Minister to counsel women gamblers

People who are problem gamblers and their children will soon get special help, vowed Minister of Social Development, Cherrie-Ann Cockburn-Critchlow last Friday in the House of Representatives’ debate on the Finance Bill 2017.

“Gambling in TT has grown exponentially. We now have a lot of women going to casinos and spending long hours in casinos gambling. We also have fathers going to casinos and gambling.”

The minister lamented that the result of this is that many children are left unattended and are not given proper parental support and guidance. “So this is where the Ministry of Social Development s going to come in. We are going to provide additional psycho-social support to persons who have been affected either by gambling or any other negative thing. And we are going to establish support groups for parents and families.”

The minister also vowed to train families against the lure of criminal gangs.

“We have to increase our community parenting workshops to ensure that parents can identify gang associations, so they can know based on traits and behaviours of their children whether they have become members of gangs or are being encouraged to be members of gangs.

“We have to teach them how to talk to their children about the negative effects of being involved in those types of activities, because the end result could be incarceration or death.” She also vowed help against domestic violence. She hit the Opposition for opposing the Anti Gang Bill recently in the House and alleged that they had in effect voted for the continued recruitment of young boys into gangs and the rape of young women. Otherwise, she recapped her ministry’s social grants in the past year, including $5.4 million in funeral grants to 809 families too poor to bury their deceased. Some $4.4 billion was given to 143,000 recipients of senior citizen grants. Some $500 million was given in disability grants to 23,625 beneficiaries, and $1.6 billion to 44 recipients for prosthetics, with other persons receiving canes, crutches and wheelchairs.