THE Child Protection and Family Services Agency (CPFSA) is seeking to allay fears that its concerns about social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic caused it to send some wards of the State home without making adequate provisions for them.

“As with the onset of any disaster, in this case COVID-19, a review is conducted of the children in our care and a risk assessment to look at the level of preparation needed to facilitate social distancing, prevent the spread of germs, as well as identification of a designated isolation space.

“Children who are reintegrated during the COVID-19 period were presented on our reintegration list, in keeping with our normal procedures,” said the CPFSA in response to questions from the Jamaica Observer.

But that has not satisfied the children’s rights advocacy group Hear the Children’s Cry, which has pointed to the case of a 15-year-old girl who had become a ward of the State because she was deemed in need of care and protection.

The group alleged that after a period in a children’s home, the child was reintegrated with her family during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite lingering concerns that she had run away from home repeatedly and has behavioural issues.

Shortly after the child was returned to her home, with her grandmother as the main caregiver, she ran away and has not been seen since.

“The child has subsequently gone missing, leaving us to ask: ‘Is she dead or alive? Where is she?’” questioned Betty Ann Blaine, founder of the advocacy group.

“While Hear the Children’s Cry is in full support of family reintegration, we are equally concerned about the protocols and criteria for returning children.

“There’s no point in having policies and procedures that are counterproductive. You can’t reintegrate a child who was placed in State care under extenuating circumstances, back into the same situation without special care and attention paid to the reintegration process,” added Blaine.

While admitting that it was aware of the particular case, the CPFSA told the Observer that it believes children achieve better outcomes living in nurturing familial environments and, therefore, it has been promoting foster care, adoption, family reintegration, and supervision order programmes.

“Through these programmes, efforts are made to work with families to provide quality care and protection for children through individualised care plans,” said the CPFSA.

“Reintegration of children is conducted on a bimonthly basis, in keeping with our placement committee meetings. The decision to reintegrate a child is based on the outcome of a series of supervised short-term visits during the holiday periods with child and caregiver, and parent training.

“It is a usual course of action for the CPFSA to reintegrate children with their families during holiday periods, which allows a caregiver to secure school placement and for the child to be settled in the environment. Children are reintegrated with their families based on the nature of the child becoming a ward of the State, namely deplorable living conditions, truancy, and behavioural issues,” added the CPFSA.

The agency said the protocol for its family reintegration programme guides the operations of its children’s officers assigned to reintegrate children with their families.

“The steps, however, are not exhaustive and vary based on the case of each child,” said the CPFSA, as it provided a summary of the steps of family reintegration, which includes family assessment through home visits and interviews conducted with caregiver to determine suitability, such as willingness and ability to care for child, and a children’s officer conducting follow-ups to ensure school placement and counselling intervention continues.

The CPFSA added that it conducts the monitoring of placement, where a children’s officer conducts unannounced home and school visits to check on the child’s welfare.

According to the CPFSA, 104 children were reintegrated with their families for the period October 2019 to May 2020. This includes 23 children between October and December 2019, 47 between January and March of this year, and 34 in May.