CPA working to improve parenting skills

– building communication between parents and children

– improving supervision within households

– teaching parents appropriate disciplinary actions on children

– ensuring every child has access to education

DPI, Guyana, Saturday, March 2, 2019

Parenting is not easy, but developing good parenting skills will ensure a stronger bond. With this in mind the Ministry of Social Protection’s Childcare and Protection Agency (CPA) hosted a special parenting skills capacity building programme for parents or guardians in the community of Mocha, East Bank Demerara.

The programme implements new measures and ways to assist parents to improve support for their children and focus on building strong and supportive families.

Today’s training session, which commenced today at the Mocha Primary School, will continue every Saturday for the next six weeks, in various communities such as Caneville, Timehri, Yarakabra, Aruni and St. Cuthbert’s Mission.

Emphasising the important role parents play in the development of their children, Probation and Social Services Officer, Milton Smith said the agency is duty-bound to sensitise parents on becoming better guardians, so their children can reach their full potential.

“We want to reach out to at least fifty parents within the Mocha community and this is the first time we are doing this, we are willing to take the service to every community, we are not going to wait for persons to come into the office anymore. We are going to reach out to them,” Milton Smith stated.

Probation and Social Service Officer, Milton Smith.

A young mother introducing herself to her fellow participants

A section of the parents gathered at the Training exercise at Mocha Primary School, EBD

A father explaining his role as a responsible parent

Mocha Primary School, EBD

Youth catching up on some football in the Mocha Primary School compound

He added that parents who partake in the programme have different challenges and abilities and training is designed to help them move from one phase to another when parenting their children.

“The Childcare and Protection Agency will provide the necessary knowledge to parents and will be doing follow up evaluations to ensure that those parents who would have participated in the programme, adapt and utilise the parenting training. We at the agency will work for the children of Guyana to be given the opportunity for a bright future starting from home and that is why we are starting with the parents first.”

At the end of each Parenting Skills Training Programme, parents will be provided certificates upon completion of the exercise.

The agency has, over the years, aggressively sought to educate the public on child protection issues while executing its mandate to protecting the nation’s vulnerable and at-risk children through the elimination of domestic violence and separation of parents, which are two important factors that result in traumatic experiences for children.

The Ministry of Social Protection has received $18Billion in the 2019 budget, to continue its mandate of providing quality service to the country’s vulnerable groups – women, children, the elderly and the homeless.

Ayana George

Images: Giovanni Gajie