One very important manifesto proposal, which is at the centre of the Fair Society watchword the Government is using to give direction to social policy in Malta, is to have a stronger, more effective and better placed Agency that is at the heart of the Government’s service provision 

 

Having a healthy service provision, with a clear idea where we want the disability sector to go is imperative.  The disability sector for too long has been governed by knee-jerk politics and reactions - which is wrong. 

The Parliamentary Secretariat under my responsibility has sought to provide direction through the National Disability Policy for the rights of Persons with Disability and the active implementation of The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability (UNCRPD). Work is also at an advanced stage in the provision of a data base infrastructure so that the information can lead us to provide and project the necessary resources. In collaboration with the National Commission for Persons with Disability (KNPD) and the NGOs, we are preparing a disability social policy that is respectful. All of this can only come to fruition when the elements just mentioned are synchronised and flow into an executive structure. 

The executive arm in all of this is Agenzija Sapport, which provides social work, community, day and residential services. This agency has grown because we have continued to invest in it and it is time for this crucial structure to stand alone because of the specificity of its agenda. 

An indication of the broad remit of Agenzija Sapport is the number of 27,500 persons with a disability estimated by census. Currently, Agenzija Sapport is involved with 81 clients in residential care, 149 people with a disability and their families in community services, 2,949 people who were, at some point, offered help by social workers, 463 people with a disability who use day services and almost 70 others who use other services that are provided on an ad hoc basis for them according to their disability and/or needs.

There are approximately400 people working in the Agency and its budget is close to €12 million a year. Soon it will also be operating in Gozo, providing residential services as well as training programmes and community services.

The disability sector in Malta is supported by an organisation that has a relatively clear remit: to provide community and residential services for people with a disability and their families. What seems to have happened over the last few years, however, is that we have piled one service on top of another without any clear direction or plan and now is the right time to deal with this issue.

Agenzija Sapport has demonstrated that it has the momentum and the resilience to take its mission a step further. We need to ensure that we have an agency that has both the ethos and the vision to respond to the issues with which we are currently dealing and also the issues we anticipate we will need to deal with in the future. We also need an organisation that manages to gather together all the different sectors – namely day centres, community services, direct payment packages, residential and therapeutic services – and ensure that they are used in an inter-changeable and versatile way based on the social work case-management approach.

Agenzija Sapport needs to be the epitome of networking, coordination, cooperation and collaboration.

In the coming years we intend to, amongst other things, provide more day centres, add a further 10 residential units, begin implementing the trust legislation, increase support in the community, help more families by providing practical and tangible support, improve transport service programmes, add more therapeutic services, provide training programmes for all staff members and supply better infrastructure in terms of office and clinical space. 

In view of the weighty budget of the Agency, the distinct service provision, the broad spectrum of services and the mega investment on which the government is embarking over the coming years, the need to reform the services sector to create a continuum where the package of support is designed around the person is fundamental. This will ensure efficiency and the natural step is for Agenzija Sapport to become an autonomous body. 

I am convinced that this is the right way forward, with improved effectiveness calculated on an increase in direct services, better synergy amongst professions, cost effectiveness, a healthy infrastructure, improved and individually designed programmes and a plan of services that will see us through the coming years.

 

Dr Caruana is the Parliamentary Secretary for the Rights of People with Disability and Active Ageing