Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Jour­nal­ist

joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

The func­tion­ing of the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty is to be re­viewed, ac­cord­ing to Gen­der and Child Af­fairs Min­is­ter Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy.

The min­is­ter said the re­view was part of the min­istry’s plan to im­prove the au­thor­i­ty’s op­er­a­tions, in turn em­pow­er­ing the fu­ture of chil­dren un­der its care. “We have al­ready start­ed the process to en­gage con­sul­tants to help us re­view the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty to see if the ex­ist­ing mod­el is the right mod­el. And if the ex­ist­ing mod­el is de­riv­ing the best ben­e­fits for those vul­ner­a­ble boys and girls,” the MP for To­ba­go East said.

No fur­ther de­tails about the re­view were pro­vid­ed. The an­nounce­ment came dur­ing Fri­day evening’s bud­get de­bate in Par­lia­ment.

Ear­li­er in the de­bate, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar crit­i­cised the gov­ern­ment’s bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion of $1 mil­lion to­wards strength­en­ing child pro­tec­tion ser­vices.

Com­ment­ing on the re­vi­sion of the au­thor­i­ty’s mod­el, for­mer Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty chair­man Hanif Ben­jamin be­lieved the au­thor­i­ty’s cur­rent mod­el does not make sense. The clin­i­cal ther­a­pist said the au­thor­i­ty was not set up as a so­cial ser­vice or child pro­tec­tion mod­el and, as a re­sult, does not of­fer over­all pro­tec­tion for the coun­try’s chil­dren.

“You have to re­mem­ber, the au­thor­i­ty is a crea­ture of leg­is­la­tion. So, they can on­ly op­er­ate with­in the pa­ra­me­ters of the leg­is­la­tion, which re­al­ly did not cater for the way the cas­es have been com­ing in and all the pre­ven­ta­tive fac­tors that are need­ed to pro­tect chil­dren.

“In or­der for this to work, leg­is­la­tion must meet prac­tice be­cause you will have the law but if the law is not match­ing what is on the ground, then we are fail­ing be­cause we have this au­thor­i­ty that can on­ly sit in a chair and wait for a child to be abused,” Ben­jamin, a clin­i­cal and foren­sic trau­ma­tol­o­gist, said.

The youth de­vel­op­ment spe­cial­ist called for bud­getary al­lo­ca­tions to the au­thor­i­ty to be in­creased and for the law to be changed to in­clude pre­ven­ta­tive work and ed­u­ca­tion. He be­lieves the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty should have the ca­pac­i­ty to go out in­to com­mu­ni­ties and work with schools and so­cial sup­port ser­vices to iden­ti­fy at-risk chil­dren.

Mean­while, Min­is­ter Web­ster-Roy al­so an­nounced that the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to hire con­sul­tants to re­view pre­ven­ta­tive pro­grammes aimed at keep­ing young peo­ple out of trou­ble.

She said the de­ci­sion was based on the re­port of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice that there has been an in­crease in youth dis­or­der­ly be­hav­iour.

“The East Port-of-Spain Com­mu­ni­ty In­ter­ven­tion will pro­vide vo­ca­tion­al and life skills train­ing to ap­prox­i­mate­ly 100 chil­dren in mar­gin­alised ar­eas to help them achieve fi­nan­cial in­de­pen­dence.

Com­mu­ni­ty stake­hold­ers will de­liv­er train­ing ses­sions fo­cus­ing on en­tre­pre­neur­ship and life skills.

“We will out­fit a child sup­port cen­tre that con­sol­i­dates the au­thor­i­ty’s cur­rent sup­port cen­tres and pro­vides suit­able and se­cure ac­com­mo­da­tion for all chil­dren un­der its care. The com­ple­tion of phase I of this project (the Na­tion­al Care and Em­pow­er­ment Cen­tre) amount­ed to TT$14.25 mil­lion for in­fra­struc­ture works and an ad­di­tion­al $3.9 mil­lion for oth­er vari­a­tions,” she said as ex­am­ples.

The To­ba­go East MP sought to as­sure that the min­istry will make da­ta-in­formed de­ci­sions to chart the way for­ward. She said, as an ex­am­ple, da­ta would be col­lect­ed from in­ter­views done with past res­i­dents of chil­dren’s homes. And ac­cord­ing to Web­ster-Roy, the sub­ject of state child care re­quires a uni­fied po­lit­i­cal ap­proach.

She praised two Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress MPs for putting po­lit­i­cal dif­fer­ences aside and opt­ing to work with the gov­ern­ment to im­prove the lives of chil­dren in their con­stituen­cy.

“We need more per­sons to be like the mem­ber for Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la to put aside their po­lit­i­cal dif­fer­ences and come and sit around the ta­ble with us and dis­cuss is­sues. We need more per­sons to be like the MP for Ma­yaro,” she said of the two MPs who have pub­licly crit­i­cised Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.