Chairman of the Family Support Intervention Organisation, Marva Springer, insists schools and families form strong partnerships.
Parent Teacher Associations must not only be focused on raising funds for the schools, but on forming strong supportive relationships with families.
Chairman of the Family Support Intervention Organisation, Marva Springer, insisted that the schools form a partnership with families struggling to cope.
“This can be done in a number of ways – through the PTAs, which would have to stop just raising funds for fences or whatever they are raising funds for, and get more involved in the child as an entity – that is important – and involve the parents... go and visit the parents that are missing,” she stated.
Saying that each school possesses a core of students that were troublesome, she suggested that these youth be placed in programmes, whether internal or external to the school, to help them develop positive attitudes, noting that this would reduce the number of violent incidences on the school compound.
Springer also insisted that more home visits be done to view exactly what these students were dealing with when they left school on evenings, and family intervention be offered where necessary.
Defining violence, she highlighted that this could not be left for the police or teachers to deal with, but all persons working together to put an end to it.
“We may have a single mother or single father trying their best, but their workload is so much and they have to be in and out, and we know what the trials are where that person is limited. So family support is saying that if you know that a particular family is struggling, what are we doing to assist that family? Not only in terms of giving them education, but if a child is hungry or being abused in the home, or whatever the situation is that will create anger, you will get violence. So while bringing them together after they have committed the offence is important, let us stop it,” she stressed.
At the time, Springer was speaking during a panel discussion at the Savannah Hotel, hosted by the Caribbean Association of Security Professionals. (JMB)