Children’s home shake-up
New managers, who had to go through an intensive two-day assessment programme, have been hired for all of the island’s 13 government-run children’s homes.
The administrative changes dovetailed with the Child Development Agency’s (CDA) wider efforts to implement recommendations made in a 2003 report that highlighted sexual and other forms of abuse in private and state-run homes and places of safety.
The shake-up in the management structure at the state-run homes took place about two weeks ago, but was not made public until last week during a Sunday Observer interview with CDA chief executive officer Alison Anderson. The CDA head could not speak to administrative changes in privately-run homes, though the agency has responsibility for monitoring all the island’s homes and places of safety.
“Our responsibility is to ensure that these persons who oversee the (privately-run) homes meet the required qualifications and standards,” she said. “We do not have control over that aspect of it (hirings and firings).”
Meanwhile, according to Anderson, only four of the 13 superintendents that were once in charge of the government-run homes have kept their jobs. However, they have been re-assigned to different homes and have been given different responsibilities, she said.
Another four superintendents have reached retirement age, according to the CDA.
Of the remaining five former superintendents, some opted not to re-apply for their positions while others re-applied, but were turned down. Anderson could not recall how many of the five had failed to make the grade, versus the number who had opted not to re-apply.
The CDA head sought to downplay the management changes, but acknowledged that the damning 2003 report – authored by retired civil servant Sadie Keating two years ago – had been a factor in the administrative shuffle.
The report had cited badly run homes bursting at the seams with wards of the state and came on the heels of allegations that a child at a privately-run home had displayed heightened and abnormal sexual behaviour, including bestiality.
Last week, two former children’s home employees were charged with carnal abuse and cops expect to charge at least two others.
“(The administrative changes) were a part of the reform of the children’s services because a review in 1999 found major gaps. The report just made it more urgent,” Anderson said.
“These managers will be examining the structure of the homes. looking at the programmes and. making the necessary adjustments.”
During the two-day vetting process before a selection panel from the services commission, applicants for the 13 management positions were evaluated based on their performance during presentations, their response to case studies, and group work.
The newly-hired managers will now be responsible for regularly assessing staff members, one of the 41 recommendations made on how to improve the island’s children’s homes and places of safety.
“We have implemented most (41 out of the 46) of the recommendations from the report, but a few of them are not totally completed,” Anderson said.
For example, the sheer volume of the number of children who have – for whatever reason – become the responsibility of the state has made it impossible to comply with the suggested ratio of 1 caregiver for every 10 children in a home. The ratio should be one to three for children with disabilities.
And the CDA is still working on separating juveniles who need care and protection from those deemed uncontrollable, or who have broken the law.
Anderson pointed out that with roughly 2,500 wards of the state, there are simply not enough children’s homes and remand centres for juveniles to make either of these goals achievable across the board any time in the near future. While there is a 10:1 ratio of wards to caregivers at some homes, that is not the norm.
“It is very difficult for us to maintain that ratio as we cannot control the amount of children that we take in,” she explained. “If a child has difficulty and has to go to court and they can’t return home, then they are sent to the home until other arrangements can be made.”
The problem is compounded by the lack of a remand centre that caters to girls only. As a result, female wards of the state, who have broken no laws, but merely abandoned or orphaned, are lumped with other girls who have had run-ins with the law – including some who have committed murder.
The CDA is trying to reduce the number of state wards by pushing family reunification, another recommendation coming out of the 2003 report. “We want to operate the programme in a way that the youngsters would not have to be remanded, but instead they are sent home and we work with the families,” Anderson said.
Other aspects of the five recommendations still left to be implemented include ensuring that staff members are adequately trained. The CDA, with funds identified from the Environmental Foundation of Jamaica, will enroll caregivers from state-run homes in HEART/NTA courses.
“We also encourage private homes to get their staff certified,” Anderson said. “There is a course in child care at the University of the West Indies and we suggest that the caregivers do that course because it is the basic requirement for employment.”
Other measures to be implemented include:
. Offering tax or other incentives to corporate Jamaica to encourage participation in making the lives of wards of the state easier.
. Sourcing alternative strategies, including financial support, to families that are willing to care for their disabled family members at home while building a community environment for the provision of care; providing information on the opportunities available; and working with the relevant ministries to create opportunities for these families.
. Providing, through clinics, ‘special needs extension workers’ to support families and conduct some level of monitoring of disabled children at home. The health clinics should provide scheduled community-based services for evaluation, development programme reviews in addition to health care needs.
. Separating disabled wards of the state from the rest of the population.
According to the 2003 report, 37 per cent of a sample of 42 children taken from 42 children’s homes suffered from either hearing, vision or speech impairment, learning or physical disabilities, or a combination of all these challenges.
These children often fall through the cracks and their conditions worsen in already overcrowded and overburdened facilities, the Keating report had warned.
To address this and other concerns, 60 new social workers and child officers were recently recruited, and new positions created for monitoring officers who are responsible for keeping tabs on the quality of care supplied to wards of the state, and compliance with the standards.
They are assigned to manage each child on a case-by-case basis to ensure that his individual needs are being met.
“We have also implemented new assessment and evaluation mechanism,” Anderson said. “With this information we meet on a quarterly basis to discuss the findings.”
It has been estimated that it will cost about $800 million to implement all the recommendations in the Keating report. Last year, to get the ball rolling, a $300-million budget was approved for the CDA – which is a combination of the functions and operations of the Children Services Division, the Adoption Board and the Child Support Unit.
There is now regular monitoring of children’s homes and places of safety through a combination of scheduled and impromptu visits, during which children are given a chance to speak with monitoring agents in private, Anderson said.
“I wouldn’t say that I am satisfied (with the work that has been done over the last two years),” she added. “We have 63 homes and thousands of children, so that might be one of the reasons why we are not moving as quickly as we would like.”
She is proud, however, that the CDA has managed to create the island’s first-ever service manual that clearly outlines how children’s homes should be run. The document, already distributed to the homes, will be available to the public by the end of this month, Anderson said.
