THE Child Development Agency (CDA) is to investigate Monday’s fire which claimed the lives of two children at the SOS Children’s Village in St Andrew. Four-year-old Abigail Lee, and five-year-old Antoinette Cranston died of smoke inhalation.

“If a death occurs, if a child has been hurt or abused. any kind of incident that causes harm to a child. we have to complete a critical incident report. It’s a procedure that we have to follow,” Rashida St Juste, the CDA’s public relations manager, told the Observer yesterday.

The fire – the cause of which is yet to be established by the Stony Hill Fire Department which is investigating – occurred at about 7:00 pm on Monday.

Sergeant Lawrence Campbell, the sub-officer in charge of the investigations, said the fire was confined mainly to two rooms, which had, among other items, four bunk beds. The other sections of the home, he said, suffered only smoke damage. Campbell said, too, that it was still unclear whether the building was insured.

St Juste noted, meanwhile, that a monitoring officer would complete the critical incident report, which will provide as much detail of the incident as possible.

That, along with the fire report – which St Juste said the organisation is to receive in a few days – will form the basis of the CDA’s investigation.

St Juste added that the mother of one of the children – both of whom lived at the SOS Children’s Village – had been contacted, while the agency was in the process of contacting the grandmother of the other.

In a statement issued yesterday, the Office of the Children’s Advocate said it was awaiting reports to decide whether “to investigate any allegation that the rights of any child were breached or their interest adversely affected as a result of the fire, or any negligence, which may have contributed to it”.

Convener of Hear the Children’s Cry, Betty Ann Blaine, for her part, appealed for children’s homes administrators to pay closer attention to youths in their care.

“Children in residential care – whether in private homes or in government homes – must be treated with a lot more care and attention than other children because they come into residential care from very difficult circumstances,” Blaine argued.

While not suggesting that negligence or carelessness on the part of the administrators had caused the fire, she said the incident had reinforced the need for long-term attention to children in need of care.

“Hear the Children’s Cry is going to monitor, and ask for the details (surrounding the fire) to be put out as soon as possible,” Blaine said.

mccattyk@jamaicaobserver.com