Gail Alexan­der

The So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­istry is launch­ing a com­mu­ni­ty First Re­spon­ders’ sys­tem to en­sure com­mu­ni­ties have ded­i­cat­ed groups of peo­ple tak­ing care of each oth­er in emer­gen­cies from nat­ur­al dis­as­ters and be­reave­ment to re­trench­ment.

And the min­istry’s al­so pro­vid­ing ser­vices to as­sist grand­par­ents rais­ing grand­chil­dren alone.

So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Don­na Cox re­vealed this yes­ter­day dur­ing her con­tri­bu­tion to the Sen­ate’s 2021 Bud­get de­bate.

Cox said re­silient com­mu­ni­ties form the bedrock of T&T.

“A key com­po­nent of a strong, re­silient com­mu­ni­ty is sta­ble re­la­tion­ships among res­i­dents. Res­i­dents of such com­mu­ni­ties, much like what ex­ist­ed be­fore, in­vest their time, tal­ent and trea­sure to pro­tect and sup­port each oth­er so the com­mu­ni­ty thrives.”

The Min­istry pro­pos­es to lead the thrust to­wards es­tab­lish­ing the Com­mu­ni­ty First Re­spon­ders Sys­tem.

“This is par­tic­u­lar­ly true of com­mu­ni­ties where there may be se­nior cit­i­zens, preg­nant or nurs­ing moth­ers, sin­gle par­ents, abused per­sons and per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties, who will re­quire im­me­di­ate at­ten­tion.”

Cox said the sys­tem will be a fam­i­ly sup­port, com­mu­ni­ty-based sys­tem, con­sist­ing of a net­work of pub­lic, pri­vate, NGOs, civ­il so­ci­ety or­gan­i­sa­tions and in­di­vid­ual vol­un­teers, who come to­geth­er to pro­tect and sup­port fam­i­lies, in­clud­ing sin­gle adults, dur­ing times of crises.

“Crises may be un­ex­pect­ed events such as nat­ur­al or man­made dis­as­ters, be­reave­ment, crit­i­cal ill­ness or fam­i­ly dis­putes that have a phys­i­cal, psy­cho­log­i­cal or emo­tion­al im­pact on fam­i­lies with­in that com­mu­ni­ty.”

The sys­tem will be ac­ti­vat­ed for any fam­i­ly with­in a com­mu­ni­ty up­on the oc­cur­rence of:

• Re­fer­ral by a Di­vi­sion or Unit with­in the Min­istry, part­ner Min­istry or agency;

• A pub­lic ex­pres­sion of as­sis­tance for fam­i­lies/in­di­vid­u­als due to loss­es re­sult­ing in home­less­ness, need for coun­selling or oth­er ser­vices pro­vid­ed by the Min­istry;

• A crit­i­cal in­ci­dent that would af­fect fam­i­lies/in­di­vid­u­als that is brought to the at­ten­tion of the Head Of­fice and the Dis­trict Of­fices of the Min­istry;

• A re­view of sta­tis­ti­cal re­ports in­di­cat­ing a fam­i­ly is or will be in cri­sis;

• Re­trench­ment and/or clos­ing down of busi­ness­es due to struc­tur­al ad­just­ments in the econ­o­my, which af­fects the fam­i­ly.

The sys­tem will be led by the Min­istry’s Na­tion­al Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Di­vi­sion.

“Once alert­ed, rel­e­vant mem­bers of the min­istry will be ac­ti­vat­ed, briefed and, util­is­ing the case man­age­ment ap­proach, de­liv­er the ap­pro­pri­ate team re­sponse, with crit­i­cal des­ig­nat­ed roles for each team mem­ber.”

Stan­dard Op­er­at­ing Pro­ce­dures and in­di­vid­ual and group pro­to­cols will be es­tab­lished to gov­ern the seam­less func­tion­ing of the team. Train­ing will be pro­vid­ed for all mem­bers of the sys­tem.

Cox said the min­istry has iden­ti­fied the broad frame­work for such col­lab­o­ra­tion and has be­gun reach­ing out to MPs, part­ner Min­istries and oth­er in­di­vid­u­als and groups.

