NEEDY MOMS: FRESH HOPE

Her comments follow our recent story about women facing eviction from an emergency housing shelter in St. Davidâs. Mrs. Cooper is now pushing for a headstart programme to help women turn their lives around.

She said Bermuda is treating mothers and children ãworse than animalsä and such families would be better off as refugees because at least they would be housed and fed.

She added: ãWhat does it say about a community that is capable of putting struggling mothers and their children out on the street? This government has demonstrated a complete lack of respect for the value of these people.ä

Mrs. Cooper, chairman of the Coalition for the Protection of Children, is so concerned about the growing plight of homeless mothers, she had drawn up a wide-ranging proposal aimed at keeping a roof over their heads in addition to giving them the tools they need to overcome their financial and social problems.

She said it made no sense to blame mothers for bad decisions or to take a punitive approach because it only affects their children and Bermuda will end up paying the price down the road.

ãNo matter how you feel about the mothers in these difficult cases we must protect the children from the further trauma of homelessness,ä she said.

And she added: ãWe have to shift our paradigm from punishing the mothers to saving their children.ä

She said her proposal, called Headstart Project for Family Preservation, is based on a similar programme in the U.S. It seeks to keep families together, get mothers off welfare and help them to turn their lives around.

Many families are split up because when mother canât find a suitable home their children are taken from them and sent to foster homes.

The Headstart Project is based on several principles including a belief that money spent on prevention in the early years of a childâs life is far more effective in addressing the problems of violence than money spent on keeping the same child in prison as a adult.

Funds

Mrs. Cooper has had conversations with social workers about Headstart and plans to meet with Housing Minister Ashfield DeVent.

She said if the Minister does not accept her proposal, she is prepared to raise the funds she needs to run it herself.

Her proposal was sparked by growing number of mothers who are being evicted from homes, including Bermuda Housing Corporation emergency housing at Southside, St. Davidâs because they havenât paid the rent.

She is proposing that instead of putting the women out on the streets, Government turn the two barracks at Southside (about 70 rooms in total) into an emergency housing complex, and allow the Coalition, with its team of volunteers and paid professionals to deliver a slew of services to families.

She said mothers should be allowed to remain at the complex until their circumstances have improved. They would be required to pay rent and pay their debts. Headstartâs services will help them to break out of their cycle of debt and desperate circumstances. Some of their problems and the decisions they have made are linked to the way they were raised.

Headstartâs proposed services will include day care and nursery facilities for the children, after-school care and remedial education, programmes for fathers to help them become engaged in the lives of their children,parent effectiveness training, and counselling and therapeutic services for mothers with the help of a full-time social worker.

There will be mediation and legal services to help women chase child support payments and to resolve disputes related to their parenting responsibilities.

With the average salary of the women $250 a week, according to a Coalition study, there will be a heavy emphasis on job training and skill building.

ãMost of the women who will reside in the centre have nominal employment which is often seasonal and poorly remunerated,ä she said. ãTheir income will never be sufficient to pay for housing on the open market much less feed and clothe their children.

ãThere are a number of semi-skilled jobs available which could be occupied by these women if they were to received some specialized but reasonable easy to provide training. Areas that come immediately to mind include various aspects of the beauty industry (nail technicians, shampoo assistants, and with a more specialized training and a period of apprenticeship ÷ hairdressing, cosmetology, massage and aromatherapy become options. These positions are heavily staffed by non-Bermudians).

There would also be fitness programmes, classes in nutrition, cooking and meal planning, budgeting and financial management and family planning and empowerment.

ãPart of that process involves understanding and using better birth control, but much of it involves empowering these young women to believe that they can actually shape their destiny, rather than being overtaken by events over which they feel they have no control.ä[[In-content Ad]]