Thousands of children rescued yearly by CPFSA

The home is very dangerous place for lots of Jamaican children, with the Child Protection and Family Services Agency (CPFSA) having to rescue, on average, at least 12,000 of them each year, Minister of Education and Youth Fayval Williams disclosed Thursday evening.

Williams was addressing the Rotary Club of New Trafalgar Heights meeting on the ‘The Impact of the Pandemic on our Children’s Education and the Way Forward’.

”They are the first responder to the things that happen to children in Jamaica [and] they work with the police, obviously, because there are some times when arrests have to be made of adults,” said Williams of the CPFSA, which has a budget of about $3.2 billion annually.

Williams described the CPFSA as the “safety net when all other safety nets have failed the child”.

“So the safety net at the home would have torn a big hole in it and the child would have fallen through for whatever reason. Safety net at the school, same thing, so the CPFSA is a safety net that catches those children,” she said.

There are about 4,500 children in state care housed between institutions and foster homes, but the preferred mode is for the children to be with families, who are given financial support, up to age 21 in some cases.

“We ensure that they go to school and get all the things that other children would get,” Williams said.