ChildLink lobbies for more persons to be foster-parents

With child abuse cases for 2018 topping recent figures and mounting to over 4900 cases, ChildLink – an activist group – is calling for more persons to come forward and become foster-parents to be able to help a child who may be in dire need of care and attention.
At a recent forum where a report was presented on the topic by the agency, Samantha Alleyne spoke of the significance such a small gesture can have on a child’s life.
“Our children are being abused everyday all around us and every one of us, all of us sitting here, we all have a role to play and I hope that this evening’s gathering will start something… if each one of us does something, each one of us listens to a child, each one of us report a case, each one of us open our homes, even temporarily, to an abused child, we are going to be making a difference,” she said.
Alleyne, who conducted research for ChildLink to compile the report on ‘Lessons Learnt From Trauma Stories on Child Abuse’, reminded that the scars from child abuse are hard to heal, but the process becomes easier if children are surrounded by persons who are willing to help instead of remind them of their past.
While sharing a survivor’s story, the agency explained that some children are severely battered after being abused, as many times some children are abused by numerous persons. In one instance, the researcher said she came across a child who was abused by five different persons.
During the study, three types of children were used to collect data.

“Children who experience sexual abuse, children who experience physical abuse and children who experience sexual abuse and their cases were persecuted,” Alleyne explained.
Interviews were held with the children who experienced sexual and physical abuse, while the parents of young children who were sexually abused were interviewed because the children were at risk of being traumatised again if asked to recount the experiences.
The interviews were conducted over a four-week period with 17 individuals, inclusive of nine children and eight adults.
In December, the Child Care and Protection Agency (CCPA) revealed that two children are abused every hour in Guyana.
According to CCPA, by the end of October 2018, the Agency had already responded to 4352 child abuse reports, which happens to be the highest number of reported cases ever for the period.
In fact, a 25.4 per cent increase was recorded when compared with figures for the same period last year.
Last September, CCPA Director Anne Greene told Guyana Times that being in formal care has a negative impact on children as she too called for persons to come forward and become foster parents.
Back then, some 700 children were in formal care, however, in the Agency’s Year-in-Review, a total of 175 children were placed in foster care homes with 117 foster parents.