Justice Ministry Highlights Safe Spaces for Child Victims of Crime

Director of the Justice Ministry’s Victim Services Branch (VSB), Dionne Dawn Binns, says child-friendly spaces are providing an environment to help children who are victims of crime feel safe.

“These spaces are designed to help the children feel calm and comfortable while they’re interacting with their counsellor, their social worker, whomever it may be,” Ms. Binns told JIS News.

She indicated that two of the spaces, located in Portland and Manchester, were developed with donor funding support, adding that “we are looking, going forward, to be able to develop more spaces in our offices”.

Ms. Binns noted that child-friendly spaces also provide an opportunity for children to not only open up and share what they need to share but to adjust to what is happening and to benefit from the therapy that they are receiving.

“We utilise play therapy a lot with our children, because some persons don’t know that the language of a child is play. So, we utilise play therapy strategies to help them to open up, help them to tell their story, help them to understand what is happening, and to also benefit from the therapy that they would receive from their counsellors,” she explained.

“We try to ensure that, not only are we providing the counselling and the emotional support, but our physical spaces are also developed and established in such a way that is conducive, especially for our children,” the Director further stated.

Ms. Binns informed that the child-friendly spaces are very colourful, cheerful and bright, while noting that murals are also located on the walls, which the children enjoy looking at.

“[They have] furniture that is conducive to children. So whereas a standard counselling room may have a couch and chairs in a regular setup, these have child-sized chairs, tables, beanbags, things that the children enjoy sitting on [among other things]. There are also… therapeutic tools (toys) that we use in the therapy [sessions] to be able to assist the children. So, it may look, from a general perspective, like a toy, but it has specific meanings and is utilised in therapy,” she stated.

The Director further informed that there is audiovisual set-up, which is used to show animation films to children, depicting topics such as good touch or bad touch.

“We have encouragement to a victim of a sex crime, we have one on trafficking in persons or to deal with a bully, [among] a number of them that we have. Sometimes whilst they’re there, we will show them the film and it gets the conversation going. It helps them, again, to understand what is happening with them and also what they can do in the event that something should happen with them again,” Ms. Binns stated.

To learn more about the programmes and services offered by the Victim Services Branch and its parish offices, visit the Ministry of Justice website at moj.gov.jm, or call toll-free at 888-JUSTICE (888-587-8423).

Additional contact numbers include (876) 946-0663 and (876) 946-9287.