NASSAU, The Bahamas – Technical experts from the Ministry of Social Services and Urban Development’s Information, Technology and Communications (ITC) Unit recently hosted a training workshop for New Providence staff.

Additional training will take place for staff in Grand Bahama, Abaco and the Family Islands.

Headed by Deputy Director, Ms. Judy L. Simmons, the ITC Unit will be responsible for leading the digitization and modernization process underway at the Ministry and its various Departments and Divisions, while expanding the Ministry’s communications reach.

Staff from across the Ministry, including the Department of Social Services, the Department of Gender and Family Affairs, the Department of Rehabilitative Welfare Services and Urban Renewal, in addition to personnel from the Secretariat of the National Commission for Persons with Disabilities, participated in the training that was conducted by Deputy-Director Simmons. Ms. Simmons was assisted by Miss Simone Bridgewater, Gender Officer in the Department of Gender and Family Affairs and Mrs. Jaimie Humes, Case Aide, Department of Social Services.

Sessions included an overview of the Ministry’s current ITC initiative, and a theoretical overview and hands-on demonstration of the ProMis Management Information System.

The implementation of the ProMis Management Information System will be at the forefront of social assistance reform in The Bahamas. This includes digital reform. Designed to accommodate and facilitate the many services offered, ProMis will allow operations to move away from a paper-intensive one, to a digital platform.

This flexibility will provide social services representatives and managers with the tools to better organize, evaluate, and efficiently manage clients within their portfolios, and to optimize results.

A key feature of the ProMis System is its full interoperability (the ability of computer systems or software to exchange and make use of information). ProMIS will be able to share and exchange information with other key partners in Government, in addition to the private sector.

Minister of Social Services and Urban Development, the Hon. Frankie A. Campbell, said the training is part of an overarching plan to ensure that each Department, Divisions and/or Unit within the ministry is equipped with the physical, human and technological resources necessary to assist persons in the various communities in accessing social services electronically -- this includes ensuring access and inclusion for the community of persons with disabilities.

Minister Campbell said the training will also ensure uniformity of action, response and of reception.

“And so there will be ongoing training because we subscribe to the philosophy of total quality management and so it is important that we get all of our internal partners (in terms of staff) on board to appreciate the importance, the value of the system, what it means to them, what it means to the client, and to buy into the philosophy of moving from a 100 per cent paper society to a 100 per cent paperless society within the Department of Social Services,” Minister Campbell added.