THE MINISTRY of Health said $550 million will be used to finance the Child Development Agency (CDA) that is in transition to become an executive agency on April 1, 2004.
Alison Anderson, chief executive officer of the CDA, said the regionalisation and establishment of policies and procedures that will affect service delivery were among the first priorities of the new agency.
In a release, the Ministry said four regional units have been established to manage the service delivery systems across the island. The regions are North East, comprising the parishes of St. Ann, St. Mary and Portland; Western, comprising St. James, Westmoreland, Hanover and Trelawny; Southern, comprising Manchester, Clarendon and St. Elizabeth, and South East, comprising St. Thomas, St. Catherine, Kingston and St. Andrew.
GREATER LEVEL OF
RESPONSIVENESS
"The move is in keeping with the overall thrust of reform, where decision-making is pushed closer to the level of service delivery," Ms. Anderson said. "These directors are responsible for administration, service delivery and field operations. The new management structure will allow for a greater level of responsiveness and will enhance our ability to carry out our mandate to protect the nation's children," she added.
The monitoring of homes and places of safety will be enhanced with the new management structure. "Monitoring officers are now being recruited who will report to the directors and they will have an important role to play in quality management. They will have oversight responsibility for the children's homes and places of safety. Among their performance targets will be the number of visits they make to these institutions and the quality of care at the institutions will be a key performance indicator," Ms. Anderson said.
Furthermore, Ms. Anderson said, there will be a set number of days within which the agency will respond to cases of suspected abuse. "Speed of response reflects the ability to adapt the service process to meet the children's needs. We will also be setting standards relating to the number of complaints from children. This indicator will reflect on the level of client satisfaction and will measure the effectiveness of our service delivery," the chief executive said.
Ms. Anderson said Jamaica's children would be the ultimate beneficiaries of an agency that would be child-centred, family-focused, performance-driven and measurement-oriented. "We have a serious societal problem which has resulted from the breakdown of the family unit," she said. "The number of abandoned children is growing and more of our children are running foul of the law. Last year, we received over 12,200 requests to intervene in situations where children were in need of care and protection, were beyond paren-tal protection or where children committed offences. This is a five per cent increase in the number of requests received the year before," she said. "Each year, we are placing more children in alternative care because too many parents do not have the resources or the necessary competencies to care for their children."
