Representatives of the Child Protection Unit and the Department of Gender and Family Affairs appeared on The Rundown talk show with host Clint Watson this week where they addressed issues of child abuse.
Chief Social Worker, Andrea Newbold shared her view that children lack key social and conflict resolution skills due to the deterioration in parenting quality. She said, “we have a national parenting program that deals with parenting skills for parents and children come along with their parents. We have individual counselling. What have co-parent, how to co-parent, because we find that there are a lot of single parents in our country. They are taught how to co-parent. When you have children who live in two different homes, you have one parent doing one thing and the other one doing the next. Right down to devices, everyone needs to be on the same page with devices. When you going to us them. Parents need to know what these apps are.”
Also appearing was Director of Gender and Family Affairs, Sharmie Farrington who called on the private sector to partner with the social services ministry. “A lot of times people who need these programs and these infrastructure that the public demands the government, then, has to provide the resources. I call on the private sector and civil society to join hand. The government is a labour of love. It’s the private sector that makes that profit and I just want to challenge them, a part of your profit, look at your program, see if they’re being responsive to the community need and I know about of them are doing some stuff. Look where there’s problem, for our children especially. They are vulnerable. See if your organization can divert or place some of their profit into programs.”
