LA TRINIDAD, Benguet – Governor Crecencio Pacalso heartened the 432 participants of the 2-day training-workshop on the management, referral system and crafting of community based intervention program for Children in Conflict with the Law (CICL) conducted at Supreme Hotel, Baguio City on October 4-5, to help every CICL in their own barangays because there remains a hopeful life ahead for them despite having gone astray at one point in their youthful lives.
The trainee were members of the Barangay Council for the Protection of Children (BCPC), school guidance counselors and designates, Municipal Social Welfare Officers (MSWO) and women and children protection desk officers from the towns of Atok, Bokod, Buguias, Itogon, Kapangan and La Trinidad. The other municipalities will avail of the same training-workshop on October 18-19.
With the provisions of RA 10630 amending RA 9344 requiring local government units, especially at the barangay level through its BCPC, to formulate a doable community-based intervention and diversion programs for CICLs as legal basis, said training-workshop was conceptualised by Juana Bannawe, Provincial Social Welfare and Development Officer (PSWDO), in 2015 and now on its 3rd year of implementation.
Atty. Juliet Camuyot from the Public Attorney’s Office enlightened the participants on the salient features of RA 10630, initial contact with the CICL, conduct of diversion proceedings and on the local juvenile intervention program. The referral system of CICL cases was discussed by Nora Jacinto, social welfare officer DSWD-CAR while Atty. Ruth Bawayan, clerk of court of the Regional Trial Court in Baguio City talked on court diversion program and its implementation at the community. Group workshops along with presentation of outputs on crafted community based intervention and diversion programs on given real life situations widened the knowledge and awareness of the trainees on their roles on CICL cases.
School guidance counselors, Brenda Matias, Catalina Baltazar and Ursula Dalay-on, from the district of Kapangan, Itogon and La Trinidad, respectively, shared the same thoughts. “It is very fulfilling because they are already involving us, guidance counselors, in the BCPC and in trainings like this. CICLs truly need a series of in-depth counseling sessions because it is an effective avenue to explore their unresolved inner conflicts and to ascertain the potential root cause of their involvement in crimes at a young age and from which suitable intervention program is provided” they said.
By Ursula M. Dalay-on
