Several activities have been held in commemoration of International Women’s Day, which was observed on March 8th under the local theme “Women in Leadership, Achieving an Equal Future in a COVID-19 World”.
Youth at the New Horizons Juvenile Rehabilitation Centre (NHRC) are improving their anger-management skills through a ten (10) week workshop on Aggression Replacement Training, or A.R.T.
A.R.T is a skills-training programme that uses cognitive behavioural techniques to help individuals reduce violent and aggressive behaviour and improve conflict-resolution and pro-social skills. Geared towards adolescents, the programme covers three segments, Social Skills Training, Anger Control training, and Moral Reasoning.
The workshop began on Tuesday, January 26th and will run to early April, with three one-hour sessions per week. It will be facilitated jointly by Counsellor Ms. Zahra Jacobs, Case Manager Ms. Patrice Carey, and House Parent Mr. Cuthbert Browne, who all received training on A.R.T techniques from the OECS Juvenile Justice Rehabilitation Programme in 2015.
According to Ms. Jacobs, “Each week focuses on a different skill, technique or situation. The sessions incorporate active discussion, modelling of the new skills by the facilitators, practicing of skills by each participant and homework where participants have to report how they put the skill into use since the previous session” she explained.
“There are seven residents signed up for the workshop, and six (6) more have expressed interest in repeating the course. Feedback in the past was generally positive” she said. “Participants were responsive in sessions and tried to implement the skills when they could”.
This is the fourth time that the group will be held at the New Horizons Juvenile Rehabilitation Centre. It is hoped that the youth attendees will be able to apply their newly found anger-management and interpersonal skills when they eventually depart the Centre and transition back into the community, at the end of their residential period.
End Of Release February 9th, 2021