Gareth Manning, Gleaner Writer
Osbourne Bailey, national coordinator of the Victim Support Unit in the Ministry of National Security, conducts a counsellors' training session for teachers in Morant Bay, St. Thomas, last week. - IAN ALLEN/STAFF PHOTOGRPAHER
WITH CRIME and violence identified as the country's most pressing problem, Government has introduced a programme to ease the burden on victims of crime or their relatives.
Since 1998 at least 80,000 victims of major crimes have benefited from the work of the Ministry of National Security's Victim Support Unit.
The unit operates in all 14 parishes, working through a mix of professionals and volunteers to lessen the emotional baggage hurled on victims of heinous crimes in Jamaica.
"The ultimate aim of the unit is to provide a support base for all victims of crime, and this support base does as much as is possible to foster rehabilitation in the event of a crime and equip people with skills to prevent persons from becoming victims of crime," said Osbourne Bailey, national coordinator of the unit.
TEACHING COUNSELLING SKILLS
He spoke to The Gleaner while conducting a training session in Morant Bay, St. Thomas, last week. The session was aimed at imparting basic counselling skills to a mixed group of police, teachers, nurses and other civil servants.
The presentation came a few weeks after the slaughter of a family of six in Duhaney Pen, St. Thomas. The victims were Patrice George-McCool, 28; nine-year-old Sean Chin Jr.; Lloyd Marshall George McCool, three; Jihad George McCool, seven; Jesse O'Gilvie, nine; and Terry-Ann Mohammed, 40. They were all buried on Sunday after an emotional funeral attended by Prime Minister-designate Portia Simpson Miller, Opposition Leader Bruce Golding and Commissioner of Police Lucius Thomas.
"These (teachers, police, nurses, etc.) are the people who are close to the victims," coordinator, Nesta Haye explained. "So they are trained to give emotional support."
While counselling is not the unit's only form of support to victims, it is the primary focus and it's the main form of assistance.
"I think it's safe to say that we have counselled victims in all of those [incidents] that you see in the news. We respond directly to many of these incidents," Mr. Bailey said. "We make the initial contact sometimes at home, in some instances, because sometimes there is no other way," he added.
Some of those benefiting include the immediate relatives and community members of the three children murdered in Killancolly, St. Mary early last year and the immediate relatives and community in which 10 year old Shanieka Brown and three other relatives were burned to death on Barnes Avenue in South St. Andrew.
However, the incidents reported in the media do not represent all the victims the unit responds to. Many of its clients are sourced through the police, the court and people who walk in with their problems.
PSYCHOTHERAPY FOR VICTIMS
Many of the victims, Mr. Bailey explained, are in denial or so grief stricken that psychotherapy has to be recommended for some patients, but despite the burden the unit's staff has been able to work consistently and efficiently with its patients.
But he admitted the unit needed more staff.
"We wish we had more staff for the sheer reason that the victims number grow. Sometimes what we have is proven adequate, but in cases of emergency we are stretched," he said.
How to be a volunteer
Contact one of the VSU parish offices to collect registration forms.
Kingston and St. Andrew
47e Old Hope Road
Call: 946-0663, 946-9287
St. Catherine
42 Young St.,
Spanish Town
Call: 749-6263, 749-6244
Clarendon
RM Court Building
Call: 902-1613,
902-1623
St. Mary
RM Court House,
Main St.
Port Maria
Call: 994-9125
Manchester
The RADA Bldg.
Call: 625-4112-3
St. Elizabeth
80 Main St.
Call: 966-3481
St. Ann
61 Main Street, St. Ann's Bay
Call: 972-9489
St. Thomas
15 Church St.
Morant Bay
Call: 734-5638, 734-5650
St. James
3 East Street,
Montego Bay
Call: 940- 4967
Trelawny
19 Victoria St.
Call: 617-5522
Westmoreland
United Church Hall
Savana-la- Mar
Call: 918-1741, 918-0157
Portland
Shop #317
West Palm Court
Port Antonio, P.O.
Call: 993-4542
Hanover
United Church Hall, Church Hall
Call: 956-3143, 956-2030.
