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Thursday, February 27, 2025

State to find homes for 231 children as deadline looms for unlicensed facilities

by

Akash Samaroo
727 days ago
20230303
The Children's Authority office in Port-of-Spain.

The Children's Authority office in Port-of-Spain.

As the March 31, 2023 dead­line ap­proach­es, some chil­dren’s homes will not be li­censed in time which will leave at least 231 wards of the State in need of ac­com­mo­da­tions.

While some fa­cil­i­ties are ex­pect­ed to be up to code be­fore the end of the month, speak­ing at a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee of Par­lia­ment to­day, Min­is­ter with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for Gen­der and Child Af­fairs, Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy high­light­ed the homes which will not make the dead­line.

“The Jairah/Raf­fa House which is at an 82% readi­ness...the La­dy Ho­choy Home is at 79% readi­ness...Mar­i­an House is at 85% readi­ness...Mary Care Cen­tre South is at 88% readi­ness...Casa de Cora­zon is at 91% readi­ness...Fer­n­dean’s Place Chil­dren’s Home is at 76% readi­ness...Cyrill Ross Nurs­ery is at 79% readi­ness...St Jude’s is cur­rent­ly at 70% readi­ness for li­cens­ing,” said Min­is­ter Web­ster-Roy.

She added that two homes are ear­marked for clo­sure which are Op­er­a­tion Smile and the Mar­garet Kistow Home. The lat­ter came un­der heavy scruti­ny in the Ju­dith Jones re­port for its han­dling of res­i­dents who age out of the home.

With re­spect to the homes that are near readi­ness but won’t be li­censed in time, the Min­is­ter said they should be up to code by May giv­en that most on­ly need cer­tain cer­ti­fi­ca­tion to meet the grade.

But what hap­pens with the chil­dren of these homes un­til then?

Min­is­ter Web­ster-Roy ex­plained that at least 60 chil­dren will be ab­sorbed in li­censed fa­cil­i­ties and the rest will be rein­te­grat­ed with their fam­i­lies through a Kin­ship Care ini­tia­tive.

“Which will al­low for some chil­dren to tran­si­tion in­to care by oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers whom the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty will deem fit, we are al­so try­ing to ramp up and en­cour­age fos­ter care,” she said.

The Kin­ship Care pol­i­cy is still to be ful­ly im­ple­ment­ed but the State will pro­vide fund­ing for the fam­i­lies which take chil­dren in­to their care.

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