ChildLink report is “substandard” research – CPA

The Childcare and Protection Agency (CPA) is outraged by the findings of a ChildLink report which pointed out that the Agency has no established criteria to determine which facility children are placed in once they are taken into the State’s care and that children are abused while in the care of the State.

“We have criteria and we follow it. We do not operate haphazardly,” a CPA official stated, highlighting that there is a Childcare Agency Act which the outfit is guided by in determining how a child is placed into a home.

The report “An Analysis of the Nature and Extent of Institutionalisation of Children in Guyana” stated that the Agency reported that based on “informal determination” of the facilities’ strengths, as well as the care facilities’ preferences with regards to age and sex, a child is placed.

It emphasised that the consultants at the Agency were not in an informed position to indicate clearly where, for instance, an abused child – whether physical, sexual, neglected or otherwise ? would be placed, as against a child whose family could not adequately provide food and shelter for them.

The official at the Agency asserted that ChildLink is aware that there are standard operating procedures that the organisation adheres to and said they were shocked by its findings. “We are still trying to come to grips with the presentation of the research,” the official said.

The official added that there are special homes for children who have been abused, stated that “we just don’t drop them into one place.”

Child Counsellor Abbigale Loncke had stated that Guyana does not have separate facilities to cater for children who have either been abused or taken in because of wandering or poverty. She stated that while children enter alternative care for various reasons, they are all put in one type of facility ? there is no distinctive facility.

According to the ChildLink report, caregivers were not considerate with respect to the circumstances faced by a child, which gave rise to their admission to the facility before the placement was made. “Rather, they were informed that the child would be assigned there and the facility was required to make the necessary arrangements for his or her admission,” it said, adding that this posed many challenges, since the caregivers did not know what to expect and therefore were unprepared for the circumstances presented by each child.

“Some form of dialogue is, therefore, necessary between the residential facility and CPA before a child’s admission so that an informed response based on the particular needs of the child could be provided,” the report recommended.

The official, however, contended that the report was “poorly” done since there are a number of discrepancies in it.

“It is unethical to use what one child says and say it is the same for the rest,” the official stated, adding that the interviewer is unaware of what is going on in the child’s mind at that moment. “Some of them just want to go home and they would say anything to get them to leave,” the official added.

As of March 2016, the CPA recorded that 803 children were in alternative care (foster and residential), of which 624 of these children are in residential care, while 179 are in foster care. These children were placed in alternative care because of various forms of abuse, poverty, disasters, disability of a parent, and the death of a parent.