Social Protection Ministry works to scale down NOC admissions

Jan 11, 2016 News

“The institutionalisation of children oftentimes is not the better thing; it should be our last resort,” said Chief Probation and Social Services Officer within the Ministry of Social Protection, Mr. Forbes Munroe.

Chief Probation and Social Services Officer, Mr. Forbes Munroe

He made this assertion even as he mused over the fact that there is a situation where perhaps too many juveniles are placed at the New Opportunity Corps (NOC). The NOC, located at Onderneeming, Essequibo Coast functions as a detention centre for youths 18 years old and younger whose detainment were sanctioned by the court system.
But in order to ensure that too many youths are not simply entrusted into the care of the correctional facility, Munroe said that his Department is working towards even reducing the number of youths who are placed at NOC.
He said that even if they are required to be placed there, the Department will be channelling more support towards their aftercare. This therefore would mean that focus on their rehabilitation would be paramount, Munroe said. The aim is to ensure that “when they leave the institution they can leave as persons with some amount of skills who can be reintegrated into society and be productive.”
The NOC is however an institution that falls under the purview of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Youth and Sport, said Minister of Social Protection, Ms. Volda Lawrence.
The NOC is tasked with the specific mandate to rehabilitate and train adolescent offenders and wanderers so that they could be re-integrated in the society.
The maximum period of rehabilitation is three years. Depending on individual circumstances it could be reduced to a minimum of one year.
Youths while there are subjected to full-time schooling in a number of skills training areas including electrical installation, handicraft, joinery, Information Technology, tailoring and garment construction, welding and fabrication, carpentry and masonry which are complemented by English and Mathematics.
While these courses are more tailored for the older youths, this publication was informed that the younger ones are offered remedial sessions in Mathematics and English too. However, all of them are subjected to daily counselling sessions. They are also reportedly allowed to practice their preferred religion without any interference.

Minister of Social Protection,
Ms. Volda Lawrence

Reports out of the overseeing Ministry are that NOC offers psycho-social support to youths in order to help them improve their self-esteem and self-worth. The academic programme offered allows them to be exposed to schools within the community.
But according to Minister Lawrence, despite this state of affairs, the perspective of the Social Protection Ministry is that “youths are one of our primary our concern.”
She noted that the Probation and Social Services Department is tasked with putting in place programmes to help, as far as possible, to ensure that children do not find themselves at the NOC.
In the case that they are already in the care of the NOC, Lawrence reiterated Munroe’s stance that “we will work alone with the Ministry (of Education) to ensure that while they are there that the programmes are those which will be able to have those juveniles come out, not the way they went in or worse, but focused more positively.”
She related that the Social Protection Ministry will also have in place a programme to “take them under our wings to help them come back into society so that they will not find themselves back there again or moving on to the higher institutions like the Camp Street Prison.”
Lawrence said that her Ministry is geared to help the youths make positive choices.