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Last Updated: Feb 6, 2017 - 2:32:04 PM |
Minister of National Security, Dr. the Hon. Bernard J. Nottage addresses the opening session of the two-day School-Based Policing Initiative Workshop which opened Wednesday at the Paul H. Farquharson Centre, Police Headquarters. The workshop will provide school principals and administrators and school security officers with a clearly defined set of rules they are to follow in executing their respective roles as part of the Initiative which returns police officers to the public schools during the 2012-2013 public school year. (BIS Photo/Patrick Hanna)
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NASSAU, The Bahamas --- The re-introduction of the School-Based Policing Initiative for the upcoming public school year represents the Government of The Bahamas’ commitment to counter the “alarming and unacceptable levels” of violence in Bahamian schools by providing safe school havens for young Bahamian children.
“This violence includes, but is not limited to, instances of the sale and abuse of drugs, truancy, bullying, vandalism, assault, gang activities and the use of weapons,” Minister of National Security, Dr. the Hon. Bernard J. Nottage said.
Dr. Nottage said the Initiative will reintroduce trained police officers onto pubic school campuses to assist school administrators, teachers and security offices in maintaining a safe school environment.
The School-Based Police Officer’s role will be to enforce all laws of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas in respect of crimes committed on school property; to make schools, on and off campuses, crime free, zero tolerance zones and to establish and maintain close and open relationships with school administrators, security and students to collaborate on common goals.
“Through their collaborative efforts, preventative mediations will be embarked upon to identify and prevent planned and random acts of violence and to intervene and lend support to students at-risk of, or already engaged in, violent and anti-social behaviour,” Dr. Nottage said.
“This collaboration will properly underscore and seek to institute the consistent protocols inherent in establishing a harmonious and safe framework where all stakeholders work in tandem to achieve common goals,” Dr. Nottage added.
The National Security Minister said his ministry is committed to the Government’s mandate to introduce a sustainable national crime agenda that will reduce and control crime throughout The Bahamas.
“The re-introduction of the School-Based Police Initiative is in keeping with the broader national vision and the more parochial educational vision to create safety in one of the pertinent institutions of society – the school,” Dr. Nottage said.
“Additionally, through the implementation of safe school policing initiative, the partnership between the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and the Ministry of National Security, has been strengthened. It is our shared vision that the schools and wider community be transformed, and order and safety restored,” Dr. Nottage added.
Dr. Nottage said the Initiative will allow school students to interact with members of the Royal Bahamas Police Force in a “positive and sustainable continuum of activities and experiences” that would allow the myth of viewing police officers as adversaries to be “proactively dispelled.”
School-Based Police Officers, he said, will join efforts with teachers and administrators in providing an educational forum for the dissemination of information and training opportunities that should result in steering youth from destructive and immoral choices or influences.
“The benefits of such a partnership are not limited or exclusive to the school environment of students, teachers and administrators,” Dr. Nottage said. “The benefits will directly impact the home, inclusive of parents and/or guardians, the wider community and by extension, the nation.
“When students assume their rightful roles within society, free of violence and pessimism, order is established, and this augurs well for the individual, the home, the school and the society. Conversely, when students adopt negative and violent behaviours, the school and nation are negatively impacted.
“The re-introduction of the School-Based Policing Initiative will ensure that the latter does not occur,” Dr. Nottage added.
Two-day forum on School-Based Policing Initiative opens with fanfare
By Matt Maura
Bahamas Information Services
NASSAU, The Bahamas
--- It will take the “collective responsibility” of school
administrators, police officers and school security officers to ensure
that Bahamian schools are safe halls of learning that are devoid of
“criminal impediments and influences,” Minister of National Security Dr.
the Hon. Bernard J. Nottage said August 29.
Addressing
the Opening Session of a two-day School-Based Policing Workshop at the
Paul H. Farquharson Conference Centre, Police Headquarters, Dr. Nottage
said this goal can only be achieved through “direct collaboration”
involving administrators, teachers, security officers, guidance
counsellors, Special Education Services and the Ministries of Education,
Science and Technology and the Ministry of National Security “and other
requisite agencies.”
School
administrators, police officers, guidance counsellors, educators,
school security officers, et al, gathered at the Paul Farquharson
Conference Centre for what is expected to be two days of intense
training in the roles each group is expected to play in the School-Based
Policing Initiative, ahead of the opening of the 2012-2013 public
school year.
“The
collective response of all will be to safeguard the safety of those
within the school environment; to develop and maintain those protocols
that undergird the schools through monitoring, training, dissemination
of information and always being a visible and available presence,” Dr.
Nottage said.
“It
is expected that the re-introduction of the School-Based Policing will
be a resounding success in our schools – the effects of which will be
realised throughout our nation - through the committed and sustained
efforts of school administrators, police officers and security
officers,” Dr. Nottage added.
Ministry
of National Security and Ministry of Education, Science and Technology
officials said the role of each group has been clearly defined and will
be in compliance with the Rights of the Child and the adult as outlined
in the Constitution of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, the Education
Act, the Safe School Manual and the Bargaining Agreement with the
Bahamas Union of Teachers (BUT).
The
role of school principals and their administrative teams will be to
superintend the general safety of all persons on school campuses;
enforce school rules and policies to ultimately create a safe climate
where excellence flourishes and to liaise with school security and
police officers to effect proactive safety protocols.
School
Security Officers will “act under the direct purview of the school’s
administrative team” and will be responsible for bolstering entrance and
exit points and the use of preventative measures to secure campuses.
The
School-Based Police Officers, on the other hand, will be responsible
for enforcing all laws of the Commonwealth in respect to crimes
committed on school property; to make the schools – on and off campus –
crime free and zero tolerance zones and to establish and maintain close
and open relationships with school administrators, security and students
to “collaborate on common goals.” The School-Based Police Officer will
also work in collaboration with the school's administrative team.
“It
is the collective mandate of all school administrators, security
officers and police officers to ensure that safety, respect, excellence
and cooperation become the by-words within our schools,” Dr. Nottage
said.
“When
students assume their rightful roles within society, free of violence
and pessimism, order is established and this augurs well for the
individual, the home, the schools and the society,” Dr. Nottage
continued.
“Conversely,
when students adopt negative and violent behaviours, the school and the
nation are negatively impacted, hence the Government’s proactive
adoption of the School-Based Policing Initiative,” Dr. Nottage added.
The
workshop will cover key issues such as Understanding School-Based
Policing and Standard Operational Procedures: The Role and Function of
the School Police, facilitated by Assistant Commissioners of Police Mr.
Hulan Hanna and Mr. Leon Bethel; School-Based Policing and the Role of
the Security Officer; The Roles and Expectations of Administrators
Understanding Children and Adolescents’ Development and Behaviours and
Behavioural and Conflict Management among others
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