Share This

Showing posts with label Welfare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Welfare. Show all posts

Monday 23 November 2020

Registered childcare centres can stay open during the conditional movement control order (CMCO)

 

Children being looked after at a nursery in Komtar. — Filepic

REGISTERED childcare centres and nurseries caring for the children of frontliners and working parents are allowed to operate during the conditional movement control order (MCO) period.

However, the childcare centres and nurseries need to adhere fully to the standard operating procedure.

Penang welfare committee chairman Phee Boon Poh said the requirements included ensuring that the centres were registered with the state Welfare Department.

“The centres need to obtain permission from the state Welfare Department director and submit verification letters from the employers of the parents or guardians confirming that the affected parent or guardian needs to work.

“They also need to adhere to the SOP for taska safety and the social care sector as directed by the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry,” he said in a statement on Thursday.

Phee added that unregistered childcare centres and nurseries looking to obtain permission to operate would not be considered.

“This is in line with the operating permission for childcare centres and nurseries during the conditional MCO period under the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act 1988 (Act 342).

“Childcare centres under technical agencies including state authorities, the Fire and Rescue Department as well as the Health Department need to fulfill requirements under these agencies for licences to be issued.

“Then the centres can put forward their applications to the Welfare Department for registration.

“Under the district Welfare Department office, all completed and submitted applications will be processed within 48 hours.”

For more details or a list of the registered childcare centres, the public may visit www.jkm.gov.my

 Source link

 

Govt to formulate operational SOP for kindergartens, childcare centres


 

https://youtu.be/LPk3LhEGts8

120 childcare centres in Penang resume ... - BERNAMA


Related posts:

 

Malaysia needs more childcare & daycare centres

May 24, 2016 ... Chris Hong, who runs two kindergartens-cum-daycare centres in Subang Jaya, said she and her staff looked after 40 to 50 children from 8am to ...



 

Covid-19 CMCO: daycare centres SOP. One-off grant of RM5,000 for childcare centres

Tuesday 21 January 2014

Old and abandoned, now newborn baby found abandoned outside house !

Rescued: The baby that was found in Kampung Sungai Sebatang in Alor Setar.



ALOR SETAR: A teenager was awakened from her sleep by the cries of a newborn baby outside her house in Kampung Sungai Sebatang off Jalan Kuala Kedah here.

Normawani Ahmad, 17, said she was awakened by the baby’s cries at about 3am yesterday.

“I looked out the window and saw the wailing infant, who was placed on a red plastic mat. I also heard someone walking away from my house while the baby was crying,” she said when met at the Sultanah Bahiyah Hospital yesterday.

Normawani called her mother, who was sleeping at another daughter’s house next door. They found the baby with the umbilical cord still attached to the body.

“My mother cleaned up the baby and dressed him in my nephew’s clothes.

“We then lodged a police report,” she added.

Kota Setar OCPD Assist Comm Adzaman Mohd Jan said police were looking for the mother and the case has been classified as child abandonment under the Penal Code.

Sources: The Star/ANN

Related posts:
1. Old and abandoned by children like trash !
2. Go see your parents... or else! 

Monday 23 July 2012

US poverty on track to rise to highest since 1960s

This photo shows new parents Garrett Goudeseune, 25, Laura Fritz, 27, left, with their daughter Adalade Goudeseune, as they pose for a photo at the Jefferson Action Center, an assistance center in the Denver suburb of Lakewood. Both Fritz and Goudeseune grew up in the Denver suburbs in families that were solidly middle class. But the couple has struggled to find work and are now relying on government assistance to cover food and $650 rent for their family. The ranks of America's poor are on track to climb to levels unseen in nearly half a century, erasing gains from the war on poverty in the 1960s amid a weak economy and fraying government safety net. Census figures for 2011 will be released this fall in the critical weeks ahead of the November elections. (AP Photo/Kristen Wyatt)

The ranks of America's poor are on track to climb to levels unseen in nearly half a century, erasing gains from the war on poverty in the 1960s amid a weak economy and fraying government safety net.

Census figures for 2011 will be released this fall in the critical weeks ahead of the November elections.

