CPA has no established criteria for child placement

The Childcare and Protection Agency (CPA) has no established criteria to determine which facility children are placed in once they are

taken into the State’s care, a recently released ChildLink report has revealed.
The report “An Analysis of the Nature and Extent of Institutionalization 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.
However, it highlighted 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 report questioned, based on this revelation, the type of criteria being used to place children in foster care.
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.
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.
In Guyana efforts have been made to strengthen the legislative framework of the childcare and protection sector. During 2007 to 2011, a number of legislations were presented in Parliament, however a bill which addresses alternative family-based care remains inconclusive.
During the period 2010 to 2015, the ChildLinK in collaboration with the agency, UNICEF, EU and Family for Every Child implemented the Foster Care initiative which led to developing the Kinship Care Initiative (KCI) and subsequently the Alternative Care Initiative (ACI). But its final position is uncertain. The bill is yet to be presented in the House.
The report indicated that while the CPA continues to manage the foster care service, records show that the number of children being institutionalised has grown over a ten-year period by almost 50 per cent.
Additionally, it stated that 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.