RHON­DA K RAM­BAL­LY

There is no ev­i­dence of phys­i­cal, sex­u­al, men­tal and emo­tion­al abuse against chil­dren at the St Mary's Home, Tacarigua. Min­is­ter of the Peo­ple and So­cial De­vel­op­ment Dr Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh, how­ev­er, said "off-site in­ter­views" con­duct­ed with two for­mer res­i­dents sup­port­ed some of the al­le­ga­tions but be­cause of time con­straints, they could not be val­i­dat­ed by the in­ves­ti­gat­ing com­mit­tee.

The com­mit­tee was head­ed by deputy per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the min­istry, Ter­rance Ju­rawan, and nine high-rank­ing of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing act­ing as­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Mar­garet Samp­son-Browne. The al­le­ga­tions were pub­li­cised in Ju­ly by East­lyn Orr, a for­mer chap­lain of the home. Orr al­so claimed chil­dren were fed scraps of food and giv­en the worst bits of cloth­ing sent to the home by the Gov­ern­ment and well-wish­ers.

At a me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day, Ra­mad­hars­ingh said: "While there is a sense that some of the chil­dren at the home may dis­play at times promis­cu­ous be­hav­iour, it was gen­er­al­ly agreed that this could be man­aged once the prop­er psy­cho­log­i­cal help is ob­tained and staff is in­creased and ad­e­quate­ly trained." In the area of man­age­ment, the com­mit­tee said there was a crit­i­cal need to have ad­di­tion­al and ap­pro­pri­ate­ly qual­i­fied staff.

It found there was no prop­er doc­u­men­ta­tion for "do­na­tions in kind", re­ceived and is­sued. Ra­mad­hars­ingh said with­in one month, mon­i­tor­ing of­fi­cers would be in­sti­tut­ed in homes 24/7. He added: "They will be trained to pick up any ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties or any changes in be­hav­iour of the chil­dren or any al­le­ga­tions of any kind of lack of care at these homes or abuse. "So we are work­ing to­wards im­ple­ment­ing this with­in one month's time."

Poli­cies

The com­mit­tee rec­om­mend­ed the fol­low­ing:

�2 A pol­i­cy and pro­ce­dure man­u­al be pre­pared and dis­trib­uted to all ex­ist­ing and new staff;

�2 the man­age­ment board should have a rep­re­sen­ta­tive on the se­lec­tion com­mit­tee for re­cruit­ment of staff;

�2 all pro­cure­ment mat­ters should be gov­erned by the Cen­tral Ten­ders Board Act;

�2 a con­tem­po­rary train­ing pro­gramme should be de­vel­oped and im­ple­ment­ed with­in three months;

�2 a mon­i­tor­ing of­fi­cer for homes as soon as pos­si­ble;

�2 all chil­dren should be as­sessed with­in three months of ac­cep­tance; and,

�2 train­ing pro­gramme for care­givers should be de­vel­oped and im­ple­ment­ed with­in three months.