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HIV/AIDS policy in the making for Municipal Day Care centres
The forum in session yesterday
An HIV/AIDS policy to govern the operation of the Georgetown Municipality Day Care Centres is currently in the making.
This development was kicked into overdrive yesterday when an interactive forum was held at the Industrial Site Day Care Centre. Those in attendance were the various Day Care Centres’ supervisors.
And according to HIV/AIDS Focal Point Person within the Municipality, Dale Beresford, it is expected that by looking at matters such as reasonable accommodation and stigma and discrimination, the HIV/AIDS policy will be suitably crafted as it relates to the world of works with an ideal focus on the Municipality.
This development, he said, will incorporate the 10 principles of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) which speaks to the issues of confidentiality, no mandatory testing, and recognition of HIV testing among other things.
Yesterday, the participants were enlightened with information intended to better enable them to work effectively in order to better communicate with their subordinates. “Today we will be looking at putting together the policy and we will bring them back in the second week of next month to actually develop the policy.”
The forum saw the participants ‘brain storming’ as they scrutinised other policies, other relevant information and scenarios intended to help in the preparation of a draft policy. It is expected that by the time the group meets again next month there will be a formalised document in place, Beresford speculated yesterday.
The policy will also address the issue of orphan and vulnerable children and staffers whose families are affected or infected with the virus and is geared to give emphasis to the human and legal rights of persons living with the virus.
According Director of Municipal Dare Services, Paulette Bollers, who facilitated the topic ‘Building healthy work relationships for improved work performance and work delivery’, a decision was taken some time ago to examine the operations of the Day Care Centres.
“We did some self examination of the service that we provide and we thought that we should pause to at least see where we are going wrong and see how we can improve.” And since it is believed that interaction enables effective learning, Bollers said that it was decided that the participants be integrally involved in examining the weaknesses at the centres with a view of better improving their operation.
“We realise that through healthy work relationships we can be able to effectively provide quality services. What we have been doing is to have them examine relationships at the level of family, staff, parents and the general public and without telling them what we observed we can see what destroys or builds a relationship.”
And the aim, according to Bollers, is to eliminate things that can destroy healthy work relationship and put positive things into practice. This is essential, she said, as the Municipality is interested in the image portrayed by its Day Care facilities. As such, she noted that the goal is to provide a quality service, a move which has already been engaged.
All categories of Day Care staffers, she said, have been trained to deal with HIV/AIDS issue. However, Bollers admitted that behavioural change will take some time before it is fully realised. The move to raise HIV/AIDS at the Day Care facilities comes as part of a wider project which is currently targeting the various departments of the Municipality. The project is being funded by the Ministry of Health’s Health Sector Development Unit at the tune of $15M.
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