The Associated Press surveyed more than a dozen economists, think tanks and academics, both nonpartisan and those with known liberal or conservative leanings, and found a broad consensus: The official poverty rate will rise from 15.1 per cent in 2010, climbing as high as 15.7 per cent. Several predicted a more modest gain, but even a 0.1 percentage point increase would put poverty at the highest level since 1965.

Poverty is spreading at record levels across many groups, from underemployed workers and suburban families to the poorest poor. More discouraged workers are giving up on the job market, leaving them vulnerable as unemployment aid begins to run out. Suburbs are seeing increases in poverty, including in such political battlegrounds as Colorado, Florida and Nevada, where voters are coping with a new norm of living hand to mouth.

"I grew up going to Hawaii every summer. Now I'm here, applying for assistance because it's hard to make ends meet. It's very hard to adjust," said Laura Fritz, 27, of Wheat Ridge, Colo., describing her slide from rich to poor as she filled out aid forms at a county centre. Since 2000, large swaths of Jefferson County just outside Denver have seen poverty nearly double.

Fritz says she grew up wealthy in the Denver suburb of Highlands Ranch, but fortunes turned after her parents lost a significant amount of money in the housing bust. Stuck in a half-million dollar house, her parents began living off food stamps and Fritz's college money evaporated. She tried joining the Army but was injured during basic training.

Now she's living on disability, with an infant daughter and a boyfriend, Garrett Goudeseune, 25, who can't find work as a landscaper. They are struggling to pay their $650 rent on his unemployment checks and don't know how they would get by without the extra help as they hope for the job market to improve.

In an election year dominated by discussion of the middle class, Fritz's case highlights a dim reality for the growing group in poverty. Millions could fall through the cracks as government aid from unemployment insurance, Medicaid, welfare and food stamps diminishes.

"The issues aren't just with public benefits. We have some deep problems in the economy," said Peter Edelman, director of the Georgetown Centre on Poverty, Inequality and Public Policy.

He pointed to the recent recession but also longer-term changes in the economy such as globalisation, automation, outsourcing, immigration, and less unionisation that have pushed median household income lower. Even after strong economic growth in the 1990s, poverty never fell below a 1973 low of 11.1 per cent. That low point came after President Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty, launched in 1964, that created Medicaid, Medicare and other social welfare programs.

"I'm reluctant to say that we've gone back to where we were in the 1960s. The programs we enacted make a big difference. The problem is that the tidal wave of low-wage jobs is dragging us down and the wage problem is not going to go away anytime soon," Edelman said.

Stacey Mazer of the National Association of State Budget Officers said states will be watching for poverty increases when figures are released in September as they make decisions about the Medicaid expansion. Most states generally assume poverty levels will hold mostly steady and they will hesitate if the findings show otherwise. "It's a constant tension in the budget," she said.

The predictions for 2011 are based on separate AP interviews, supplemented with research on suburban poverty from Alan Berube of the Brookings Institution and an analysis of federal spending by the Congressional Research Service and Elise Gould of the Economic Policy Institute.

The analysts' estimates suggest that some 47 million people in the U.S., or 1 in 6, were poor last year. An increase of one-tenth of a percentage point to 15.2 per cent would tie the 1983 rate, the highest since 1965. The highest level on record was 22.4 per cent in 1959, when the government began calculating poverty figures.

Poverty is closely tied to joblessness. While the unemployment rate improved from 9.6 per cent in 2010 to 8.9 per cent in 2011, the employment-population ratio remained largely unchanged, meaning many discouraged workers simply stopped looking for work. Food stamp rolls, another indicator of poverty, also grew.

Demographers also say:

—Poverty will remain above the pre-recession level of 12.5 per cent for many more years. Several predicted that peak poverty levels — 15 per cent to 16 per cent — will last at least until 2014, due to expiring unemployment benefits, a jobless rate persistently above 6 per cent and weak wage growth.

—Suburban poverty, already at a record level of 11.8 per cent, will increase again in 2011.

—Part-time or underemployed workers, who saw a record 15 per cent poverty in 2010, will rise to a new high.

—Poverty among people 65 and older will remain at historically low levels, buoyed by Social Security cash payments.

