which will of­fer care and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion ser­vices, par­tic­u­lar­ly for those with Down Syn­drome. The Min­istry has al­so in­tro­duced the In­te­grat­ed So­cial En­ter­prise Man­age­ment Sys­tem (ISEMS), al­low­ing in­di­vid­u­als to ac­cess so­cial ser­vices from home. On­go­ing sup­port through the Dis­abil­i­ty As­sis­tance Grant and the Dis­abil­i­ty As­sis­tance Grant for mi­nors al­so con­tin­ues.