The announcement was made by Dr Rebecca Tortello, senior adviser/consultant to the minister of education.

"The Library Service is going to work with us to create an information network/satellite information centres on parenting, so that we will gather parenting material locally, and international best practices.

"The parish libraries are linked and they have Internet access, so we can have an electronic database as well as a hard-copy database and the librarians will be trained to know where the material is, so parents can come in and find material if they need it," she informed.

While not giving a specific timeline for these centres to be implemented, Tortello explained that the partnership with the JLS was part of the soon-to-be established National Parenting Support Commission.

Parent Month

"We are hoping that by November, which is Parent Month, the NPSC will be implemented. The bill is now at the chief parliamentary counsel and the National Parenting Policy is before Cabinet, so both of those will have to be finalised."

Tortello said non-governmental organisations (NGOs), such as the Coalition for Better Parenting and the National Parent-Teacher Association of Jamaica had banded together with the Government.

"There are a lot of NGOs out there doing great service and what the Parenting Commission wants to do is help them to do their work even better. So we want to be able to create avenues for them to dialogue with each other," she explained.

Tortello said that the ministry was looking to establish partnerships with organisations, such as the newly formed Fresh Start Programme out of the Office of the Prime Minister, as well as the Church and parenting organisations.

"We want to bring together all of the different groups doing parenting training now and look at their materials and see which ones are most versatile.