Child care agency’s hands tied in GIS matter

The Child Care Board (CCB) cannot intervene in the case of two wards of the Government Industrial School (GIS) who are alleging abuse at the state-run juvenile facility.

Director of the CCB RoseAnn Richards sought to make that clear on Friday, stressing that the agency’s hands were tied as the court had ruled that the teenage girls remain at the Barrows, St Lucy reform school.

On Wednesday, the High Court turned down the request of advocacy group Operation Safe Space (OSS) to move the two girls, ages 13 and 15, from the institution. The two had escaped on April 16 but turned themselves in to authorities on Tuesday night.

“If they were to be placed in our care, we would have intervened. In some instances, some children who go into the care of the Government Industrial School would have passed through our system. In this particular situation right now with the children at the Government Industrial School, the Child Care Board was called upon. But, obviously, when children are in the court system and the court makes orders we have to comply with the orders,” Richards explained on Friday during a press conference to launch Child Month 2022.

“So we wouldn’t intervene when the court makes an order. If they come to us before, we open our arms and we provide all the care that we could to them. We also intervene and work with the families,” she added.

Although ruling that the two girls remain at GIS, Justice Barbara Cooke-Alleyne instructed the juveniles’ attorney to return before her on May 5 with case law that proves the High Court has jurisdiction to overturn the ruling of the magistrate who sent the minors to the GIS, on a charge of wandering, in the first place.
(AH)