—Child poverty will increase from its 22 per cent level in 2010.

Analysts also believe that the poorest poor, defined as those at 50 per cent or less of the poverty level, will remain near its peak level of 6.7 per cent.

"I've always been the guy who could find a job. Now I'm not," said Dale Szymanski, 56, a Teamsters Union forklift operator and convention hand who lives outside Las Vegas in Clark County. In a state where unemployment ranks highest in the nation, the Las Vegas suburbs have seen a particularly rapid increase in poverty from 9.7 per cent in 2007 to 14.7 per cent.

Szymanski, who moved from Wisconsin in 2000, said he used to make a decent living of more than $40,000 a year but now doesn't work enough hours to qualify for union health care. He changed apartments several months ago and sold his aging 2001 Chrysler Sebring in April to pay expenses.

"You keep thinking it's going to turn around. But I'm stuck," he said.

The 2010 poverty level was $22,314 for a family of four, and $11,139 for an individual, based on an official government calculation that includes only cash income, before tax deductions. It excludes capital gains or accumulated wealth, such as home ownership, as well as non-cash aid such as food stamps and tax credits, which were expanded substantially under President Barack Obama's stimulus package.

An additional 9 million people in 2010 would have been counted above the poverty line if food stamps and tax credits were taken into account.

Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, believes the social safety net has worked and it is now time to cut back. He worries that advocates may use a rising poverty rate to justify additional spending on the poor, when in fact, he says, many live in decent-size homes, drive cars and own wide-screen TVs.

A new census measure accounts for non-cash aid, but that supplemental poverty figure isn't expected to be released until after the November election. Since that measure is relatively new, the official rate remains the best gauge of year-to-year changes in poverty dating back to 1959.

Few people advocate cuts in anti-poverty programs. Roughly 79 per cent of Americans think the gap between rich and poor has grown in the past two decades, according to a Public Religion Research Institute/RNS Religion News survey from November 2011. The same poll found that about 67 per cent oppose "cutting federal funding for social programs that help the poor" to help reduce the budget deficit.

Outside of Medicaid, federal spending on major low-income assistance programs such as food stamps, disability aid and tax credits have been mostly flat at roughly 1.5 per cent of the gross domestic product from 1975 to the 1990s. Spending spiked higher to 2.3 per cent of GDP after Obama's stimulus program in 2009 temporarily expanded unemployment insurance and tax credits for the poor.

The U.S. safety net may soon offer little comfort to people such as Jose Gorrin, 52, who lives in the western Miami suburb of Hialeah Gardens. Arriving from Cuba in 1980, he was able to earn a decent living as a plumber for years, providing for his children and ex-wife. But things turned sour in 2007 and in the past two years he has barely worked, surviving on the occasional odd job.

His unemployment aid has run out, and he's too young to draw Social Security.

Holding a paper bag of still-warm bread he'd just bought for lunch, Gorrin said he hasn't decided whom he'll vote for in November, expressing little confidence the presidential candidates can solve the nation's economic problems. "They all promise to help when they're candidates," Gorrin said, adding, "I hope things turn around. I already left Cuba. I don't know where else I can go."

By Hope Yen Associated Press

Saturday 31 December 2011

‘He is a good father’, man chained kids!


The man may have chained kids out of desperation

BUTTERWORTH: The man accused of shackling his children in a bathroom is not as cruel as he had been made out to be, according to his neighbours and police.

Breaking free: The chains on the girl’s leg being removed at the house in Jalan Raja Uda. — GARY CHEN / The Star >>

“Their relationship is very close.

“The children would give their father a goodbye kiss whenever he leaves the house,” said a neighbour, known only as Lee.

Lee said the man had been under much stress since his Thai wife left home about a month ago.

Another neighbour, who wished to be known only as Gan, said the father was a friendly man and he seldom scolded his children.

“I am not sure why he decided to chain the kids, but I guess he was at wit’s end on how to take care of them,” said Gan, who runs a plastics shop next to the double-storey shoplot in Taman Mawar on Jalan Raja Uda where the family stays.

The two children, aged two and six, had been chained inside the bathroom of their home on Wednesday.

