By Pat Roxborough,
Staff Reporter
WESTERN BUREAU:
THE TRANQUILITY Bay reformatory is set to expand to accommodate an increasing number of foreigners who are trying to get their problem children into its controversial programme.
The American school which transferred from the state of Utah to the parish of St. Elizabeth in Jamaica in 1997, is getting an average of 10 requests every day from parents who cannot control their children's delinquent behaviour, according to its administrators.
"We have to be turning them away as we do not have the space," said Hughton Bailey, the operations supervisor of the institution, which is formally called the Caribbean Centre for Change. Mr. Bailey, who runs the centre in the absence of its operator, Jay Kay, a former San Diego gas station and mini-mart manager, said the upgrade was imminent, but could not provide specifics.
Ironically, the expansion of the centre, which has received a lot of flak over its strict disciplinary methods, comes after several parents withdrew their children in 1998, forcing it to scale down. The withdrawals, which resulted in the closure of two of the centres branches in the Alligator Pond community, were a reaction to media reports that the staff was using pepper spray, mace and handcuffs to subdue violent outbursts.
Mr. Kay promised at the time to discontinue the use of the pepper spray and other devices and since then, the demand has again risen.
Today, the institution accommodates 255 teenagers -- 86 girls and 169 boys -- from the United States, Canada, England, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Colombia and the Cayman Islands.
Their parents pay US$3,900 ($175,000) per month to keep them there, a fee which puts the centre out of the reach of most Jamaicans. The fees cover boarding, meals and the programme which incorporates training sessions for parents, academic courses for the students and the theory of emotional intelligence. Emotional Intelligence is, essentially, the ability to cope with life.
Dr. Earle Wright, the director of mental health in the Ministry, is currently lobbying for the implementation of a comprehensive programme that will teach children from the basic level up, to be emotionally intelligent. Emotionally intelligent people can manage their emotions, control themselves and, by extension relate intelligently to other people.
Emotional
intelligence
Dr. Wright says that although attempts to teach emotional intelligence through the use of skills, known as life skills, at various levels of the education system, it is critical to implement a comprehensive programme that teaches the skills at the earliest level.
"If we want to reduce some of the fundamental problems in Jamaica -- drug abuse, sexually transmitted diseases and violent behaviour -- we have to do this. It will reduce the number of people who need to go to a facility like Tranquility Bay, which deals with children who are already in trouble," he said.
Tranquility Bay is the only facility of its kind in Jamaica.
Although it has a bad reputation in some quarters as a prison-like institution that violates the rights of its teenage drug addict and delinquents population with disciplinary methods that border on cruelty, it has the approval of the Ministry of Education.
"They have met our approval. Personally, I think some of their modes of discipline are a little severe but, if that is the way to get them to conform... well ...," said Hyacinth Rochester, an officer attached to the Ministry's Independent Schools Registry.
Mrs. Rochester was referring to the school's practice of isolating students who refuse to conform to the rules.
A middle-class Jamaican worker, the only local to have sent her child there, didn't mind.
"My son ran away from the institution and he was put into confinement, but I was at a stage when nothing mattered. You don't have time to listen to horror stories when your child is out of control and living on the streets.
"I thank God every day for Tranquility Bay. I owe my son's life to that school. If they hadn't taken him I know he would not have been where he is today. Right now he's graduated and getting ready to go to college. If it hadn't been for Tranquility Bay he would have been dead or in prison by now," she said.
The boy, who dropped out of a prominent high school in Kingston in the third grade was taken by force to Tranquility Bay two years ago. He graduated last month and is living away from home with his aunt and uncle.
"There are a number of children in Jamaica who need this type of facility, but they can't afford it. These are the ones that will create problems later on," said Dr Wright.
