NASSAU, Bahamas — Individuals interested in becoming National Parenting Programme facilitators are asked to contact Cheryl Carroll, Senior Probation Officer and the programme’s coordinator at the Rehabilitative and Welfare Services Office located at the Abaco Markets Building on Thompson Boulevard before Friday, February 11.
During an interview at her office, Friday, February 4, Mrs Carroll explained that the programme needs people who have experience working with families or are used to working with groups in churches and communities to sign up for the training, which starts on February 16. Organisations, churches and urban renewal centres received invitations to attend the training, and some expressed an interest.
Yet, the Coordinator said she was disappointed that many churches did not respond, even though it is free of charge, and individuals or organisations can utilise what they have learned autonomously when not working with the national programme. “We need churches to get involved especially those in areas where there is an urban renewal centre,” Mrs Carroll said. “We target those areas because we want to connect urban renewal and the churches. We could use the pastors, lay workers and those persons working in the urban renewal centres as facilitators.”
The urban renewal centres have been very responsive, she said. Individuals choosing to take part in the training will join those who are already facilitating parenting classes at the Rehabilitative and Welfare Services Office as well as at Her Majesty’s Prisons and the PACE programme for teen mothers, Mrs Carroll explained.
Pastors Henry and Ann Higgins, of the Creative Christian Arts Ministries International and St Anne’s School administrators invited facilitators from the National Parenting Programme to provide eight weeks of classes to parents, she said. These additional classes are achieving the programme’s objective of expanding into the communities.
“Once parents have the information, that information is power and will help them know how to deal with their children, because problems in the homes spill into the school or the community; so it is almost a preventative kind of thing.”
The training for new facilitators will take place over a period of five months from 9 am to 5 pm, but as most participants work, training will take place three, four or five consecutive days per month over the five-month interval, Mrs Carroll said.
Although there has always been training for new facilitators, this is the first time it will be extensive, she explained. Trainers for the programme come from a variety of backgrounds including psychiatrists, psychologists, from the Ministry of Social Services, the Ministry of Tourism, nurses, attorneys from Attorney General’s Office, Venerable Archdeacon James and his wife Angela Palacious, nurses, pastors from the Christian Counselling centres, social workers, principals from primary and high schools, East District Superintendent Dr Willard Barr, Dr Sandra Dean-Patterson, persons from the Eugene Dupuch Law School and Brenda Bethel a manager from a local bank.
The local national parenting programme will also continue its collaboration with the Jamaican national parenting programme as it has been since 2009. Some of the information that will be imparted to the future facilitators include tips to give parents on how to better communicate with their children; informing parents about the difference between punishing and disciplining their children; tips on how to discipline without abusing children; how to run finances to avoid trouble in the home and much more.
Llonella Gilbert
Bahamas Information Services