Authorities broke into the place after being alerted by neighbours who heard them crying.

Their father has been detained while the children have been warded at the Seberang Jaya Hospital.

Gan said the children were usually left in the one-bedroom home on the first floor when the father went out to deliver goods to customers from 3pm to 10pm.

“He is very busy as he runs a shop on the ground floor while his children live upstairs,” he said.

Asked about the children’s behaviour, Gan said the two-year-old boy was naughty and had thrown toys and chairs out from the balcony.

Another neighbour, Soy, said that she would give the children some bread when she heard their cries.

Penang police chief Deputy Comm Datuk Wira Ayub Yaakob said the community must play its role and help the family instead of blaming the man for his action.



“We must not just look at the case from the criminal aspect.

“Obviously, he was under a lot of stress and he needs help and support from the community at this point,” he said yesterday.

Meanwhile, Raymond Tan, the uncle of the two siblings, has stepped in to take temporary custody of the two children.

The North Seberang Prai district Welfare Department will apply for a court order to grant temporary custody to Tan, pending the outcome of investigations into the case.

Penang Health, Welfare, Caring Society and Environment Committee chairman Phee Boon Poh said Tan had agreed to temporarily care for his nephew and niece, and they would live with his family at his home in Bayan Baru.

He said Tan told him that the children’s father had expressed remorse but explained that he had no choice as his son was hyperactive.

“Sometimes, the child would throw things around at his home and the father decided to chain him as he was afraid that his son might run out of the house,” said Phee, who visited them at the hospital.
Both the children were in good health.

Tan said his 40-year-old brother worked as a chemical supplier and that he was a caring man who loved his children.

“My brother has never done such a thing before and I was shocked over the incident.”

Tan said his Thai sister-in-law, who is said to be two months’ pregnant, had gone backto her hometown in Bangkok to visit her family. -  The Star

Kids home alone and chained

By M. SIVANANTHA SHARMA, KOW KWAN YEE and FONG KEE SOON north@thestar.com.my

BUTTERWORTH: Two children, aged two and six, were left home alone for hours and worse, they were chained in the bathroom.

Their father, a despatcher in his 40s, left them chained in their house in Jalan Raja Uda, apparently for “being naughty”.

The girl and her younger brother were left without food for about four hours before they were finally rescued on Wednesday.

Sorry state: The two-year-old chained near a toilet bowl in the bathroom of the house in Jalan Raja Uda.>>
North Seberang Prai OCPD Asst Comm Zulkifli Alias said neighbours who heard the children's cries called a volunteer patrol team, who then alerted the police and Welfare Department.

“The authorities broke into the house through the front door and freed the children,” he said.

When met at the Seberang Jaya Hospital where they were admitted to, the six-year-old girl said: “I was scared and hungry so my brother and I began shouting for our father.”

When asked whether she or her brother was in pain, she said no.

The girl, however, seemed unable to answer when asked whether they had been chained previously.

She said there had been no visits from relatives since they were sent to the hospital.

ACP Zulkifli said the father claimed that the children were naughty, so he chained them and left them without food as punishment.

He also told police that his wife left home about a month ago.

Police picked up a man at a shophouse in Taman Mawar shortly after the children were rescued at about 8.40pm. He has been remanded for four days.

“Initial investigations revealed that the children were chained before he left for work at about 3pm,” ACP Zulkifli said at the district police headquarters in Bertam, Kepala Batas, yesterday.

A neighbour, who works as a mechanic, said he heard the crying while he was at his workshop, which was next to the shoplot near Jalan Raja Uda where the children live.

“I heard them crying at around 2pm on Wednesday. I did not think much of it as I thought the kids were just quarrelling,” said the neighbour who declined to be named.

“So I was shocked to see Rela members at the house around 8.45pm. I only realised the kids were chained when some of them showed me the photographs,” he said.

He said he often heard the children crying since his car workshop opened for business about a month ago.

A Chinese vernacular newspaper in its evening edition quoted the father as saying that he was forced to chain his children because they would dirty the house if they were left unattended.

Penang Health, Welfare, Caring Society and Environment Committee chairman Phee Boon Poh said the children would be placed under the custody of the Welfare Department for now.