The es­tab­lish­ment of a Fa­cil­i­ties Re­view Com­mit­tee (Homes for Chil­dren), as well as the set­ting up of a Child Sup­port Cen­tre, are two ma­jor out­comes of a re­cent meet­ing be­tween the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Sec­re­tary of Health, Well­ness and So­cial Pro­tec­tion in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA).

The Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty del­e­ga­tion was led by Eliz­a­beth Lewis, Deputy Di­rec­tor (Ag.) Le­gal and Reg­u­la­to­ry Ser­vices; while the THA Health Di­vi­sion’s del­e­ga­tion was led by As­sem­bly­man Dr. Faith B.Yis­rael, Sec­re­tary of Health, Well­ness and So­cial Pro­tec­tion and As­sem­bly­man Son­ny Craig, As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary of Health, Well­ness and So­cial Pro­tec­tion.

The meet­ing, which oc­curred on Fri­day 25th March 2022, fo­cussed on ex­plor­ing ar­eas of col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween both or­gan­i­sa­tions. 

Both sides con­firmed that the Fa­cil­i­ties Re­view Com­mit­tee (Homes for Chil­dren) will be in­stalled next Fri­day 1st April 2022. This com­mit­tee will have over­sight over Homes for Chil­dren in To­ba­go.

A pro­pos­al had been ap­proved pre­vi­ous­ly for the es­tab­lish­ment of a Child Sup­port Cen­tre.  The THA Health Di­vi­sion will be re­spon­si­ble for shar­ing that pro­pos­al with the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, with a view to get­ting a de­ci­sion on the THA’s in­put in­to the project.

An­oth­er key de­liv­er­able with see the THA Health Di­vi­sion as­sist­ing the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty with tar­get­ed, pub­lic sen­si­ti­za­tion on Fos­ter Care, in­clu­sive of on­line ses­sions, for To­bag­o­ni­ans.

One of the more crit­i­cal de­liv­er­ables com­ing out of the meet­ing in­volves a sub­se­quent meet­ing with the Coun­ty Med­ical Of­fi­cer of Health and oth­er stake­hold­ers, to work out the pol­i­cy on iso­la­tion and care of COVID-19 pos­i­tive chil­dren at Com­mu­ni­ty Res­i­dences.  Both sides agreed that since the virus is evolv­ing from the pan­dem­ic to en­dem­ic stage, a sep­a­rate iso­la­tion fa­cil­i­ty may not be nec­es­sary.

In ad­di­tion, Health Sec­re­tary Dr Faith B.Yis­rael will con­sult with the req­ui­site per­sons and or­gan­i­sa­tions, to work to­wards grant­i­ng the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty’s med­ical doc­tor more ac­cess to ser­vices of­fered by the To­ba­go Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (TRHA), which ul­ti­mate­ly will help the chil­dren un­der their care.

The THA Health Di­vi­sion al­so agreed to re­assess its poli­cies on the sub­ven­tions it ad­min­is­ters, in or­der to sup­port NGOs with the nec­es­sary fund­ing, so they can pro­vide safe homes for chil­dren.

Both the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty and the Health Di­vi­sion agreed and com­mit­ted to meet with each oth­er every two months.  They are sched­uled to meet next in May 2022.