Social workers start receiving COVID-19 vaccine
Around 700 workers at the Foundation for Social Welfare Services start receiving the COVID-19 vaccine
24 February 2021, 10:56am
by Laura Calleja
Health Minister Chris Fearne and Family Minister Michael Falzon were present while these workers began receiving the vaccine at the University of Malta s vaccination centre
Around 700 workers at the Foundation for Social Welfare Services (FSWS) have begun to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, the government said.
These workers include those who work directly with victims of domestic violence and addiction, detox professionals and various other workers employed in child residences run by the FSWS. They are all expected to be vaccinated by the end of the week.
The government has set up a technical committee to raise awareness about ‘parental alienation’.
The ministries of social affairs and justice explained that parental alienation occurs mainly when children end up as pawns in disputes between their parents and when one of the parents tries to negatively influence the children against the other.
The committee is to be chaired by lawyer Andy Ellul with the members being Children Commissioner Pauline Miceli; Mary Gauci from Happy Parenting Malta; Audrey Friggieri from the Commission against Domestic Violence; and Steve Liberi, director for the protection of minors in the Foundation for Social Welfare Services.
Alcohol use among 15- to 16-year-olds remains high in Malta but continues a trend of decline observed since 2003.
This is one of the major findings of the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD), an international study that gathers data related to substances (alcohol, cigarettes and other drugs) and other potentially addictive behaviours (social media use, gaming and gambling).
ESPAD is coordinated in Malta by the Foundation for Social Welfare Services (FSWS). The project first started in 1995 and the last set of data was collected from students in 2019, providing data spanning 24 years.
Data is collected every four years from 15- to 16-year-old students using an anonymous questionnaire. In 2019, just under 100,000 students participated in the study on a European level.