Incidents have occurred over the past year at rehabilitation centres in which unsuitable people belonging to gangs were reportedly attempting to visit or make contact with young residents of the centres, Gender, Youth and Child Development Minister Clifton De Coteau has said. He made the point in the Senate on Wednesday while piloting a motion on regulations to strengthen various pieces of legislation in the child protection framework and which would operationalise the Children’s Authority.
It includes regulations on children’s community residences governing foster care and nurseries. De Coteau said Government also was giving a one-off grant of up to $250,000 to existing community residences to ensure they meet the standards set in the regulations. He said children’s homes were the primary placement options for children in need of care and protection.
There are 50 homes, housing about 800 children or more of various ages, placed there by the courts, usually as a result of abandonment, neglect or abuse.” He added: “Children’s homes of varying sizes and capacities have mushroomed over the two to three decades in order to fill a need but have remained unregulated and resulted in a very uneven standards of care in these homes.”
On the reported gang “visitation” problem, De Coteau said safety and security at community residences were critical issues addressed in the regulations. He said managers would have to keep records, since analysis had revealed that was an area of weakness for several community residences. Community residences, he added, would have to obtain licences to operate and would be monitored. He said while most community residences did not use corporal punishment for discipline, some do.