00:00Spread across 10 acres of land and replacing the Piparo Empowerment Center,
00:05the Children's Authority on Monday officially launched its National Care
00:10and Empowerment Center. The refurbished compound cost taxpayers 18 million
00:16dollars and will act as the initial temporary placement of abused children
00:21before either being reintegrated with family, state home or the foster care
00:26system. Within the next month, it will open its doors to children between the
00:32ages of 9 and 17, boys and girls, with round-the-clock medical, psychological,
00:38educational and recreational services. The authority had a few main objectives
00:45in development of this facility and they included providing more placement
00:50options that was suitable for the needs of children and also preventing
00:55vulnerable children from being negatively impacted by intermingling
01:01with higher risk populations of children. High-risk children are housed elsewhere.
01:09Minister of Gender and Child Affairs Ayanna Webster-Roy, in addressing the
01:14launch of the center in Piparo on Monday, said while this facility stands above
01:20the rest, she would prefer a different type of environment for abused children.
01:25You see this building? While it's nice, this is not my vision. I would prefer if we have to
01:34remove a child from the home, that we find another familiar setting for that
01:39child. So foster care, adoption, very, very, very passionate. And Marsha just said it,
01:46kinship foster care.
01:49Reducing institutionalization, she says, is the real goal.
01:54Currently there are over 100 approved foster care providers with more than
01:59150 children in foster care homes, numbers the ministry hopes will
02:04significantly increase over time.
02:07We don't want our children to grow up in institutions. We want them in loving, stable homes.
02:13Create the opportunities where, if it is the parents, a responsible neighbor who's
02:20close to the family, anybody who is willing to take that boy or girl in, create that opportunity
02:26for that family to be able to help that child.
02:30The recently appointed chairperson of the Children's Authority also addressed the launch.
02:36Far too often the authority is made aware of these atrocities meted out to children
02:43through online videos when they go viral. While we thank those persons for these wonderful
02:51videos that they post, I want to ask, go one step further after you post and report the abuse.
03:02Between 3,500 and 5,000 reports of child abuse are made annually.
03:09The authority says many more go unreported.
03:13Cindy Raghubar Tika Singh, TV6 News.
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