Targeted Interventions For Children Living And Working On The Streets

The problem of children living and working on the streets is one of the issues to be addressed by the Child Protection and Family Services Agency (CPFSA), through a series of targeted interventions.

One key intervention will be undertaken through the agency’s overarching ‘Positive Parenting’ campaign, aimed at addressing all the ills the nation’s children are facing, including corporal punishment and abuse.

A component of this campaign, which is expected to get under way before the end of the year, will focus on addressing the factors that lead to children living and working on the streets.

Director, Policy, Planning and Evaluation, CPFSA, Newton Douglas, who made the announcement at the agency’s virtual quarterly press briefing on July 14, said this aspect of the campaign will focus on the social norms, beliefs and attitudes which influence this lifestyle.

“The essence of this [segment of the] campaign is to achieve behaviour change. If we can help parents to become more effective in their parenting styles, in empowering them with the means to provide for the needs of their families, then children will not need to focus on monetary gains instead of educational gains,” he added.

Embarking on a public education intervention to address the issue of street and working  children is in keeping with the recommendations coming out of the report on the ‘Study of Children Working and Living on the Streets in Jamaica’, which was recently tabled in Parliament.

Mr. Douglas said the issue of children working and living on the streets is of grave concern to the Government, as the practice “is indicative of a lifestyle of significant risk, wherein both their safety and health development as children are compromised.”

He noted that it is for this reason that the CPFSA commissioned the study, especially given the increased presence of street and working children, the absence of empirical data on this cohort, and the need to design a “response apparatus” that is structured, impactful and sustainable.

The study, which was conducted across nine parishes – Kingston and St. Andrew, St. Catherine, Clarendon, Westmoreland, St. James, St. Ann, St. Mary and St. Thomas – will be used to inform policies, programmes and interventions related to children on the streets in Jamaica.

Mr. Douglas explained that the purpose of the research, which focused on children between the ages of five and 17, was to determine the factors which predispose children to live and work on the streets and to identify gaps in the provision of care and social protection services that impede an effective response in addressing this issue.

The study was conducted by the Institute for Applied Social Research (IASR) from 2018 to 2019 with technical and financial assistance from the United States-based Winrock International, under its Country Level Engagement and Assistance to Reduce Child Labour (CLEAR II) Project.

In the meantime, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the CPFSA, Rosalee Gage-Grey, said a Task Force has been set up to action the recommendations of the study, noting that the ‘Positive Parenting’ campaign is a major part of the CPFSA’s ongoing marketing and public education efforts.

She noted that ultimately, through the implementation of the recommendations, the ultimate aim is to get children off the streets and to discourage the practice among other children.

“[The] effort now is to get those who are on the streets off and to work with the communities to do the intervention with parents and families within the communities, so that they will not have the need to go. This is going to take a lot of collaboration with other stakeholders because from the research you would see that the needs that they have are not necessarily a child-protection need, but there are other social protection needs that they have that need to be addressed,” the CEO said.

In his remarks, Programme Officer, Human Rights, Education, and Empowerment, Winrock International, Doug Green, said the study provides needed evidence to ground interventions in the actual situation that children working on the street face.

“It also sets a strong foundation for key initiatives, such as the recent establishment of the Street and Working Children Task Force,” he said.

Winrock is a non-profit organisation that works with people around the world to increase economic opportunities, sustain national resources and to protect the environment.

Under its CLEAR II Project, Winrock worked collaboratively with host governments in six countries, including Jamaica, to provide technical assistance to bring about meaningful reductions in child labour.