Staff of Family Courts in Western Region Complete Training Course

Some 58 members of staff of the Montego Bay, Savanna-La-Mar and Lucea family courts, including three judges and other senior officers, were presented with certificates of participation having completed an eight-month training course aimed at strengthening the family court system.
The course is part of an island-wide project being carried out by the Ministry of Justice under the Citizen Security and Justice Programme (CSJP).
Among the topics covered in the course are: values and ethics in the professional relationship; case management; substance abuse and prevention; crisis intervention; marital, family and individual counselling; managing domestic violence; working with men and sexualized children; and mediation.
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Justice, Carol Palmer, in her address at the graduation exercise held on November 22 at the Wyndham Rose Hall Resort, emphasized the critical importance of training in the justice system.
“It is impossible to overestimate the importance of staff training to the success of any organization and that includes the courts. I’m sure the average individual feels that once you have a judge and lawyers in place, then all is well and the court will run. Maybe that was true at the beginning of the criminal justice system in the modern world, but today, where the climate of operations of any court changes and the expectation of societies, especially the Jamaican society change, then there has to be a training component,” Mrs. Palmer stressed.
She pointed out that with the training, participants would be equipped with improved abilities to discharge the functions that were accorded to them to better serve the people of Jamaica.
CSJP, which is funded through a loan agreement with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), is viewed as one of the mechanisms through which the government of Jamaica could address crime and violence and improve the delivery of judicial services. Some 133 members of staff of the island’s family courts are participating in the training course island wide.