How will Social Welfare Services measure the needs of families in these situations?
Christophe is twelve years old and will sit an exam to gain entry into secondary school next year. He lives with his father and grandmother, Edith, as his mother Helen, started working on a cruise ship (in February 2020) that operates out of the United States. At present he is unsure of when she will return as the country’s borders are closed due to COVID-19 restrictions. His older sister, Carolyn, is preparing to write the May/June CSEC exams in 2021. The siblings live in a community where the main drivers of economic activity are fishing and agriculture.
Both siblings are members of the youth group in their church and would usually attend group meetings on Saturdays where there are about 20 to 25 other young people from the community. The team leaders would normally have a well-run programme that focuses on youth development, provides opportunity for participants to learn craft, agriculture entrepreneurship and gives the opportunity to socialize. It provides an escape from the usual boredom at home and from temptations that might be provided by a growing number of school drops who hang out in the village because of scarce employment opportunities.
Hamilton, who is Helen’s common-law husband, is Edith’s only child and the father of the two siblings, is employed as a grounds-man in the maintenance department of the second largest hotel on the island which is located about 45 minutes from his home by bus. He works there three times a week and supplements his income by providing landscaping services whenever he gets the opportunity; and also plants short term crops for sale in the village market every fortnight. Edith was a cook at the same hotel but retired when she reached the age of 65 a few years ago. Although she has diabetes and failing eyesight, she still bakes bread on weekends and makes a small profit of one hundred and fifty dollars a week as well as sells goods in the mini mart that she built to the front of the property where the family lives.
Helen is on her first contract with the cruise line as a cabin attendant and contributions from her job was intended to help with the children’s school expenses. Her contract was cut short by the cruise line because of the pandemic but she received a basic pay off of what she would have earned in the period of her six-month sojourn. She is staying in a hostel with a few other displaced colleagues while awaiting re-entry to the island. When she is at home with her family, she runs the shop for Edith. In her absence however, Carolyn is much more involved as normal classes have been suspended.
Both Carolyn and Christophe are expected to participate in online classes by their respective schools using their mobile phones and an Internet service that is not always reliable. Their teachers have also made provisions for photocopied material to be collected at their schools to supplement the work done online; and assignments can also be dropped off and collected after correction on specific days. The turnover is usually about seven to ten days for feedback.
The advent of COVID-19 has hit this family hard with the thwarting of the prospective source of income from Helen who now is stranded in Miami with very little resources. While she awaits repatriation, she has to depend on Hamilton, as she is unable to work in the US; he in turn is constrained by the change in his circumstances as he was furloughed from the hotel.
Their village is populated by approximately five hundred persons, with more than fifty percent under the age of twenty. Few, if any, are experiencing fundamentally different prospects than Hamilton and his family.
- How will Social Welfare Services measure the needs of families in these situations?
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