The Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices says from to­day, March 26 2020, Cus­tomer Ser­vice Rep­re­sen­ta­tives (CSRs) will be as­signed to all of the 11 So­cial Wel­fare Dis­trict Of­fices, in­clud­ing the So­cial Wel­fare Of­fice in To­ba­go.

In an of­fi­cial state­ment pro­vid­ing an up­date on the roll­out of the mea­sures, the Min­istry ex­plains that the CSRs will ad­dress is­sues and queries from per­sons who were re­trenched, ter­mi­nat­ed or have ex­pe­ri­enced a re­duc­tion in in­come.

Those ap­ply­ing for the COVID-19 spe­cif­ic as­sis­tance—whether self-em­ployed, an em­ploy­er or an em­ploy­ee—must have been ei­ther Re­trenched, Ter­mi­nat­ed or ex­pe­ri­enced a Loss/Re­duc­tion in In­come on or af­ter March 1st, 2020. 

All guide­lines for ac­cess­ing the So­cial As­sis­tance will be post­ed on the web­sites and face­book pages of the Min­istries of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices, Labour and Small En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, as well as that of TTCon­nect.

The Min­istry re­ports that its Call Cen­tre is now up and func­tion­ing at the fol­low­ing num­bers, which are avail­able from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm, Mon­day to Fri­day:

800-1MSD (1673) – Toll Free800-OPIC (6742) – Toll Free623-2608; Ex­ten­sions 1120 to 1132753 – CARE (what­sapp on­ly) – avail­able 24 hours

De­tails fol­low on the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the min­istry’s COVID-19 So­cial Sup­port As­sis­tance mea­sures:

Pay­ment of Salary Re­lief Grant for Per­sons Reg­is­tered with NIB

The Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board will be ad­dress­ing per­sons who are cur­rent­ly mak­ing con­tri­bu­tions to the NIBTT, with the Salary Re­lief Grant of $1500.00. It was al­so not­ed that the NIB is not yet ready with the op­er­a­tional­iza­tion of this grant as they have in­di­cat­ed that the guide­lines would be ready with­in the next sev­en (7) days.

For Per­sons who are Self-Em­ployed and NOT Pay­ing NIS

Self-em­ployed and oth­er per­sons who are not pay­ing NIS will be as­sist­ed by the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices. Per­sons will be re­quired to reg­is­ter via the por­tal of the Min­istry of Labour and Small En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment. Com­plet­ed forms should be emailed to un­der­men­tioned ad­dress­es rel­e­vant to your area:

sup­port­fory­ou.east@gov.tt (Barataria/Blanchies­suse to To­co)
sup­port­fory­ou.north@gov.tt (Mor­vant to Mar­aval/Las Cuevas/Diego Mar­tin/Pe­tit Val­ley/Ch­aguara­mas)
sup­port­fory­ou.cen­tral@gov.tt (Chase Vil­lage; Ca­roni; Fe­lic­i­ty; Ch­agua­nas; Tabaquite; Man­zanil­la; Cou­va; Tal­paro; Freeport; Clax­ton Bay and sur­round­ing ar­eas)
sup­port­fory­ou.south@gov.tt (Pointe-a-Pierre to Moru­ga/Ica­cos/Rio Claro/Guayagua­yare)

Once ver­i­fied by the Min­istry of Labour and Small En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment, dis­burse­ment of the grant will be com­plet­ed by the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices.

Food Sup­port to fam­i­lies with chil­dren reg­is­tered to re­ceive meals un­der the School Feed­ing Pro­gramme and do not have a Food Card:

Dis­tri­b­u­tion to the 41 MPs is on­go­ing at the MS­DFS Head Of­fice for Food Sup­port Cards val­ued at $510.00. On­ly the par­ents of the chil­dren who are reg­is­tered on the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion’s School Feed­ing Pro­gramme will re­ceive tem­po­rary food sup­port. Per­sons will be con­tact­ed by their MP Of­fices, and should on­ly vis­it their MP of­fice when they are called;
It should be not­ed that each fam­i­ly will re­ceive one card. Each per­son will be re­quired to sign a de­c­la­ra­tion. Re­cip­i­ents are asked NOT to dis­pose of their Tem­po­rary Card as these cards will be topped up for an ad­di­tion­al two (2) months dur­ing the month of April, 2020.

Sup­port to ex­ist­ing re­cip­i­ents of Food Sup­port, Pub­lic As­sis­tance and Dis­abil­i­ty As­sis­tance Grants (in­clud­ing the DAG for chil­dren):

Food Sup­port: Ad­di­tion­al sup­port will be pro­vid­ed via a top up dur­ing the month of April for three (3) months, de­pend­ing on the size of the fam­i­ly, to be paid in April 2020;
Pub­lic As­sis­tance: Ad­di­tion­al in­come sup­port in the sum of $150.00, $300.00, $450.00 and $500.00, de­pend­ing on the size of the fam­i­ly to be paid in the month of April, for a pe­ri­od of three(3) months. This will be paid via a sep­a­rate cheque, by April 15, 2020;

Dis­abil­i­ty As­sis­tance Grants: Per­sons who re­ceive DAG (in­clud­ing the DAG for chil­dren) will re­ceive $150 per month for the three (3) months, to be paid via a sep­a­rate cheque by April 15, 2020.

Food Sup­port for per­sons who are Re­trenched, Ter­mi­nat­ed or now ex­pe­ri­enc­ing Re­duced In­come:

Where there are per­sons who are re­trenched, ter­mi­nat­ed or ex­pe­ri­enc­ing re­duced in­come, Tem­po­rary Food Sup­port Cards val­ued at $510 will al­so be is­sued for a pe­ri­od of three months, fol­low­ing as­sess­ment by the Min­istry of Labour and Small En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment and fur­ther ver­i­fi­ca­tion by the Min­istry of So­cial de­vel­op­ment and fam­i­ly Ser­vices to en­sure that such per­sons are not al­ready in re­ceipt of Food Cards.

Rental As­sis­tance Grant:

Rental As­sis­tance will be pro­vid­ed to the val­ue of $2,500 per month for a pe­ri­od of three (3) months ini­tial­ly, and up to six (6) months as re­quired. If this sup­port is re­quired be­yond the six months, the rental as­sis­tance grant will be re­duced to $1,500 and then a fur­ther re­duc­tion to $1,000.00 for any ad­di­tion­al months re­quired. The to­tal pe­ri­od of rental as­sis­tance must not ex­ceed twelve (12) months.

So­cial­ly Dis­placed Per­sons:

The MS­DFS, work­ing with the Min­istry of Health, the TTPS and the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment bod­ies to in­sti­tute the “move along sys­tem” for street dwellers to come off the streets and go to shel­ters. Ad­di­tion­al fi­nan­cial sup­port will be pro­vid­ed to NGOs that op­er­ate these shel­ters to en­sure that they are equipped to pro­vide enough meals for this an­tic­i­pat­ed in­crease. MS­DFS will be work­ing with NGOs to en­sure that so­cial­ly dis­placed per­sons are pro­vid­ed with ad­di­tion­al sub­sis­tence. The MS­DFS will be con­tin­u­ous­ly work­ing with the TTPS, the Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tions and the MOH to help re­move these per­sons off the street.