Back-to-school assistance applications ‘near 3 000’

With the new school year three weeks away, the Social Empowerment Agency has received more than 2 900 requests for back-to-school assistance, SEA executive director Colleen Walcott has told Barbados TODAY.

She said July to mid-September is usually the busiest time for the agency, as it works to ensure children return to school with the necessary support.

“So for the next two months our focus really, along with all the other services that we are giving, the focus really is on educational assistance and getting children back out to school and getting the assistance timely.”

While there are regular beneficiaries, new applicants also come forward, especially to access educational assistance, said.

“In the first week when we started taking applications, the first week alone was 700 applications and that is just applications from the community,” Walcott said, explaining that the figure did not include assistance through other programmes like the One Family programme or support for children in residential and foster care.

She said the agency usually allows applications to continue until mid-September for students who may be uncertain about final decisions.

“Even if school has started the parents can still apply for assistance; for instance, sometimes the children, who may not or are not sure if they’re going back to school, where they are going, and so on. You always have those quote-unquote stragglers.”

The assistance requested is primarily for books and uniforms, with the SEA providing cash assistance rather than restricting families to particular retailers.

“You give them [money] so that they can determine where they will shop; if they give you a voucher for say Woolworths and you go to Woolworth and Woolworth doesn’t have the item or it is cheaper somewhere else, you can get it from there. Then you have that choice because you don’t have a purchase order; you have the monetary assistance.”

Walcott said the SEA’s decentralisation of services is helping to ease pressure on its St Michael offices, as more people use centres across the island.

She said there has been an increase in numbers at the Oistins and St Philip offices, which were strategically located near community hubs and other essential services.

The SEA has also opened a new centre in St Lucy at the rebranded Bentham Client Centre, which was officially opened last Friday. Plans are also advancing for additional locations.

Walcott said the next centre is expected to be opened next month at Lower Collymore Rock in the ‘Maxwellton’ building which housed the former National Disabilities Unit, with the facility targeted for September.

The agency is also working towards establishing a centre at the former Welfare Department office at the Glebe, St George.

While the first three centres and the next two planned offices are being established in existing buildings through repurposing and retrofitting, Walcott said other locations will require new construction.

She said the expansion is intended to bring services closer to communities and further reduce the burden on the St Michael offices.

(LG)