A family-celebration event to promote improvement of parenting skills within the community was well attended by Bodden Town residents on Monday.
Put on by the National Parenting Programme of the Cayman Islands, the event promoted responsible parenting and child safety.
Held on the beach behind the Texaco station, attendees heard about the parenting programme from NPP chairperson Debbie Webb.
‘Our overall focus is promoting responsible parenting with one team in each district,’ she said. ‘Instead of starting with workshops in each district we are doing community outreach and awareness family fun days to introduce the community to the programme.’
The Bodden Town community-based parent-support team seeks to develop a strong community approach and collaborative working relationship with parents, guardians, churches, schools, health clinics and active community groups on a continuous basis.
During the day a number of child-safety topics were presented.
Cancer Society volunteers spoke on children and sun safety; the Cayman Islands Red Cross presented a talk on children and hurricane preparedness; the police on road safety, neighbourhood watch and D.A.R.E. programmes; and the Fire Department on fire safety.
At the event, youngsters and adults enjoyed home-cooked food, cotton candy and snow cones along with swimming in the sea and lots of prizes and surprises.
Ms Webb said the expected role of the community-based parent-support team was to have resource persons within each district in the community. The team would identify the critical services that are provided within the district to address the needs of children and their parents, identify the type of services that should be available to parents and assist in organizing and supporting parent-support groups to ensure continued support.
Each district will have a national parenting representative, who would either be a community police officer, church leader, school principal and PTA active community leader, active community member or staff of the health clinic.
For more information on the National Parenting Programme, contact Ms Webb at 949-0290.
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