Acknowledging the relevance of the Family Development Session (FDS), the Local Government of San Fernando localized the implementation of FDS through the efforts of its various departments.
FDS is one of the conditionalities of Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program that gathers partner-beneficiaries once a month to discuss various developmental topics like health and nutrition, education, protection and psychosocial needs of children; positive family values; marital relationships and active citizenship for community empowerment among others.
“The localized FDS of LGU San Fernando ensures that the topics and inputs will fit the needs of our Pantawid Pamilya partner-beneficiaries in their town,” said Cebu Provincial Link Brigieda Goron.
In the case of San Fernando, over half of the household beneficiaries are located in the mountain part and the remaining beneficiaries are located in the shoreline.
Most of them are busy with their daily activities that they do not have time to know the updates and services that are available in their locality.
“With the strong support of the local government, the FDS serves as a good venue for people empowerment and information dissemination,” Goron added.
Goron further said that through this, LGU San Fernando can directly provide service to their constituents and have a firsthand information of the situations in the barangay especially during disasters.
The concept of having a resource speaker from the local government unit during FDS started when the local chief executive of San Fernando signed the Executive Order (EO) 002 series of 2017 institutionalizing FDS.
This was tackled during the Municipal Convergence Meeting conducted on February 10, 2017 and was attended by various municipal department heads.
Currently, the departments that are involved are the Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office (MDRRMO), Municipal Health Office (MHO), Municipal Agriculture Office (MAO), Municipal Environment and Natural Resources Office (MENRO) and the Philippine National Police (PNP).
The municipal department heads alternately handle the FDS depending on the given topic of the month. During the FDS, they provide relevant updates and services directly to the partner-beneficiaries.
As a result, partner-beneficiaries have become more vigilant and responsive whenever there is imminent disaster or danger in their community.
This has been strengthened after the PNP provides its contact numbers to the partner-beneficiaries during the FDS in the month of April.
Beneficiaries from the mountainside barangays were also provided with seedlings, inputs in farming, animal husbandry and information regarding life insurance for farmers conducted by the MAO.
In July, the MDRRMO also discussed the topic Disaster Preparedness and Resiliency in one of the FDS and informed the participants that the office is a 24-hour response unit.
The MDRRMO also provided emergency numbers in case calamity strikes and had a chance to check the Emergency Balde (E-Balde) of the partner-beneficiaries.
The MHO spoke Responsible Parenthood and Family Planning to the Pantawid couple-beneficiaries last August.
The beneficiaries expressed their gratitude for the learning imparted to them specifically on understanding their growing children.
The MENRO discussed in September the Local Department Unit’s resolution regarding the solid waste management so that partner-beneficiaries could help disseminate the information to others.
“We really appreciate the effort of the department heads because despite their busy schedule they find time to go to the different barangays just to handle FDS topics,” Goron said.
“In fact, we are pushing for strengthening the FDS through passing a local policy and we are happy that there are already many LGUs in Cebu who passed Executive Orders (EOs) in support of the FDS implementation,” Goron underscored. ###
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