CPA working to unite children with their biological families
GINA, GUYANA, Tuesday, May 2, 2017
The Child Care and Protection Agency (CPA) has embarked on a project that could see several children returned to their biological families.
Director of the CPA, Ann Greene explained that the project is aimed at reviewing the status of children in ‘residential care facilities to determine whether they are eligible to return home.
“The children that could be returned to their biological families will be returned to them. We’re also looking to see the progress that the families have made so that we can return the children; we’re not going to return a child to a family or a situation where we have removed them from and nothing has changed,” Greene explained.
Director, Child Care and Protection Agency, Ann Greene
The project is a collaborative effort with UNICEF and a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Blossom Incorporated. Greene noted that the project is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
She noted that the staff at CPA already have a packed work programme therefore; the project will primarily be executed by members of Blossom Incorporated.
“The staff case loads are so high, and I can’t put more load on the staff, so we’re doing it with an NGO that will be helping us to do all the reviews of the children in the residential care institutions. There are about 600 plus children in residential care institutions. The project has commenced already,” Green explained.
Additionally, the CPA Director stated that efforts are intensifying to register and licence day care facilities in Georgetown. She posited that CPA is currently working with the Guyana Fire Service to conduct fire drill exercises with the small number of those day care facilities in Essequibo to get them registered and licenced.
The agency will soon commence similar work in Linden so all day care facilities in Guyana can be registered and licenced.
Greene said the agency will continue to work with communities, families and teenage mothers to better protect and care children.
By: Ranetta La Fleur