Courts lack options for at-risk children, says Gordon Harrison

Children’s Advocate Diahann Gordon Harrison has declared that courts cannot issue therapeutic orders under the Child Care and Protection (Amendment) Act (CCPA) because the required treatment facilities have not been established.

The issue has surfaced three years after amendments to the act were approved, enabling courts to mandate that children with behavioural challenges – formerly termed ‘uncontrollable’ – be placed in specialised centres for appropriate therapeutic care and intervention.

Gordon Harrison said the therapeutic facilities – which should be staffed with trained professionals - must be urgently established and equipped with the required human and physical resources.

She told a joint select committee of Parliament reviewing the Child Diversion Act that operating without these centres exposes Jamaica to ongoing international scrutiny and leaves courts unable to effectively address cases involving children with behavioural challenges.

“The challenge is where the courts find its hands tied – they don’t want to send the child to a correctional facility – they can’t send the child home because the parents aren’t coping and the child really needs therapeutic intervention. When there is an attempt to make a referral under the Child Care and Protection Act (CCPA) to that therapeutic centre, there is none,” she said.

Committee member Marisa Dalrymple Philibert echoed the sentiments of the children’s advocate, stressing the urgent need for these centres, noting that because of their absence, many children end up in children’s homes, which are not equipped to offer therapeutic care and support.

Gordon Harrision said her office has observed a reliance on the child diversion programme to address matters involving children who are deemed to have behavioural challenges. She cautioned that this represents a misalignment with the intended focus of the principles that undergird child diversion.

Gordon Harrison explained that child diversion was meant to deal with children who had committed a criminal offence and not children who ran away from home or stayed away from school.

“To overextend the programme by having it treat with matters that require a social and therapeutic intervention under the rubric of care and protection does not stay true to the objective of the Child Diversion Act and the mandates of the Child Diversion Office,” she said.

Children with behavioural issues, she contended, were not in conflict with the law and require a different response such as the therapeutic care orders that have been provided for in the amendments to the CCPA.

The Children’s Advocate also presented preliminary 2025-2026 data on Child Diversion Act referrals.

In St James, there were 200 referrals, with 88 (48 per cent) involving children labelled “uncontrollable”. Clarendon recorded 39 referrals, 10 (25.6 per cent) for behavioural challenges. St Catherine had 99 referrals, including 28 (28.3 per cent) for behavioural issues, and Westmoreland reported 62 referrals, 34 (54.8 per cent) of which involved children with behavioural challenges.

edmond.campbell@gleanerjm.com