ST JAMES, Jamaica — The National Parenting Support Commission (NPSC) is imploring parents to reach out to the entity for support to improve their parenting skills.

“We want parents to get in touch with us,” Chief Executive Officer of the NPSC, Kaysia Kerr stated.

“We’re out in the community; we have a very sophisticated network at this point and we’re doing a lot of work through schools, and even though schools are closed to face-to-face, we’re doing a lot of work online,” she noted.

Kerr said that the Commission remains unrelenting in its thrust to promote better parenting practices, in a bid to reduce all forms of abuse against the nation’s children.

“We are very hurt by the recent spate of abuse. We are unrelenting in our efforts to ensure that we work with other agencies that have the remit to ensure the safety of children,” she said.

She noted that the NPSC will continue to sensitise parents about the ill-effects of child abuse and the need for children to grow up “in an environment where they not only survive but thrive”.

Kerr said that far too many parents are intolerant of, “behaviours that are definitely normal and natural for certain ages and stages of development,” which leads to physical and emotional abuse.

“Many of the situations that are brought to the Commission, whether it’s through our workshops or training sessions or whether they are situations brought to us by… self-reporting [by parents] of frustrations, it is due to the fact that parents just don’t know,” she contended.

“Ignorance is what, I believe, accounts for much of the behaviours, because many times when we interview parents through our risk assessment to find out what the determinants of effective parenting are, we realise that they believe that they’re actually doing the right thing,” she pointed out.

Kerr noted that the NPSC remains a reservoir of information and support to parents and is appealing to them to reach out to the entity for assistance.

Meanwhile, Kerr said it is time for Jamaicans to recognise that every citizen is charged with the responsibility of protecting the nation’s children.

“Through education [the NPSC] continues the retooling process and re-education, so that we can have a cultural shift, so that all Jamaicans will understand that as a collective we have a duty of care and we have a duty to protect our children,” she said.