Corporate voices are needed to help legislate change
by Robert Clarke
Sister Arlene Greenidge could use some targeted corporate hand-holding. At the top of a hill off Belmont Circular Road, she presides over the St Dominic’s Children’s Home, which houses 60 socially displaced children.
It’s not so much your money that Sister Greenidge wants. “Don’t get me wrong: We do need the money,” says the Home’s Manager, doing a decent impression of an advertising pitchman, albeit one wearing a black and white habit. “But there are other ways in which, especially at this point in our history, the corporate community can make a huge difference.” This story is about those other ways.
There was a time when the Home was referred to as the Belmont Orphanage, and the 300 socially displaced children housed in its large dormitories were identified as orphans. That time is past. The children of the Home now live in households of eight, so reasonable staff to child ratios can be maintained. And child care providers are now governed by laws that say it isn’t enough to love a child and do what you think is best for her; you have to conform to standards established by best practice.
Since 2015, when a package of children’s rights legislation was enacted and the Children’s Authority established, organisations that provide care for children have been increasingly regulated. They now require licenses.
Greenidge calls it a radical paradigm shift, a “quantum leap” to a system of care based on the rights of the child, where staff skills and competencies are critical to success. “We’re trying to move from this archaic, unregulated system, and we’re trying to jump into the First World standards. But it means we need to catch up. Our stakeholders also need to catch up.”
Some have. Massy Group, for example, has provided St Dominic’s with the services of a Change Management consultant to help them navigate the complexities of the new regulatory environment. “And that is huge for us! We can’t say thank you enough for that.”
But corporate citizens are also needed to help the Home hone its messaging and lobby the authorities for reform and unification of the fractured governance structures that regulate the child care sector. “We may not necessarily have a loud enough voice on our own to bring about the change, or to cause the people who can bring about the change to expedite the change that needs to take place. But if there are people in our community who are on board and who can help raise that voice…”
Sister Greenidge sees St Dominic’s transitioning to a continuum of care, providing support for children in the family setting after they’ve left the home. They’d also like to get involved in foster care, which provides greater permanency. And respite care is a possibility — providing a temporary home for children whose parents need time and space to get through a rough patch.
Gone are the days of institutionalisation, when an “orphanage” was a total institution where children lived, ate, slept and attended school and church. Many St Dominic’s children are “mainstreamed”, going out to school and extra-curricular activities. “Our young people are no less exposed to the tastes, the values, the influence of teenagers in households, in families,” says Greenidge, recalling that the week before our interview, five St Dominic’s students had run off. They were teenage girls, and especially vulnerable. Although they were all found safe and returned to the Home, Greenidge says the incident was another “indicator of the need for us to step up.”
The Manager has a firm grasp of management jargon: She speaks in terms of organisational structure, change management, and skills and competencies. Increasingly, civil society institutions like St Dominic’s are applying the principles of business. So it’s fairly obvious that “corporate citizens” are the ones best placed to help her improve the lives and prospects of socially displaced children.
Gone are the days when corporate involvement meant donating gifts at Christmas. “Yeah, it’s nice to receive gifts, it’s important, but maybe we could move a little beyond that,”she says, acknowledging that businesses have every right to seek mileage for having positive impacts in their communities. Yet she finds some corporate partners more receptive to the Home’s needs than others. They ask how they can help, rather than presenting plans for what they’d like to do.
Ideally, Sister Greenidge envisions mutually beneficial partnerships in which corporate T&T burnishes its image with strengthening the social fabric. “I think it’s really a win-win situation. Not only are they able to present who they are in a way that’s very palatable for their publics, but they’re also investing in their own future. Because if they do not, you’re going to have to import personnel, or you’re going to have to make bigger and bigger and higher and higher walls.”