SOCIAL SECTOR INVESTMENT PROGRAMME
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SUSTAINING GROWTH, SECURING PROSPERITY
CHAPTER 3: NATIONAL SOCIAL SITUATION
Under the its purview are four Children’s
Homes: St. Michael’s School for Boys, St.
Jude’s School for Girls, St. Mary’s Children
Home, and St. Dominic’s Children Home.
The Ministry continued to support these
institutions, to ensure that they adequately
provided for the resident children. The
MGYCD is also developing plans for the
modernisation and refurbishment of these
institutions, in an effort to provide a higher
standard of care for the children.
• Given the priority need for assessment and
transition homes, the Ministry continued
to advance the construction of six new
facilities comprising three Safe Houses, two
Assessment Centres and one Transition
Home. The Safe Houses and Assessment
Centres will upgrade the protection of
women and children, while the Transition
Home will assist the youth with the change
from institutional to independent living.
• In its partnership with Civil Society, the
Ministry also continued the Gatekeepers
Programme, which is implemented by the
Toco Foundation. The programme targets
youth ‘at risk’ in the communities of Covigne
Road, Diego Martin and Upper/Lower Santa
Cruz. This initiative targets young men and is
designed toassist the individuals toapproach
governance from the standpoint of social
action, being leaders who can engender
positive change in their communities.
• The Ministry implemented the ‘Respect Me,
Respect You’ initiative, which is aimed at
addressingvarioustypesofbullyingwithinthe
school, home, workplace and communities
through information and communications
technology. The Ministry held its first two
day train-the-trainer workshop for the
Respect Me, Respect You initiative in June,
2013. Training in preventative and response
mechanisms to bullying was provided to
42 persons, among them ‘Ministry frontline
staff; Six non-governmental organisations
(The Anti-Bullying Association of Trinidad
and Tobago; Families in Action; Young Men’s
Christian Association; Young Women’s
Christian Association; RandomActs of Good
Deeds; and Parenting TT); and Six Children’s
Homes (St. Michael’s School for Boys,
St. Mary’s Children Home, St. Dominic’s
Children Home, St. Jude’s School for Girls,
Credo Foundation and Rainbow Rescue)’.
• In addition, the MGYCD established Vacation
Camps from 2012 with the main aim of
positively engaging “Youth at Risk” in an
effort to provide them with safe and secure
environments. In fiscal 2013, the theme of
the camps was: “Respect Me, Respect You”
and the focus was on the issue of bullying
from a rights-based perspective.
• The Ministry also continued to address
the need for building youth self-sufficiency
through its Youth Development and
Apprenticeship Centres (YDACs). These two
centres (Persto Praesto and Chatham) have
functioned as institutions of learning since
the 1960s, and are the only non-military
residential training facilities in Trinidad
and Tobago. They cater for young men
between the ages of 14 and 17, and serve as
a structured environment for boys who have
either dropped out of the formal education
system or come from disadvantaged
circumstances. In addition to life skills, the
trainees are exposed to instruction in various
trades, remedial literacy and numeracy and
physical recreation and regional and national
qualifications in their trade of choice.
During fiscal 2013, a Plan was developed
to re-engineer the YDACs to modernise the
infrastructure and approach to one that is
more holistic in nature and one that aims to
impact the trainees’ sense of empowerment.
• The Revised National Youth Policy (2012-
2017) was also approved by Cabinet in
November 2012. The National Youth Policy
reflects the philosophy, guiding principles,
policy position, strategic choice and
direction, goals, objectives, strategies and
