UPDATED: Transition for teens - UWI Open Campus helping children who are wards of the state to move into the adult world
Published:Sunday | February 3, 2019 | 12:00 AMNadine Wilson/Staff Reporter
Like parents preparing their children to tackle the world, representatives of the University of the West Indies (UWI) Open Campus have been helping wards of the state prepare for independent living when they leave children’s homes.
The group has been doing this for more than five years with a grant from the United States Agency for International Development valued at more than US$5 million, and the support of the Child Protection and Family Services Agency (CPFSA).
Approximately 700 children leave Jamaica’s child protection system annually, and under a transitional living programme for children in state care, the groups have been doing what they can to fully prepare them for adulthood.
“They have a saying that each child is my child,” said the deputy principal for UWI Open Campus and chief investigator for the programme, Professor Julie Meeks.
“We are seeing the children like our children and what we would want for our children when they are 18 years old. We don’t close the door on them and say go about your business. We make sure that they still have a roof over their heads and they are channelled to the right education, or skills training, or employment opportunity, so we want the same for these children who are so disadvantaged,” Meeks toldThe Sunday Gleaner.
Head of the Caribbean Child Development Centre and director of the Consortium for Social Development and Research at the UWI Open Campus, Ceceile Minott, said the programme targets children in state care who are 14 years and older. Under the project, these children are exposed to life skills training, vocational skills training, on-the-job training and mentoring.
The group has been assisting with the paying of school fees for wards of the state who have been identified by the CPFSA for vocational training. More than 590 students have benefited so far under this initiative.
The Open Campus has also trained 40 persons from the CPFSA, including monitoring officers, social workers and children officers, and they have in turn trained 500 persons, including caregivers, foster mothers and others helping to care for children in state care.
“Eventually, we hope that it will filter down to all the children in the system and it will be a part of their day-to-day growing up,” said Dr Priya Anaokar, who is the project coordinator for the Transitional Living Programme for Children in State Care.
“Sometimes children, when they are in an institutionalise setting, they lose out on very basic skills. You don’t know how to make your bed because someone is doing it for you, you don’t know how to boil water because someone else is doing it for you, even when you grow up,” she said.
The children are taught other skills, such as how to manage in the kitchen, how to budget, and carry out certain tasks such as opening a bank account.
One of the issues for children upon leaving state care is finding a suitable place to live, and so under the programme, the Open Campus intends to provide living quarters to those transitioning out of state care.
One apartment complex has been established so far that can accommodate 40 females, while another complex is set to open next year. There are plans to build another apartment complex for males in rural Jamaica.
“So this is just a short term solution to help them get on their feet until they are ready to move out,” explained field assistant for the Transitional Living Programme, Kathi-Ann Thomas.
“This is a stop-gap solution to help them get on their feet because when you leave the state care facilities, you are in limbo, you are wondering what you are going to do next, so this is a housing solution, to help them feel at ease, but still remind them that they still need to be prepared for independent living after they leave,” said Thomas.
NOTE: An earlier version of this story had incorrectly identified Ceceile Minott as the head of the UWI Open Campus. She is actually the head of the Caribbean Child Development Centre and director of the Consortium for Social Development and Research at the UWI Open Campus.