Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jan 03, 2019 News
The Childcare and Protection Agency, (CPA) has as part of its objective, continuously exposed foster parents to training to build their capacity for the substitute parent role they are expected to play.
The CPA which is a component of the Ministry of Social Protection currently has 117 foster parents in the system. The parents are providing care for 175 children.
In the 2018 year-end review, the CPA noted that the Agency has facilitated adoption service for 80 children.
The children were provided with permanency (a family) through the facilitation of the legal adoption process. The CPA noted that there were 51 local adoptions; 18 International adoptions by Guyanese families and 11 international adoptions by non -Guyanese families.
Last year, the CPA placed some 200 children in the foster care of 123 parents.
Prior to the children being placed into the foster care system, prospective parents underwent a screening and training period in which the children were attached to the homes based on their specific needs.
Subsequent to the placement, officials of the CPA engaged in continuous monitoring of the children through home and school visits
According to the CPA, providing psychosocial support and counselling services to biological families as well as conducting case reviews to determine permanency plans for children in foster care is essential to the success of the programme.
Foster care is an alternative to the institutionalisation of children. Foster care sets out to offer family-based care rather than the general care offered by children in homes. Foster parents offer individualised attention to their foster children. Institutions are usually the last resort.
For foster care, a child’s extended family is the first resort before CPA seeks out a foster parent. Foster parents are paid a monthly stipend per child as long as the child remains under their care.
In 2017, there were in excess of 700 children in both the CPA’s and residential care. Generally, the number of children in state care is much higher when one takes into account the holding or juvenile centres, which do not fall under CPA.
Head of the CPA, Ann Greene, had noted that the state’s foster care programme is going well. However, she admitted that there is always a need for more foster parents.
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