COME August, Jamaicans on Government-run overseas work programmes will have more help in making sure their children are truly being cared for in their absence.

Labour and Social Security Minister Pearnel Charles said Monday that the intervention will come through the new overseas family service unit of the ministry. Charles said the unit, which will be staffed initially by 14 social workers, is to begin its outreach to some 7,000 families in earnest come next month.

"We have the names and addresses of the people who are overseas and we know those who have children so we will be visiting those who have families. We are going to keep them in contact with their family and see that they get assistance from those who have been left to work with them and see that what is sent to them through various means gets to them," Charles told the Observer.

He said while he was not armed with statistics or the results of any study, it has been "discovered" that a number of children "get disconnected from their parents when they are abroad and the assistance sent to them is not given to them".
He said the work done by the social workers on the ground would help to ensure that the family unit was kept as best as possible while the parent is abroad.

"We really feel that the Government has to undertake to help those children whose parents are abroad at this time trying to help them to see that the child benefits. We are not taking too much up on ourselves, every child in this country is a responsibility of the Government in some way. It's a process we have to go through and we are going to do it," Charles said.

Permanent secretary in the ministry Alvin McIntosh said of the 14,000 persons on the overseas programme, there were an estimated 1,000 persons from each parish, about 500 of whom are family heads.

"So the social workers will be targeting about 500 families in each parish," he explained.

McIntosh said the 14 social workers will be integrated into the existing system of social support services offered by the ministry to provide a comprehensive family service.

"It will be to ensure economic support as well as assist in the emotional and psychological stability of the family," he said.
In the meantime, he said the unit will also work closely with the ministry's liaison services in the United States and Canada to address situations where there are reports of workers neglecting to send assistance to their children.

"So the liaison service and the social workers out here will be in constant contact. It will be a vital service because in the end we are trying to make sure that earnings from the programme go towards the family and community."
He said Government was at this stage trying to arrest the problems which dog 'barrel children'.

"This is a vital social intervention, it goes right to the heart of the family. When families break down I need not explain what the consequences will be. A lot of the violence we are experiencing today is rooted in the malfunctioning of the family and to that extent we think we have to do something to promote the family as a very basic and vital agent of society," he noted.

Mothers can't father

Trousers in Denim

Cream of the 'Crop'