Caritas Malta was founded in 1968 and developed into a Church Secretariat for Social and Charitable Action in 1977 to co-ordinate and develop socio-pastoral work within the Diocese.
In 1989, Caritas Malta pioneered the first ever drug rehabilitation services in Malta, opening residential rehabilitation centres to meet the needs of the population.
Nowadays, Caritas Malta employs 80 staff members and has more than 120 volunteers that operate the following services that address various social needs:
- drug rehabilitation residential programs and outpatients services;
- counselling and social work to individuals with social, psychological, and emotional problems;
- support to victims of usury;
- support to volunteers in local parishes addressing poverty and loneliness;
- outreach to elderly persons at risk of poverty and loneliness;
- prevention classes provided to school children attending church schools;
- provision of various support groups to targeted at vulnerable groups;
- Young Separated Support Group
- Widowed and Separated persons Support Group;
- Alcohol anonymous;
- Gambling Anonymous;
- Emotions Anonymous;
- Epilepsy Association Support Group;
The drug rehabilitation services offered by Caritas Malta are the organisations major operations. In fact, out of a workforce of 80 employees, 57 work within the rehabilitation units. Out of these 57 staff members, 24 are ex-drug users who did the drug rehab program themselves, and are now employed with the organisation after satisfying a number of criteria.