KINGSTON, Jamaica (JIS) — State Minister in the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information, Floyd Green, met with the management and staff of the Office of the Children’s Registry (OCR), yesterday (March 16) to discuss the way forward for the agency.

The interactive session was held at the Alpha Boys’ Home on South Camp Road, in Kingston.

In his address, Green said the ministry will be restructuring several programmes, in an effort to streamline the activities of affiliated agencies and prevent duplication of activities, to ensure efficiency.

He commended the OCR for the successes in several child protection initiatives, and advised that programmes that have proven to be successful will be continued. These include the ‘Breaking the Silence’ campaign and the ‘Ananda Alert’ system.

Green had special praise for the ‘Breaking the Silence’ campaign, which is aimed at encouraging members of the public to report suspected child abuse cases to the agency.

The State Minister said that the ministry is committed to assisting in the continued success of this campaign.

“I pledge our support as a ministry, to help them strengthen that campaign and to help them expand it. We will use our influence to help to shape and change this culture (of silence) and get us to the stage where it is unacceptable to know about incidents of child abuse and not report it. This is something that we are going to be very strong on,” he emphasised.

Data supplied by the OCR reveal that the number of reports received by the agency has increased significantly, moving from 455 in 2007 to 11,749 in 2014.