Even as staff at Grenada’s Grand Bacolet Juvenile Rehabilitation and Treatment Centre staged a union-backed protest last Monday over delayed benefits and poor working conditions, Saint Lucian Cabinet Minister Joachim Henry held up the facility as a model for his country’s own youth rehabilitation reforms.
Henry, the Minister for Equity, Social Justice, and Empowerment, expressed confidence that Saint Lucia is moving in the right direction by adopting a centralised approach, similar to Grand Bacolet’s, in which all young people in need of rehabilitation, regardless of gender, are admitted to a single facility.
“At the Bacolet, they’re both boys and girls,” Henry said, referencing Grenada’s centre.
The Grand Bacolet Centre opened in 2016, offering treatment and rehabilitation programmes, psychoeducational, sports and recreational activities, and access to counsellors, psychologists, social workers, and officers. It provides both individual and group counselling and family support services.
Saint Lucia has been engaged in dialogue for years on improving its youth rehabilitation infrastructure. While no physical changes have yet materialised, Henry said key steps are now underway. Last week, representatives from the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) visited Saint Lucia to review the proposed site for the island’s new consolidated juvenile facility: the refurbished George Charles Secondary School.
“All youth rehabilitation centres will be relocated there,” Henry said, referring to the Boys Training Centre, Upton Gardens Girls Centre, and transit home.
However, the plan has not been without criticism, especially regarding the decision to house boys and girls within the same facility.
Henry offered insight into the rationale behind the co-ed model: “We currently have the transit home with a manager and an assistant manager. And sometimes we have just about 12 girls with a large staff, and the staff complement exceeds the number of residents,” he explained.
“The Upton Girls, sometimes there’s about 10, with a manager, assistant manager, sometimes with a staff complement that exceeds the number of persons we have there. Likewise, we have the Boys Training Centre— manager, assistant manager, and a really large staff complement that caters to sometimes 13 boys,” he said.
“We need to rationalise this because in other jurisdictions you’re able to have the necessary staff to really effectively administer care and protection and rehabilitation of persons without having six managers. So we are bringing it together following best standard.”
Following the site review, the project will now proceed with an environmental and social assessment.
“We also have a situation where those who are in conflict with the law will be part of [the new facility], and the design needs to respond accordingly,” Henry added. “Not that it’s a prison, [but] at the same time, we want to ensure that it is safe. We want to see how the rest of the community surrounding George Charles will respond, and all of the other concerns.”
According to Henry, the feedback from the CDB has been positive, and Saint Lucia is aiming high.
“George Charles will become, I think, the model of a juvenile centre in the Caribbean. That’s what we’re approaching,” he said.
The envisioned facility will not only bring together previously separate services but also incorporate new, child-friendly amenities.
“I think both genders will be pleased,” Henry said. “We want to have the best game room, ever, you can consider for our children, a panyard, a music studio. We want to create a juvenile centre that anybody who’s not there would feel excited about the fact that we are providing the best for our children when they are in conflict with the law, or when they are not being served by their family, or when they fall through the cracks, as often happens with our people and their families.”
There are a gang of young boys who assembly by the la ressource bridge in Vieux fort raiding people farms and cooking the food right there and the police refuse to patrol and apprehend those thiefs . The police need to patrol that area because from about 11 o clock they came there to cook and sell stolen food from hard working farmers. These are the kind of people whose mothers that are quick to say that he was a good boy . The police need to patrol that area during the day to get rid of those young criminals before something nasty happen …
The customary saying in 758 — “he was a good boy just a little troublesome” aka GANG BANGER. Some parents and family members need to be arrested as well because they are accomplices aka sweetweeeze 100 percent.