Acting Principal says GIS is a safe environment

Despite a public outcry this week about investigations into injustices taking place at the Government Industrial School (GIS), Acting Principal Ronald Brathwaite is insisting that the institution is a safe environment.

Speaking during a press conference today, where Minister of Home Affairs Wilfred Abrahams announced that the Board would be changed following reports of a 14-year-old girl being photographed naked in a cell, Brathwaite said GIS was a safe space for all those children who go there.

“I must say, the Government Industrial School has been in existence since 1883 with respect to the boys, and 1912 in respect to the girls. And you would have heard the Minister say there are numerous boys and girls that would have come through the school and their circumstances have been enhanced by being at the school. The school provides care for children in many aspects.

“We do provide CXC examinations for the ones who have the mental capacity to do them. Actually, one of the persons who went home just left with three CXC subjects and awaiting the results on two subjects. There are some within our fold that already have CXC subjects. We also offer vocational trades and support services for all that are in there,” he said.

He said the school roll, which once stood at as many as 50-plus students, has significantly reduced because authorities have seen the need not to keep students at the institution longer than they need to be there.

Brathwaite also sought to explain that all of the children sent to the school go there with different circumstances and challenges. He said 60 percent of the school’s population have mental health issues and receive assistance from the psychiatric hospital.

He said psychologists and social workers are also attached to the GIS to assist children with their individual issues.

“When a child comes to Government Industrial School, there is a very intense intake programme that they go through and it covers all the aspects that attribute to the child. It covers their biographical data, the data relating to any problems they might have, their diet, any psychiatric problems that they might have.

“All these problems are captured within that document then within 72 hours after that, there is a student guide that is implemented through the social workers and that guide deals with all the aspects that the children should be undertaking at the school.

“It covers how they access education, how they access medical services, their diet preferences, their personal development plans. So the school goes a long way in assisting all residents that come to it that are sent there through the law courts in Barbados,”  he said.

Brathwaite who shared that there are six young ladies at the institution, including three committals and three remands, explained that when children leave GIS, they are monitored through the Probation Department for a period of two years, or until their 19th birthday.

He said children as young as 11 are sent to GIS. They must go there by 16-years-old, but must leave by age 19. Brathwaite indicated that there was a low recidivism rate at the institution where children are sentenced for no less than three years and or no more than five.

The law also provides that if students have spent 18 months of their sentence, the school can recommend to the Minister of Home Affairs that wards be released early, once they show signs that they can return to a structured community environment.

“Also at the school, we have a mentorship programme that is monitored through the University of the West Indies to help and assist the residents while they are there. It is private. The school does not know what they discuss with their particular mentor and they have access to their mentor throughout the time that they are there,” he said. (AH)