—as Childcare and Protection Agency enhances partnership with police

AN enhanced approach to tackling child abuse is expected, as the Childcare and Protection Agency (CPA) has taken steps to strengthen its partnership with the Guyana Police Force (GPF).
To boost the collaborative effort between the two institutions and create synergies, the CPA conducted a cross-training exercise with approximately 60 officers at the Police Training Centre, on Tuesday. Director of Children’s Services and Head of the CPA, Ann Greene and Legal Counsel at the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security, Telisha Williams, facilitated the session. The exercise is in keeping with Minister of Human Services and Social Security, Dr. Vindhya Persaud’s vision for effective childcare in Guyana, and her plans to roll out several projects to aid in the protection of children. “We have to collaborate with key partners to keep children safe, and the GPF is a key partner. Child protection cannot be done in isolation,” Greene said, adding that the exercise served to sensitise the officers on the work of the CPA. Further, she said: “Safeguarding children is a shared responsibility – everyone’s responsibility. Children can only be safe if families, communities, non-professional and professionals work together. Professionals such as the police, health workers, teachers and social services officers are a must.” “There must be government and private partnerships and collaboration at the community level; but a very important partnership is with the family,” Greene related.

Based on available statistics, for the first quarter of this year alone, a total of 404 boys have been abused, with the figure for girls being 635. The types of abuse reported include physical, sexual, verbal, neglect, and abandonment. In maintaining the aggressive campaign against child abuse in Guyana, Minister Persaud opened two one-stop child advocacy centres for the reporting of child sexual abuse and the treatment of victims.  The centres were established in Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne) through a collaborative effort among the ministry through CPA, Child Link and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). One was opened at Whim and the other at Springlands. The ministry has been conducting robust public engagements aimed at creating linkages between the people and the government. Minister Persaud had said that the aim of reaching out in this way is to ensure that the public has access to key services being offered by the state. “From where I sit, I would like to assure you that our systems from the ministry function efficiently and effectively. So, this gives us an opportunity to assess the performance of our officers across the country because from people you get feedback – Did you go to the office? Were you given a hard time? Did you have a run-around? – so that we can fix those things because you’re only as good as the way you serve people,” Dr. Persaud said.