Ministry of Youth, Sports and Family — Department of Family review |31 December 2021
Minister Zialor visits a disabled person on the inner islands
Department of family restructured, reorganised
In February, under the leadership of Minister Marie-Celine Zialor and the then principal secretary Marie-Josée Bonne, the department of Family was reorganised to include three different branches, namely the research and policy planning division; elderly and disabled persons division; and the quality of life division.
PS Bonne explained that the restructuring will bring new responsibilities to the department which was created in 2017 with the aim of enhancing social functions at all levels of society by promoting, empowering and supporting the functions and responsibilities of individuals and families, while its vision is to create a responsible society where every Seychellois enjoys a good quality of life.
As part of the changes, the department absorbed the functions of the defunct poverty alleviation department which was mandated to support the elimination of poverty through sustainable grassroots centred policies, strategies and interventions that promote growth, well-being and socio-economic inclusion of all Seychellois citizens.
The functions of the defunct National Council for the Disabled (NCD) and the National Council for the Elderly (NCE) have also been absorbed by the department of Family.
The two councils were operating under their own policies and Acts.
The NCD came into being through an Act in 1994 and its role was to coordinate the activities of public or private organisations and other persons engaged in the welfare of persons with disabilities. The NCD functioned under the umbrella of the Ministry of Social Affairs and in 2008 it was given autonomy and has since been governed by a board of 10 members representing key sectors.
As for the NCE, it was created in 1997 with the task of coordinating the programmes and activities of organisations and other persons engaged in the welfare of the elderly to provide care and assistance to them and also to advise the government on all matters concerning the elderly.
Minister Zialor said now that the department of Family and the department of Social Affairs have been separated, the department of Family has been reorganised so that it does not focus on problems but on advocacy, education, empowerment, development of services as well as seek ways to integrate other groups in society namely the elderly and the disabled whom they have been able to bring together.
Minister Zialor further explained that with the phasing out of the poverty alleviation department, the unit related to quality of life was also integrated in the family department.
The different initiatives including the setting up of the quality of life division and programmes for the elderly and different other groups in society have been under discussion for some time.
Also with the phasing out of the poverty alleviation department, Minister Zialor said it was important to have in its place another structure.
“We spent a whole year restructuring and amending the laws to be able to function and now the different initiatives we will be working on will have to do with introducing quality and specialised services that we are not providing at the moment. This will ensure that all the different groups in society are taken care off. It is important to note that during this year of transformation we have focused mainly on recruiting the right people, building up capacity, ensuring that the family department functions. Next year we will concentrate on implementing our programmes and services,” Minister Zialor explained.
Among the initiatives that are being considered are an MoU to bring together all associations that work with the disabled to ensure better coordination in what they do, a series of sessions for couples, women, men and children and a service to assist and support people who work round the clock and seven days a week providing care to their disabled children or other family members.
“I am satisfied with the work we have achieved this year. We have managed to revamp the family department and put it firmly on its feet. A lot of work and effort have gone into the transformation and restructuring process which got underway the year before up until now,” said Minister Zialor.
Main challenges
Family matters have always been addressed under the social affairs department and many people with different social problems are still ending up seeking help at the department of family.
“The main reason we decided to separate the two was to have one entity focus on bringing relief for families facing social problems while the other focuses more on prevention, empowerment and advocacy. Getting families to remain focused on preventing social problems is in itself a big challenge, getting related civil society to work more collaboratively together to better address the problem is also a challenge,” Minister Zialor remarked.
Priorities for next year
Among the department of Family’s priorities for next year, Minister Zialor said there are three specific ones: seek holistic support to educate and empower families in order to have stronger and more stable families; develop more collaboration and partnerships with government, civil society and private sector bodies in order to boost advocacy for diffident priority groups under our responsibility; and carry out more research to seek credible information from the population in order to formulate evidence based family related policies for instance to know the exact number of special needs people, disabled, elderly living with their family, the specialised services they need among other related issues.
A year of transformation and improvement in the quality of life for Seychellois citizens
The year 2021 has been one that has brought a lot of transformation and improvement in the quality of life for many people after the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Family set up the quality of life division. The aim of the division is to help people improve their quality of life as the country continues to battle the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic while many people also suffer its impact in many ways and many were forced to seek professional assistance to ease their suffering and to be able to have better control on their lives.
Since the setting up of the division a lot has been accomplished.
The quality of life division started offering services in April 2021 under the leadership of director general Beryl Naiken and this after it had been observed that there was a great demand for support to better address increasing psychosocial-related problems in society.
There were four key related aspects that were observed: a need to have prevention measures; specialised intervention; to raise awareness and understanding of each individual on the matter; support individual with different skills so that they can become independent.
