By Andrew Smith, Staff ReporterALISON ANDERSON, the chief executive officer of the Child Development Agency (CDA), is pleading for civil society to offer more than 'cake and ice cream' to those in Jamaica's children's homes and places of safety.
In fact, since her appointment, she has been rejecting those sweet treats from service clubs.
"I have told them, not one more treat for those children," Ms. Anderson said at last week's Gleaner's Editors' Forum. "You are all big, high-powered businessmen and women. Why are you treating the children to cake and ice cream?" She added that the staff and management in children's homes "need to know how to plan, they need to know how to make a
budget. They need stress management courses, they need behavioural management, they need to know how to negotiate." Ms. Anderson believes that the provision of these skills for the staff will be more beneficial to the children in the long term.
However, immediate past-president of the Lions Club of St. Andrew, Colin Titus, said that service clubs provide more than cake and ice cream. He said that his club has been sponsoring a house at the SOS Children's Village for over 15 years in which eight to ten children reside, aged between four and 13. The club also assists with the school fees of the children and provides educational supplies for schools. He said that the Lions Club of St. Andrew is "proud of our record of accomplishment with the SOS Village and other children's homes."
SERVICE CLUBS
Mr. Titus said that an issue which all service clubs currently have with the government is the charging of General Consumption Tax (GCT) on tickets for fund-raising barbecues and other functions. He said that any money raised from the public has to be used directly on public projects. By levying GCT on ticket sales, the clubs are impeded in their ability to raise funds because of the "increasing of the effective price to the consumer". He said that District Governors of the various service clubs hope to meet with Minister of Finance and Planning Dr. Omar Davies to discuss this issue.
With reference to Miss Anderson's suggestion that service clubs can provide administrative services for the children's homes, Mr. Titus agrees that the "clubs collectively have the resource base to provide this kind of teaching". However, he added that "the government needs to recognise that (the clubs) provide services which the government themselves do not provide" such as educational scholarships and a mobile dental clinic.
CDA SYSTEM OF CARE
Ms. Anderson's personal vision is de-institutionalisation. She said that "institutions are the pits. No matter how good they are, they are not the right place for children." She explained this statement by saying, "as an option for children who need care, they cannot provide the best outcomes for children." She noted that they are also eight to 12 times more expensive to run than therapeutic foster care which involved seeing a clinic psychologist every week and being in a special education class.
According to the children's home review, three alternatives to institutionalisation include: returning them to their homes, adoption and identifying foster parents.
In lieu of de-institutionalisation, the CDA has the mission statement "to develop, implement, co-ordinate and regulate national policies and programmes that promote the welfare of all children, meet Government's obligations to international standards for children, and assist in making children capable of maximising their potential."
