Spring fair highlights social services

Centres similar to the Access centre at Cottonera should be created in other localities so that more people would have better access to their social rights, the Parliamentary Secretary in the Social Policy Ministry, Dolores Cristina said yesterday.

She was opening a spring fair at Access, a centre set up in November for the Cottonera community where a number of social services are available under one roof.

The fair, which is open until Saturday, takes the form of an exhibition outlining the different services provided by the entities within the centre, namely the Employment and Training Corporation, the Social Security Department, Appogg's Smartkids, Appogg's Cottonera Community team, the Adult Training Centre for the Disabled, the Housing Authority and the Foundation for Educational Services.

There is also a photographic exhibition by Kevin Casha showing different facets of Cottonera.

Ms Cristina said social welfare services had to address the needs of people in a comprehensive manner, making a difference in the quality of life of the service users.

A forum on "User Involvement in Social Services" will be held at Access on Saturday during which users of services would have an opportunity to give their opinion about the quality of the services they received as well as to highlight their needs.

Annarosa Weiss, an Austrian expert, is being sponsored by the Council of Europe to deliver a speech on the subject, which would then be debated by two panels, one of service users and one of social services providers.

The discussion will be in Maltese and service users are being encouraged to attend and give their views on the kind of service they are receiving and how this can be improved.

Access chairman Joe Gerada said that since the project was launched, a number of training programmes were delivered to Access staff, who came from a wide cross section of government entities including social welfare agencies.

Following the opening ceremony, deputy British High Commissioner John Hillman donated Lm200 worth of children's books to the Smartkids Child Care and Family Therapy Centre.

The fair's programme of activities includes talks, information on social services, shows by the police dog section, a show by a fire eater and sword balancer, various demonstrations by the Malta Red Cross Society and a discussion on user involvement in social services.