Kerala: Behavioural lessons for social staff

Thiruvananthapuram: The class four workers of the Social Welfare Department, employees who deal directly with the insane and the destitute, will be given training on behavioural and public relation skills. This is for the first time that a behavioural training is being conducted for government employees.

 A departmental analysis of training needs had identified public relation skills as one of the most important attributes required in an employee working in welfare homes under the Department. “This is another way of saying that such a skill has been found wanting in some of the employees posted at old age homes, and children's homes,” a senior Department official said. “The issue was taken up seriously after it was found that employees were unfriendly towards inmates in some of the homes,” he said. The Prakashan Master committee that went into the functioning of the juvenile homes in the state, too, had noted that orphaned children were highly suspicious of employees in charge of them. The committee had also found that some supervisors resorted to violence to keep children in check. "The shocking thing was these caretakers did not find such third degree methods unethical," the committee had noted.

 “Mahila mandirams and old age homes, too, require employees to be more sensitive in their dealings,” the official said. “These homes are peopled by old men and women abandoned by their families. The enormity of their problems has led some to lose their sanity. Interacting with them calls for tact and lots of grace,” he added. The behaviour of staff in anganwadis, too, has been a matter of concern. “Some have been found to be rude with children undermining the very concept of child care anganwadis,” the official said.

 The Department official said employees from old age homes, juvenile centres and Integrated Child Development Society (ICDS) units from the southern parts of the state would be selected for the training.