Yahneake Sterling, Staff Reporter
THE INITIATIVE by the Child Development Agency (CDA) to place children in state-run homes in foster care has reaped early success, according to information received from the agency last week.
The CDA said 21 per cent of the youngsters currently in residential care have been placed with foster families.
Reports from the CDA indicate that, in the past two years, of the 5,423 children that are in the care of the state, 1,121 have been placed in foster care. However, the child care agency stated that one of its main objectives is to increase the number of children in foster care by at least 25 per cent.
The Foster Care Programme is part of the Living in Family Environment (LIFE) Programme which seeks to re-unite children with their families. The programme, which includes home on trial (family reintegration) and supervision order (family under supervision of a children's officer), together involves 1,648 children, 30 per cent of the number of children currently in state care.
"We think we have done pretty well in terms of the movement of children from institutional care to foster care, which forms part of our LIFE programme," Allison Anderson, CDA Chief Executive Officer, said. "At the rate we are going, I see us surpassing our 60 per cent target for 2007."
The CDA says that, between April 2005 and March 2006, 140 children who were wards of the state, were adopted. Additionally, 33 adoption licenses relating to adoptions to be completed overseas were granted.
"Although there are many applications the children must first be free for adoption, that means that the parents must first consent to the adoption," said Winston Bowen, Director of Programmes at the CDA. He added that, for clear cases of abandonment, the state has the authority to permit an adoption.
The public can get involved with assisting wards of the state in any of the following areas:
Adoption - a process where parental rights are transferred from biological parents or the state to individuals who assume the role of parents and stand in relation to the child as their biological parents.
Mentorship - mentoring of children in different ways - children who are missing their families, reading to children, spending time doing homework with children. Overall think about your child and picture these children in the homes having the same needs as your child.
Visits - just visit with the children in the homes and spend quality time with them
Sponsorship - sponsor a child. Visit a home, choose a child and become that child's sponsor - food, clothes, time, etc.
Work with managers of the facilities to find out in what areas persons can be of assistance - e.g. Set up a system for emergency especially at nights where one can be on call with transportation if there is no other alternative for the home.
