Prisoners learn parenting skills
Those who are incarcerated have plenty of time to think about what they did wrong and how they will set things right when they are released. Today News 5’s Jacqueline Woods was on hand to observe a programme that hopes to make life better, both for the newly freed inmates…and their families.
Jacqueline Woods
“How long have you been away from home?”
Wallace Julian Cayetano, Inmate
“I’m doing a five year sentence. I’ve been away from home for eight months, I’ve got thirty-two more months to go.”
Over the past eight weeks, Cayetano and forty-one other inmates have been involved in a Life skills and Parenting Course. And in those thirty-two months, inmate Wallace Julian Cayetano, a convicted burglar with two young children is hoping to become a better person…and a better parent.
Kevin Cadle, Acting Programme Co-ordinator, D.O.C.
“If we could teach our youths who are incarcerated, how to be better fathers, we hope that it could alleviate the crime situation in our country.”
Acting Programme Co-ordinator at the Department of Corrections, Kevin Cadle, believes that if children were more disciplined at home and parents interacted more with their sons and daughters, there would not be so much violence in Belize today. The course, conducted by the National Organisation for the prevention of Child Abuse, NOPCA, is part of the D.O.C’s (Department of Corrections) rehabilitation programme.
Michelle Pineda, Parenting Co-ordinator, NOPCA
“We had eight different topics because the course ran for eight weeks. The sessions were basically about parent absence from the home self esteem, discipline, child abuse.”
The course was not only for parents, D.O.C.’s younger population also participated. Cadle says its essential that everyone benefits from the programme because once the inmates are released they will have to deal with the challenges of life…including becoming a parent.
Kevin Cadle
“One of the main situations that we realise in our country is that children are having children and therefore we need to try and work with that situation, so that we could prepare them that when they go outside into society they could be better parents.”
NOPCA’s Parenting Co-ordinator, Michelle Pineda, says she was impressed by the inmates participation, but admits that it will not be easy for some of the inmates to live up to expectations.
Michelle Pineda
“They are prepared now actually to go out. We know that they are away from their families for along time and just to go back in their and play their role will be kind of difficult after so long, so we try to work with them and go through a process with them so that when they go out, them they could just basically get back in eventually to play their role.”
Wallace Julian Cayetano
“Well, its going to be like equipped for a war, cause you will have the knowledge, the know-how to get around certain problems that would have burst our minds without the programme.”
Today the inmates received their certificates after successfully completing the course. But as any parent can tell you, earning a piece of paper is a lot easier than earning the love and respect of your children. Jacqueline Woods reporting for News 5.
The programme started last year and NOPCA plans to continue it.
