A mental assessment conducted on staff at three state-run child care facilities found troubling issues, including the inability of more than half of the caregivers to define the term abuse and the use of lashes as the main form of punishment.
This is according to facilitator of the 2014 Staff Mental Status Assessment (SMSA) Ingrid Goodman, of the Personal Achievement To Overcome Individual Struggles (PATOIS) programme, who has accused both Director of the Child Care and Protection Agency (CC&PA) Ann Greene and Minister of Social Protection Volda Lawrence of showing disinterest in her findings, while incompetency persists in the care of institutionalised children.
Goodman, in a letter sent to Stabroek News last week, released some of her findings as she attempted to shed light on the “right direction” when it comes to institutionalised “abused and at-risk” children.
In her assessment report, it was stated that 33 caregivers and two social workers were interviewed individually, while 32 caregivers and one social worker participated in a group interview. The interviewees were employed at Mahaica Children’s Home, Sophia Care Centre, and the Drop-in Centre.
When it came to the basic reading and comprehension skills of the participants, she said that 94% said they understood the CC&PA policy on discipline. However, it was found that 66% of those interviewed were “unable to define abuse.”
The report said that 59.1% of those interviewed only had a primary-level education, while 34.2% had a secondary-level education. The 5.5% who had a tertiary education were all based at the Mahaica facility.
In addition, it was noted that in relation to the methods of punishment, lashes were utilised the most overall, while no privilege and talking were next in line. Lashes was the most used method at the Sophia location, while Mahaica caregivers mainly utilised the talk method and the no-privilege method. The most popular methods at the Drop-in Centre, according to the report, were lashes and no-privileges.
In her letter, Goodman said that in 2012, Greene engaged her to provide training for the caregivers employed at the three locations and this was subsequently done over a two weekend period, with approximately 60 staff members participating.
She said that in 2014, the CC&PA Director again engaged her to design training for the caregivers of the three centres as there had been no improvement in their behaviours towards the children.
Goodman stated that this time around she told Greene that something must be wrong with the caregivers and she suggested that the SMSA be conducted.
She said that it was done and the results were turned over to Greene in August, 2014.
“Many insiders (organisations) that work closely with CC&PA are aware of my report so in 2016 this may be new information the wider public. Editor you may beg the question, why did I wait till now to make this information public? My response is confidentiality and information benefits the holder of that information and not necessarily to the benefit of those affected by that information,” she said in defence of her including parts of the report in the letter.
“Two years was enough time for the CC&PA to correct the problem, but when the CC&PA received the report communication channels became clogged and the incompetency continued until the 8th of July, 2016 [when] two children lost their lives and scores of children and families are once again thrown into a deeper state of trauma,” she said.
Goodman was referring to a fire at the Drop-in Centre, which claimed the lives of two small children last month.
“The sad and shameful reality is he/she who gets the contract, gets the contract, the ink is dry and we the public read about the tragedy in your newspapers and continue to talk about the lack of trained and skilled professional available to address the psycho-social problems that exist in our communities,” she said.
Goodman stated that when the report was completed, “the data was not statistically analysed” but was put into a table format and this along with the raw data was handed over to Greene.
“When the data was put in statistical format and the Director was notified to get a copy, she was not interested,” she said.
Stabroek News contacted Greene last Friday and she denied this.
Greene, in her comments to this newspaper, said Goodman did indeed present the information “to us in a presentation format and she was to give the final copy.” She said she was not sure if that was ever done.
“We have looked at the information and in fact it has informed us and it has helped,” she added.
Meanwhile, Goodman, in her letter, stated too that on May 25, 2015 she requested an appointment with the Minister Lawrence to present these findings and introduce a Women’s Refuge Homeless Shelter Programme to her and the ministry. The programme focuses on female perpetrators whose children are in state-run institutions and require mandatory Community Mental Health interventions. “To date I’m awaiting a response to that request,” she said.
Speaking on the minister’s behalf, the ministry’s public relations officer Terrence Esseboom said Goodman failed to contact Director of Social Services Whentworth Tanner as was advised on several occasions.
He explained that the minister did meet Goodman informally on several occasions, the last time being at a two-day social workers conference held last month at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre. He said the two had met away from the minister’s office prior to that.
According to Esseboom, prior to that informal meeting, Goodman was advised to present her findings to Tanner, who is based at the ministry’s Cornhill Street location. “To date she has not done so,” he said, while adding that the woman had instead been consistently saying that she was advised to take the information to the minister’s office.
