The Royal Gazette has presented a series of articles over the past week which highlighted the plights of poor, single mothers and their families and the issues they deal with on a day to day basis.

In today's final article of the series, community activist Sheelagh Cooper presents a series of ideas and initiatives which she believes will help combat the problems these families face.

Coalition for the Protection of Children chairwoman Sheelagh Cooper yesterday backed increasing cigarette and liquor tax, amalgamating Government departments and creating a family retreat among eight initiatives she suggested could help fight problems families face locally.

Noting that "we are all in this together'', Mrs. Cooper also stressed three ideas that would not help these families -- hand outs, glorifying the past and blaming the Island's underclass.

She said: "Hand outs are just band aids and generally they are demeaning to the person on the receiving end.'' Any form of financial assistance had to be coupled with educational programmes to help the people on the receiving end, she said.

A good example was the Coalition's breakfast voucher programme for needy families, she continued, which, besides feeding the hungry children, also put the families in touch with the group's family life education programmes.

She said: "These include everything from advice on family planning to budgeting to effective parenting.'' What also did not work, continued Mrs. Cooper, was "glorifying the past''.

"In other words,'' she said, "trying to turn back the hands of time and recreate a community that one imagines might have been somewhat more supportive of its members and a community in which children were happy and safe and always loved and supported.'' However, there was no comparison between the Bermuda of 30 or 40 years ago and the Bermuda of today, she said.

"The demands of the workplace and the stress level of the community coupled with a whole host of other factors makes this a different world requiring a very different set of skills to survive in it. Reconstructing history is not all that useful in helping us move forward.'' And blaming and stereotyping the poor was a waste of time, said Mrs. Cooper.

"Blaming the underclass and stereotyping them as lazy, ignorant or irresponsible will not serve any of us well,'' she said.

"It is also not good for us to carry around the anger and resentment we feel towards those who find it difficult to manage.'' But what could help, continued Mrs. Cooper, was raising the tax on liquor and cigarettes by eight percent and channelling the extra funds into innovative community based projects that addressed issues related to families.

"The reason for doing this,'' she said, "is that the problems facing families are multi-faceted and Government cannot solve the problems on its own.

"Many of the solutions lie in smaller community-based efforts that are local, responsive and creative. Money spent in the private sector in community-based efforts are more likely to be used effectively than if it is swallowed by Government's large coffers.

Mrs. Cooper recommended streamlining Government services which were designed to help needy families and mend the Island's safety net.

"We have in place certain Government services which are designed to address the needs of families in crisis,'' said Mrs. Cooper, "but these services are very disjointed and difficult to navigate and, at the end of the day, rarely seem to be adequate.

"If we accept the premise that Government has, at least, some role to play in providing a safety net, let's make it a good one and let's streamline the services and make them more user friendly and more adequate to meet the needs of individuals.'' Mrs. Cooper pointed to the Bermuda Housing Corporation, the housing allowance programme and social assistance as three areas that could be put under one roof as they all dealt with the same clients.

"Currently they (the clients) are passed back and forth from one agency to another and families often fall through the cracks,'' she said.

Affordable housing was at the root of many families' problems and was one of the biggest factors facing at risk families, noted Mrs. Cooper.

She suggested three ways to combat the "complete lack and utter absence of affordable housing'' -- creating a minimal wage for employees, increasing the available housing stock by 250 to 300 units and putting a realistic housing subsidy programme in place that was based on an assessment of the real cost of housing.

Cooper backs rise in liquor, cigarette tax Mrs. Cooper noted that a minimal wage would allow "someone working 40 or even 50 hours a week to make sufficient money to pay the rent on an adequate place for their needs without having to spend more than 50 percent of their income'' while increasing the housing stock would "take care of the families in critical need and possibly cause a ripple effect'' which would impact on other families' lives.

The housing subsidy programme had to be updated, she continued, to keep pace with rapidly increasing rents.

"In 1993 alone, rents doubled in Bermuda and they have been moving swiftly higher ever since, widening the gap as a result. It is why we find ourselves in this position now.'' Mrs. Cooper also backed the idea of a boarding school for children with behavioural and learning problems which was originally voiced by former Premier Sir John Swan.

However, she added a cautionary note. "It would be very easy for such a boarding school to be a disguised form of training school which means a prison for children which will not serve any of us.'' But Mrs. Cooper noted: "However if you can provide a nurturing, therapeutic environment for such children, which is residential and which involves treatment for the entire family -- I would support an initiative like that.'' She pointed out: "Because many of the problems children face are directly related to their home environments, sometimes they need the opportunity to work these issues through outside of the home.'' Another idea, continued Mrs. Cooper, would be the creation of a family retreat.

"My dream would be to create a residential facility for whole families what would provide safety and treatment for children and their parents and give them time to regroup and rekindle some sense of hope and empowerment,'' she said. Similar facilities existed in UK and worked very well, she noted.

Mrs. Cooper also called on the local churches to get involved in helping families in crisis.

She said: "The churches play a significant role in the lives of people in Bermuda. They have a great responsibility for nurturing and supporting families if one accepts the fundamental principles of Christianity.'' However, they were noticeable by their absence in discussions about matters like children being born out of wedlock, she said before pointing out that some churches had even "shooed away'' homeless people squatting on their property.

"I seem to see great edifices being built and applications being filed to build new churches frequently in this community,'' noted Mrs. Cooper, "and I suppose it makes me wonder just where their priority lies in some instances.'' The Coalition is playing its part to help families, she continued, and recently launched its Family to Family programme to specifically address family problems. "This is a programme that matches families and provides an opportunity for families with more economic opportunities to meet, spend time with and assist another family,'' said Mrs. Cooper. Both families benefit from the experience, she continued, and the programme provides "a long lasting and meaningful form of assistance''.

She invited families who wanted to take part in the programme to call the Coalition.

And Mrs. Cooper called for legislation to be changed in a bid to reconnect fathers with their children by protecting their rights to participate in their children's lives when the relationship with the mother breaks down.

She noted: "A large portion of the poverty experienced by mothers is attributable to fathers who do not participate financially in the lives of their children and part of it is because they do not participate emotionally in their lives either.

"But fathers often feel they only have financial responsibilities and no rights. I agree with them and we need to look at the legislation and ensure fathers have the right to be with and see their children.'' The strongest love: Bermuda is urged to wake up to its problems