The Child Development Agency (CDA) yesterday pledged to help the family whose house was destroyed by fire in the Washington Boulevard area of St Andrew on Monday through its Children and Family Support Unit.

The blaze left 11 people, including four children ages six months to 13 years old, homeless. The children, according to the CDA, are currently staying with relatives.

The CDA’s Children and Family Support Unit provides assistance to children and families facing economic challenges and instability. CDA said since the start of the year, the CFSU team provided intervention to 4,636 children and their families.

“Having done a needs assessment, our initial assistance will be focused on providing the family with food, clothing and other personal care items; this will be followed by grief counselling support,” Rochelle Dixon, public relations and communications manager for CDA, is quoted as saying.

The agency said it will be looking at the level of counselling support which is needed as a cursory for the affected children who would have been traumatised by the incident.

“We understand that… the families are being accommodated by other relatives in the short term and there is the need for more suitable housing arrangement; we will be having dialogue with Food For the Poor to see if any assistance can be rendered,” Dixon explained.

The agency said it will also be working with other social services, NGOs and private sector companies to assist with providing any other items that are needed.