NASSAU, BAHAMAS — The Department of Gender and Family Affairs, Ministry of Social Services and Urban Development, has launched an online survey entitled “Family Safety Survey — COVID-19 Bahamas” in line with the department’s objectives of “keeping our families safe”.
The availability of the survey is also a part of the technological reform underway at the Ministry of Social Services and Urban Development.
Dr Jacinta Higgs, the department’s director, said the survey examines how interactions in Bahamian homes may have changed since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in The Bahamas.
To reduce the instances of COVID-19 community spread in countries worldwide, global governments have implemented social and physical distancing policies, curfews and mandatory lockdowns as key mechanisms in that fight. This has resulted in people having to spend more and more time together in confined spaces at home.
Higgs said the survey allows officials to garner as much information as possible on what is actually happening in homes during the curfew and/or mandatory lockdown periods.
The survey was aimed at individuals 18 years old and over.
Its objective, Higgs said, included determining the “level of safety and/or violence in their homes pre-COVID-19 curfew, or lockdown or Emergency Order” and “the prevalence, or lack thereof, of violence within our homes”.
It also sought to find out if those experiences were exacerbated “as a result of persons living now confined, and living very closely to one another over longer periods of time”.
“Also to find out what are the concerns of Bahamians from every island and every cay; and then finally to provide persons who may be experiencing violence in their homes with yet another safe space contact,” Higgs said.
She noted that this is the first time in the department’s history that such a survey has been conducted.
“This is the first time in the history of the department that we have such reach to those persons,” she said.
The department assured that it has taken steps to ensure the security and confidentiality of all answers to the survey, noting that all answers will remain completely anonymous and confidential.
“We are working with one of the major universities, and the information will go directly to the research person assigned to the survey,” Higgs insisted.
“Once the survey is submitted, the responses are immediately gathered by the individual.”
She added: “The online survey is fully electronic, which allows for the automatic calculation of the various responses. It further affords us the capability for the survey responses to be disaggregated (divided into detailed subcategories), outlining, for example, how many men have responded, how many women have responded.
“The advantage of using surveymonkey is not only to allow us access to every Bahamian in every Family Island and cay, but it also allows us to gather that information, collate the information, then analyze the information and provide a report in a very quick turnaround time, as opposed to the sometimes years of turnaround time a survey of this magnitude may yield in terms of analyzing [the data] and then producing a report.”
The department advised that those seeking a safe space may contact safespace242@gmail.com.
The survey can be accessed by clicking on this link.
