THE Board of Supervision (BOS) for the Relief of the Poor in Jamaica on Tuesday held a graduation ceremony for nine female poor relief officers, allowing for formal training and certification in the position for some of the women who, prior to Tuesday, had been operating untrained for well over 10 years.

The graduates are Marion Anderson, Joycelyn Bryan, Claudia Cameron, Davis Harding, Sonia James, Treka Lewis, Delomore McBean and Annmarie Thomas.

With the last formal training programme for poor relief officers taking place in 1997, Tuesday’s graduation – which was held at the Ministry of Local Government and Environment – saw seven of the graduates given the title of Assistant Inspector of the Poor, while the remaining two were given the titles of Assistant Matron and Acting Matron respectively.

The programme, which has to be carried out in accordance with section 19 of the Poor Relief Act, took place between July 11 and October 20, 2006, with the participants being exposed to knowledge in: the Policies and Laws for Social Assistance and Care, Human Growth and Development, Social Psychology and Abnormal Psychology among other areas. After their final exams, and following a period of marking and second-marking of same during the following year, the nine women were confirmed in their positions.

The participants were drawn from seven parishes and their names were published in volume CXXX of the Jamaica Gazette, dated June 2007.

On Tuesday, Helene Davis-Whyte of the Jamaica Association of Local Government Authorities hinted that financial constraints was the main reason behind the delays in training.

“We want to ensure that the board takes on this course as an annual course. Too often when we have problems with our budget the first thing that is cut is the training budget. But we must recognise that training is very important,” she said.

Speaking at the graduation ceremony, BOS chairman Dr Denise Eldemire-Shearer stated that notwithstanding the upcoming general elections, she would do her best to ensure that the BOS saw to the continued training of poor relief officers in the future.

“The Board of Supervision, under my watch… no matter what… will ensure that we always see to training. I don’t think there is any doubt about that,” she said, adding that a major challenge faced in putting the training course together was to remain within the ambits prescribed by the almost 60-year-old Poor Relief Act.

“The Poor Relief Law is over 50 or 60 years old, and I kept saying that we are in the new millennium and there are things that need changing. And the problem is that the law tells us how to do this course. But when [we] decided that we were going to do that (create the course) we still had to comply with the law,” she said.

“But in going over the course and putting together the curriculum that was the furthest thing from our minds. We wanted to ensure that you were learnt,” she added.

Eldemire-Shearer also stated that BOS would be looking into the possibility of staging a course in rural Jamaica to accommodate poor relief officers in those regions.