The family that stays together...

The office for Children’s Homes be­lieves a child’s place is within a family when this is possible. Therefore, whenever an application is made for admission into a home, the office together with Appoġġ, investigates the possibility of the children staying within the family group while they and their family are given the necessary care, thus avoiding the need of admission.

Just about 15 years ago, this service used to be called After Care, “after” the children had spent some time in a residential home for children in difficulty and were being reintegrated into the family group. Once in their home, the children would be given the necessary help and, thus, avoid a repetition of the circumstances that first led to the child needing residential help.

This service was provided by the residential social worker and one of the senior officers at central office. It included counselling, budgeting (for the adults) and more material (but just as necessary) help, such as foodstuffs etc.

Nowadays, the preventive care programme is being offered to parents who accept to cooperate. This programme is tailor-made to meet the needs of each particular family in a way that such programmes incorporate parental skills, counselling, budgeting skills, where issues of, for example, how to spend the allotted social allowances wisely are addressed, cooking sessions etc. In certain instances, help in the form of foodstuffs is offered as well. The raison d’être of this programme is to prevent the children from being faced with the need of having to receive such help in a residential home.

Preventive care is offered to families who find themselves in dire situations such as early widowhood, particularly when there are several young children to look after and care for, parent/s who find themselves having to live on their own due to separation from their partner, women whose husbands are serving time in prison, chronically ill parent/s and parent/s who find it very hard to cope and to provide proper care to their young children without concrete constant help.

Thorough investigation is carried out in relation to the particular problems the family might be facing and those who accept preventive care must take up an active and consistent role in their children’s care. The parents involved would have to work very hard to be able to benefit from this programme.

Social workers from the office and trained volunteers work together with these parents to help them function as normally as possible. The parents are aware they will be given tangible aid such as food, clothing and furniture in as much as they cooperate with the programme. No money is given. The family is taught how to budget according to its total income, that is salary, social assistance, children allowance etc.

Parents are helped right from the start to understand they themselves are responsible for their telephone, water and electricity bills, rent and any debts they might have incurred. To this end, material aid is quite substantial at the start of the programme so the issue of dealing with pending debts is dealt with at an early stage.

Parents must provide healthy food at the proper time. They are also to send their children to school neatly dressed and with a packed lunch, not merely a packet of snacks. The house needs to be kept clean and in order. Sometimes, we would need small sums of money to provide transport from one place to another when furniture in good condition is given to us and which we will eventually give to these needy homes. Well-intentioned individuals provide us with used clothes which are thoroughly examined and distributed to our clients.

Parents are encouraged to help their children appreciate their schooling and homework as something that is beneficial to them and to provide extra after school tuition if the children require it. The social worker has to see to it that the children are making progress.

Parents need to know that recreation time for their children need not necessarily cost a lot. The children need to learn indoor games according to their talents. Parents are encouraged to take their children out on picnics and walks. The children are encouraged to participate in parish activities like scouting, catechism lessons etc.

The social worker and the assistants involved must see the parents are doing their duty in the best interest of their children and, wherever necessary, empower them to learn domestic and parenting skills.

Sometimes, a parent is encouraged to earn money outside the home but this is possible only when the children are all at school and when the parent is able to do this from both a physical and a psychological point of view.

The main source for funding this programme is the campaign Families in Need, organised over the Christmas period by the Church’s radio station RTK. This was enough when central office was the sole beneficiary. But now other entities were introduced in the campaign with the obvious result that our share is becoming smaller and smaller. Last year €4,000 less were donated to the campaign as compared with Christmas 2008. That means during 2011 we will have a lesser budget

Since the cost of living is always on the increase, especially in the case of food and medicine, we now need about €1,500 monthly. Every month a financial report is sent to the administrative section of the Archbishop’s Curia.

I appeal to the Catholic community to contribute towards the Families in Need campaign because families living below the poverty line benefit from it.

We are grateful to the European Union, the Community Chest Fund and the parish commissions that always give us a helping hand.

One can contribute as follows:

The offices of RTK Radio (Blata l-Bajda near the Peugeot showroom), where case donations are accepted and a receipt issued.

Through the following bank accounts (Kampanja RTK Familji Fil-Bżonn HSBC A/C 033157108050; BOV A/C 400 10162286; APS A/C 105 43110022; Lombard A/C 14 4015892.

By telephone: 5004 9353 – €7; 5004 9355 – €12; 5004 9350 – €23.

By sending an SMS on 5061 8921.

By cheque, to The Director, Central Office Ejjew Għandi, 65, Old Mint Street, Floriana. A receipt will be sent by post.

While thanking everyone, we also wish our benefactors a holy and peaceful Christmas.

The author is director, central office, Children’s Homes.