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Housing and Disaster Management
The Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency
Management conducted a series of residential trainings
and attendees were given emergency kits to prepare their
residences in the event of impending disasters. Families were
also given housing grants to aid in minor repairs to their homes,
as poor housing stock is one factor in the higher incidence of
poorer persons being significantly affected by disasters.
Education section of the gameboard used to teach families pertinent information
during the programme.
Health Housing Condition section of the gameboard used to teach families during the
With assistance from the then National Family Planning Board programme.
and National Council on Drug Abuse, families were engaged
in a series of trainings covering subject areas including Family Dynamics
contraceptive use and substance use and misuse. Social
Workers were specifically tasked with assisting families to
register for the health programmes because traditionally
participation in social safety nets is very low nationally for
health; the national registration rate for National Health Fund
(NHF) was 9.4 per cent and 26.2 percent for Jamaica Drugs for
the Elderly Programme (JADEP)2.
Families looked forward to playing the game board, which was
used predominantly for this pillar. This activity brought to the
forefront how powerful play is, as a bonding tool. While this pillar
may not have been as tangible as the others, it was deemed
by most participants as the most crucial as it covered areas
such as parenting and interpersonal relationship. Families were
encouraged to look internally and state the capabilities of each
family member asking questions such as “what can I do with
what I have?”
Health section of the gameboard used to teach families during the programme. This pillar resulted in confidence building and personal
development, more specifically for the adolescents. A teens
club was formed and met on a Sunday as adolescents were at
school at the time of visit by the Social Workers. Adolescents
discussedtopics suchas puberty,sex andsexuality,self-esteem
and peer pressure with a Sociologist and representatives from
the National Family Planning Board. Teens went on edu-tours
to institutions such as: The Creative Production and Training
Centre (CPTC), UTECH and UWI. Two youths participated
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