THE EDITOR, Sir:
WE THE undersigned are encouraged that the long-standing plight of Jamaican children in children's homes and places of safety is receiving public attention. The Gleaner's recent reporting and discussion of some of the findings of the review of the 1999 UNICEF-supported study of these homes is timely.
The long-anticipated establishment of the Child Development Agency, a statutory body with responsibilities inclusive of regulatory and monitoring functions for these children's institutions, has recently been announced as imminent.
It does not take much reading between the lines of these several articles to see the connection between the abusive and neglectful treatment of these children by parents, families and other public and private caregivers and the alarming escalation of crime rates among our young people. An unloved child who grows with violence and/or indifference to his or her daily needs, does not grow into a caring and law-abiding adult. Several of the undersigned have engaged in research that corroborates this obvious connection.
Interventions by caring persons and institutions can change the bleak outlook for these children.
Such interventions in the lives of children at risk are the ultimate role of the state institutions and systems now exposed in your series of reports. It is urgent that children's institutions be assisted with sufficient staff, training and monitoring resources to ensure that they provide safety, caring attention, and especially sensitive responses to children who come to them with histories of abuse.
However, institutionalisation of a child should be a last resort, only when local community supports have failed. Even if they are improved, children's institutions are no more a long-term solution for vulnerable children than are more prison cells a solution to high crime rates. The community level is where the most critical resources are needed.
Church groups, NGOs and other community-based organisations, supported by private sector interests and funds, are essential partners of the state in providing the multiple safety nets that prevent the abuse of children in their homes, schools and community environments. All of us share responsibility for finding solutions to these tragic stories that tug our hearts.
The Children's Issues Coalition is one of the University's commitments to improving the lives of Jamaican/Caribbean children. Each of the undersigned carry responsibilities for research activities and programmes which focus on the needs and interests of our most vulnerable children. We aim to contribute in substantive ways to the development of public policies and programmes in relation to children and their families, based on the results of research and on tested and cost-effective interventions. We are ready partners with government and civil society in seeking real, long-term solutions to prevent the waste of human potential sadly exposed in your Children at Risk series.
We are etc.,
CHILDREN'S ISSUES COALITION:
Elsa Leo-Rhynie, Convenor. Pro-Vice Chancellor, Board of Undergraduate Studies; Janet Brown, Caribbean Child Development Centre; Rose Davies, Institute of Education; Julie Meeks Gardner, Tropical Medicine Research Institute; Maureen Samms-Vaughan, Child Development Unit of the Section of Child Health; Aldene Shillingford, Department of Psychology, Sociology and Social Work; Elizabeth Thomas-Hope, Department of Geography and Geology; Susan Walker, Tropical Medicine Research Institute; Sian Williams, Caribbean Child Development Centre.