So the main aim of having such a division was to offer specialised and quality services and programmes to address the four different mentioned aspects that were being observed.
With regard to services, these include psychological, counselling and therapy while programmes include mentorship, advocacy, prevention and empowerment. At present the division has a total of 12 members of staff.
It is important to note that people who come to the quality of life division are facing a series of problems such as emotional issues, psychological problems like phobia, anxiety, depression, relationship break-ups, and different traumas among others. There are also those who come looking for help to deal with the impact of the death of a loved one, there are those who want to commit suicide to name but only some of the problems.
Ms Naiken said the division is satisfied with the work it has done so far for the short period it has been at the service of the people.
“We have really been able to accomplish a lot in terms of the services and programmes we have provided. I recall that as soon as we advertised the setting up of the division a lot of people came forward looking for help. The division has also been offering services on Praslin and La Digue,” Ms Naiken said.
Greatest achievements of the quality of life division
We have been able to set up the division “from bottom up” whereby we have ensured that the structure and framework of the division are well established. For instance, at the start we worked to set up our standard operating procedure (SOP) to ensure that all employees are aware of how the division functions and what their functions and responsibilities are.
The division has also put in place all the necessary tools that would facilitate and standardise its functions and operations.
It is interesting to note that all employees from the start, were given the opportunity to be part of the development and establishment of all the different operating procedures.
Another achievement is when we are working on our end-of-year report we found that since April 2021, over 400 individuals have sought assistance for counselling and psychotherapy from the division.
“It is important to note that at the quality of life division we ensure that we adopt a ‘standard of care’ whereby from the start a client is allocated a counsellor/therapist to address his or her concerns.
“With regard to the programmes we offer, our greatest achievement is that we have gradually improved the standard of our programmes as more and more people sought our specialised support and assistance to ease their situation and empower them to take better care of themselves,” said Mrs Naiken.
In order to succeed in meeting the demands of the public, the division needs more specialised human resources and based on that will also continue to raise the standard of the services it provides in order to continue to improve the quality of life of our people. There is also the need for more office space as well as a more convenient area to meet clients.
Financially the year 2021 has not been easy for all government establishments and non- governmental organisations in general as the budget has been limited, but we have tried to do our best with what we had.
Hands and feet treatment at reduced prices for elderly citizens
In October, the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Family partnered with a privately owned spa ‒ Tranquility Day Spa ‒ to start offering senior citizens hands and feet treatment.
An initiative of the quality of life division, it was officially launched by Minister Zialor during a ceremony at the Family House, Bel Eau.
Apart from pampering the senior citizens and making them feel good, the new service aims to also provide the right treatments for feet and nails for senior citizens with diabetes.
Good foot care – healthy skin, nail care and proper footwear – is considered important for persons living with diabetes because they face greater risks of having problems with their feet, which might lead to amputations.
While launching the service Minister Zialor remarked that this initiative is very much needed in Seychelles, a country with a high number of diabetic patients.
New principal secretary for family department
Former member of the National Assembly Clive Roucou was in June appointed the new principal secretary for the family department by President Wavel Ramkalawan.
Mr Roucou has a Bachelor’s degree in Nursing with Advanced Practice in Emergency and Critical Care Medicine. He brings to the ministry experiences gained over 20 years in the nursing field and in community engagement where he has served on various committees. He has experience in training young health professionals, notably nurses and has worked as a lecturer with the National Institute of Health and Social Studies.
Mr Roucou’s background in health and in legislation will guide him in his work in the family department to develop the right policies, programmes and service for improving the quality of life of families, especially those with special needs.
A new support group for fathers
The quality of life division launched one of its initiatives on June 16 to mark Fathers’ Day and this was a support group for them.
“There are many good fathers in our society and we have to recognise that,” said PS Roucou, adding that the men who form part of the group will prove that.
Jimmy Petrousse, a psychotherapist with the division, is the founder of the group.
He said in our society many men are frustrated because they are always considered to be irresponsible among many other bad things.
“At the quality of life division we understand the men’s frustration, thus the idea behind the setting up of the support group. We want to give them a safe place where they can meet and be heard,” said Mr Petrousse.
New theme song to coincide with Family Day
A new song entitled ‘Lekel Ki Pare’ – composed by musician, composer and songwriter Patrick Victor and sang by various local artists, was endorsed in May by the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Family as its theme song.
The song was first aired on ‘Radyo Sesel’ on Saturday May 15, 2021 on the occasion of the International Day of the Family. After receiving a copy of the song Minister Zialor said apart from sports, the arts also bring emotions and good out of people and that she appreciates the initiative of Ambassador Victor to bring along a group of young people together to make the song to bring out the emotions and good out of people.
Compiled by Marie-Anne Lepathy
