There will be a special component to the 100-day centenary celebrations for the life of Jamaica’s most revered cultural icon, Louise Bennett-Coverley, courtesy of a storyboard that has been created by prominent businessman Kevin O’Brien Chang. The...
In March 2007, Jamaica became the first country to affix its signature to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Seven years later, in 2014, Jamaica passed the Disabilities Act. However, that piece of legislation...
A significant majority of students who present with some type of learning or intellectual disability in Jamaica are boys, a Gleaner investigation has revealed. Of the approximately 2,500 young people between five and 18 years old, who attend...
The leadership of the St Andrew-based August Town Primary has been moving to stem the traumatic impact of violence on its students. August Town, a hotbed of gang violence for many years, experienced a lull in homicides in 2016, leading to...
Administrators at the St Andrew-based Papine High School and neighbouring August Town Primary School have been forced to arrange counselling and other interventions for dozens of students afflicted by post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other...
Many children with disabilities (CWDs) are being sexually and physically abused by persons inside the special education facilities that they attend, according to the Centre for Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse (CISOCA). The Gleaner...
A home has been found for the 16-year-old boy who hails from Newcombe Valley in St Elizabeth, suffers from a severe case of cerebral palsy and whose family was told that he could not be accommodated in a state-run facility unless a ward of the...
There are estimates that up to 46,000 Jamaican children are afflicted with a severe form of mental health disorder that requires immediate intervention. However, only 4,006 were seen at the child guidance clinics during 2018 according to Ministry...
Many Jamaican children with mental health disorders are not getting access to the required interventions that could make them productive members of the society in their later years. As a result, several of these youngsters end up turning to a life...
Imagine being told that in order for your 16-year-old nephew, who has a severe case of cerebral palsy and who you are no longer able to care for, can only be accommodated at a state-run facility if a ward of the state dies. This is the reality for...
Children’s Advocate Diahann Gordon Harrison says there is a direct correlation between increasing cases of revenge porn among high-school students and the lack of legislation to tackle cyberbullying locally. She made the disclosure during a recent...
Convenor of the lobby group Hear The Children’s Cry Betty-Ann Blaine wants tougher laws to make it easier to go after ‘sextortionists’ who prey on the nation’s children. Sextortion is the practice of extorting money or sexual favours from someone...
