Juvenile Justice Officer to help professionalize NOC

The Ministry of Education, Department of Youth, is taking steps to professionalise the New Opportunity Corps (NOC). To start the process, the services of a juvenile justice officer from the United States of America will be utilized.

Assistant Director of Youth, Leslyn Boyce, in an interview with the Government Information Agency (GINA) said that the juvenile justice officer will be spending three months in Guyana doing a rapid assessment of the NOC and make recommendations on the way forward.

According to Boyce, the services of the officer were acquired through collaboration with the Ministry of Education and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

Boyce said that the Ministry of Education is taking steps to integrate the psychologist who was attached to the Skills and Knowledge for Youth Employment (SKYE) programme to work along with the juvenile officer.

“We want to professionalize NOC and in doing that, we need to have the right group of persons with the right skill set who understand the system, who understand how to more or less manage these young people,” Boyce said

In an interview with GINA in September 2016, Minister within the Ministry of Education, Nicolette Henry had said that in 2017 there will be capacity building for staff attached to the NOC. She said that the intention is to ensure that the NOC serves its mandate of being a corrective and rehabilitative institution.

Source:http://gina.gov.gy/