Agency for the Protection of Children and Youngsters at Risk Monitors Commissions in the Azores
The Regional Secretary for Labour and Social Solidarity announced today that the Agency for the Protection and Development of Children and Youngsters at Risk, created in the previous legislature, will monitor and accompany the activities of the Commission for the Protection of Children and Youngsters at Risk (CPCJ) in the Azores.
At the opening session of the 10th Forum on Children, which took place in Vila Franca do Campo, Ana Paula Marques said that this new entity will operate as a family and children at risk observatory, thus contributing to the interconnection of the whole social and community intervention system and to support the Regional coordination of the CPCJs, as well as to the creation of the ombudsperson for the Children at Risk.
According to the Secretary, the ombudsperson for Children at Risk will become a “keystone regarding the defence of the rights of children and youngsters at risk, mainly those in foster care, encouraging their reinsertion in family life.”
In turn, the Secretary stated that the activity of the Early Screening Programme in every unit for Childhood support (day nurseries, nannies and kindergartens), addressed at children with special educational needs, or at risk at a development, educational and health level, made possible the screening of approximately 40 cases in 2008.
Ana Paula Marques emphasised the Government’s dedication in the resolution of social issues stating that all measures envisaged in the strategy and the Regional Intervention Programme, addressed at families and children at risk, are based on a “strong commitment in terms of the achievement of integrated, diversified, combined and organised responses, and on the investment in technical resources and specialised research and training.”