Sunbeam Children's Home delicensed over reports of abuse

 

The Child Protection and Family Services Agency (CPFSA) is facing resistance from wards and the manager at the Sunbeam Children's Home in St. Catherine following the decision to delicence the facility in light of reports of child abuse.

 

The facility caters to boys, some of whom staged a protest at the facility Wednesday morning. 

 

The boys chanted: "We are loved! We are safe! We don't want to leave! Fake news about Sunbeam! We are not being abused! We are not going to leave!"

 

Chief Executive Officer of the CPFSA Laurette Adams-Thomas says the agency and the Ministry of Education and Youth moved to withdraw the Home's licence in keeping with the zero tolerance approach to all forms of child abuse.

 

Mrs. Adams-Thomas says the decision follows attempts at various intervention methods with the facility to curb the issue, including meeting with the chairman of the facility's board and the hosting of behaviour modification training with the facility's staff. 

 

"Despite doing all of this, based on our internal investigations, instances of child abuse have continued at the facility. So, in an effort to ensure the safety of the children who currently reside there, we are taking the necessary steps to have the facility delicensed and to have all 52 children relocated," she insisted. 

 

Mrs. Adams-Thomas said some of the children will be placed at other residential child care facilities, while others will be placed in foster care, as well as in the care of their families.

 

Sensitisation of the children regarding their transition out of the home is ongoing.

 

The CPFSA has said it is also providing additional psychological and psychosocial support to the children.

 

In the meantime, manager of Sunbeam Children's Home, Desmond Whitely, argued that due process was not followed in delicencing the facility, which has been operating for 50 years.

 

Mr. Whitely said a letter was received on Monday informing the Home of the decision and indicating that it was effective Thursday.

 

In an interview with Radio Jamaica News, he admitted that the decision follows the facility's failure to honour a directive from the CPFSA last year to interdict four of it staff members as part of an investigation into allegations of child abuse. 

 

"We wrote to the CPFSA to suggest that we could not breach their human resource rights by interdicting them, and so we were asking for the evidence to do so. At the time that the CPFSA wrote to us also, three of the members had already departed from Sunbeam on their own volition. Nonetheless, the CPFSA has proceeded to send us this letter of delicensing." 

 

Mr. Whitely said the move is unjust as there was no consultation. 

  

"Not one meeting was held with us about a breach of the licence. All we know is that we were being investigated or some of our members were being investigated for alleged abuse of our children. We have asked for the evidence. We have not gotten any, but we have gotten a letter of delicensing. We don't think this is just and it is something that we are prepared to challenge," he declared.