She al­so said the min­istry will as­sist grand­par­ents rais­ing grand­chil­dren. “Many of us were raised by our grand­par­ents, due to the ab­sence of our par­ents. To­day, grand­par­ents con­tin­ue to pro­vide in­valu­able so­cial sup­port to their fam­i­lies, par­tic­u­lar­ly in these times of so­cio-eco­nom­ic con­straints. Grand­par­ents rais­ing grand­chil­dren is a com­mon fea­ture of T&T life. How­ev­er, when that care in­volves full-time re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, when bi­o­log­i­cal par­ents are ab­sent, then the pic­ture changes sig­nif­i­cant­ly.”

She said ev­i­dence shows grand­par­ents be­come very vul­ner­a­ble and can suf­fer from many chal­lenges, some very se­vere, in­clud­ing fi­nan­cial hard­ship, phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal stress, iso­la­tion and pover­ty.

Some grand­par­ents have dif­fi­cul­ty ac­cess­ing ser­vices for their grand­chil­dren as they don’t have le­gal cus­tody and may have to un­der­go ex­ten­sive le­gal bat­tles to se­cure these rights.”

Cox added, “In some sit­u­a­tions, be­cause of is­sues with par­ents, grand­chil­dren them­selves suf­fer from a va­ri­ety of de­vel­op­men­tal, be­hav­iour­al, emo­tion­al and oth­er chal­lenges such as de­pres­sion, AD­HD, learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties and may dis­play feel­ings of re­sent­ment, frus­tra­tion, re­jec­tion and anger.”

“Par­ent­ing in these cir­cum­stances, pose added dif­fi­cul­ties for grand­par­ents whose al­ready lim­it­ed re­sources may be di­vert­ed to psy­cho­log­i­cal /med­ical sup­port, to over­come the ad­verse men­tal and phys­i­cal con­se­quences of these chal­lenges.”

“In this re­gard, we’re work­ing on a pack­age of ser­vices for grand­par­ents who are tak­ing care of grand­chil­dren. These will in­clude par­ent­ing skills, psy­cho­log­i­cal sup­port for them­selves and their grand­chil­dren through our Na­tion­al Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Di­vi­sion. Our Di­vi­sion of Age­ing will pro­vide as­sis­tance with re­spect to so­cial iso­la­tion and lone­li­ness; and through our en­hanced com­mu­ni­ca­tion ef­forts we’ll make sure they are aware of all the Min­istry’s ser­vices avail­able to them.”

She al­so not­ed the age of be­com­ing a grand­par­ent has been de­creas­ing as the cy­cle of teenage preg­nan­cy con­tin­ues in many house­holds and there are many grand­par­ents who are lim­it­ed in their abil­i­ty to pro­vide care and sup­port for younger loved ones.

Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Don­na Cox says be­tween nor­mal min­istry pro­grammes and COVID-19 re­lief pro­grammes, as at Sep­tem­ber 30, Gov­ern­ment had pro­vid­ed food, in­come and oth­er sup­port to more than one-quar­ter of the en­tire T&T pop­u­la­tion cost­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly $5.1 bil­lion.

But she added the min­istry had to re­ject al­most 5,000 ap­pli­cants for COVID re­lief.

“For var­i­ous rea­sons, in­clud­ing dou­ble-dip­ping and at­tempts at fraud, not all those who ap­plied for COVID re­lief as­sis­tance were able to re­ceive such.”

Some rea­sons for re­jec­tion in­clud­ed that some ap­pli­cants were

non-na­tion­als, some were stu­dents; oth­ers lacked re­quired doc­u­men­ta­tion —in some cas­es, un­will­ing­ness to sup­ply the nec­es­sary doc­u­men­ta­tion —and some ap­pli­cants had in­come ex­ceed­ing the qual­i­fy­ing lim­it.”

“Some ap­pli­ca­tions were bla­tant at­tempts to mis­lead and de­fraud the Gov­ern­ment. All these things made them in­el­i­gi­ble for the grant. More im­por­tant­ly, they clogged the sys­tem and stopped gen­uine ap­pli­cants from ac­cess­ing sup­port quick­er.”