CC&PA is effective – former official

…but agency has too many cases, too few case workers

A former Child Care and Protection Agency (CC&PA) official has stepped out to defend the agency, saying it is not that the agency is not effective in delivering their work, it is just that they are swamped.
The former official, who worked as a counsellor in the agency, stated that people or organisations looking in from the outside do not know what is going on within the agency.
“What people fail to realise is that the Child Protection Agency is a small body and the workload is more than they can handle; and sometimes things will slip through the cracks, and that is not good, but we need to be human and understand that it is a situation where there are too many cases and too few case workers,” the former staff explained.
On Friday, Help and Shelter Director and Project Coordinator Margaret Kertzious stated that the Agency has been lagging in providing effective care for children who are victims of abuse and neglect.
However, the former staff stated that instead of criticising the agency, these other organisations should have dialogue with the agency to outsource case workers. “They don’t need new services, they need case workers to reach out to those children… children that are classified according to colour lines… those that are considered emergency cases,” the official said.
According to the Official (who requested anonymity), the agency does not have the financial means to hire more workers, so this is an area that they desperately need help in: “However, they also need to ask for help. They need to say the word and other agencies and companies would help. The focus here shouldn’t be on the agency, but on the children that are being left in the open and vulnerable.”
Meanwhile, Kertzious had stated that while there have been many consultations and promises of collaboration between the CPA and the shelter, this has not transpired except for the referrals.
She noted that prior to the establishment of the agency, Help & Shelter offered successful psychosocial counselling and court support services to hundreds of abused children, including survivors of sexual violence, but now their face-to-face and court support counselling services are not being utilised by the agency.
When the head of the CC&PA Ann Green was contacted initially for a comment, she stated she would not respond at the moment, but will be making a public statement on the matter at a later date.
According to the UNICEF Situational Analysis 2016 Report, only around 100 social workers, child protection officers and school welfare officers are employed in the entire country.
There are over 800 children displaced from their families and living in institutional care.