IAC General Meeting To Be Held On April 12th

The Inter-Agency Committee for Children and Families is hosting its Annual General meeting on Tuesday, April 12 at 8:15am, at Charities House, 25 Point Finger Road, Paget.

It is expected that there will be remarks from Minister of Community, Culture, and Sport Patricia Gordon Pamplin and there will also be presentations from two of Bermuda’s young people who will talk about the importance of reaching out for help during tough times.

The IAC includes charities and entities such as, PRIDE Bermuda, SCARS, Family Centre, the Centre Against Abuse, the Department of Health, the Reading Clinic, the Adult Education Centre, CURB and many more.

According to Chairperson, Martha Dismont, “A large portion of the IAC’s membership is Bermuda’s child and family serving charities. Over the past year, we are hearing that Bermuda’s critical charities, serving our most-at-risk children and families, are increasingly challenged with having the funds to serve these most at-risk families.”

“Our responsibility as a community— government and donors, is to identify and make sure we are funding and supporting our most critical charities that are needed by our most vulnerable children and their families. As the community struggles daily through this very difficult economic environment, including on-going job losses, the demand for services continues to increase.

“Agencies who demonstrate solid outcomes should be supported with consistent funding. IAC’s aim is to provide agencies with training and best practice education to put them in a position to qualify for available funding. IAC’s partnership with the Bermuda National Standards Committee is also vital to ensure that agencies have a set of standards with which to aspire towards excellence in practice.”

Nadine Lapsley-Dyer, Vice Chair, and Chair of the Training Sub-Committee, commented “In our interactions with many charities and in our observations, we are seeing charities that are struggling, or have had to close their doors this year.

“It is clear that there is a real need to expand training in capacity building to help equip organizations to achieve a level whereby they can pursue certification or accreditation. Also, we need to offer training to help organizations to sustain themselves with quality resources to be available for the continuum of care for children and families. With the help of the suggestions from organizations and individuals, IAC will be strongly focusing on how it can offer more training and workshops to equip individuals and organizations to meet the changing needs of children and families.”

In the past year, the IAC focused on the following activities:

• Development of the initial Map of the current critical agencies providing services to our most vulnerable population
• Completion of the Children’s Agenda 2016 Action Plans from 8 Sub-committees of the Children’s Agenda Project –meeting priorities with specific actions
• Training offerings which included Supervision for Success for Managers, Review of the Requirements of the new Vulnerable Persons Policy, and Meeting the Increasing Needs of Vulnerable Children and Families
• Strengthening the IAC infrastructure with a particular focus on financial accounting and management
• Seeking increased benefits for current members, and soliciting new members
• Increased PR in the media of IAC’s purpose and activities
• Increased advocacy for the most vulnerable

Mrs. Dismont concluded by saying “In October of this year, the IAC plans to invite member agencies to a strategic planning session to brainstorm how to better leverage the collective voices and resources to support the increasing needs of vulnerable children and families.

Social service agencies, parents and members of the public dedicated to improving the lives of Bermuda’s families are encouraged to attend the General Meeting on April 12, at Charities House at 8:15am. “

Please RSVP to iac@prevention.bm

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