Minister for Care opens inaugural meeting of renewed Child Protection Committee

THE Gibraltar Minister for Health, Care and Justice, the Hon. Neil F Costa MP, met for the first time with the newly restructured executive Child Protection Committee which was created under the Children Act 2009.

The purpose of the committee is to bring together key agencies, such as the Care Agency, the Royal Gibraltar Police, Probation Services, Youth Services, the Gibraltar Health Authority, the Department of Education, and others, to ensure that local safeguarding arrangements and child protection procedures are effective.

In this meeting, Minister Costa highlighted the responsibilities of the committee, among them, coordinating with the relevant organisations on how they should best work together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people and ensuring that they provide an effective service.

He also raised that the Committee will be responsible for the training of all professionals working and analysing trends in children’s safeguarding issues in order to advise the government on the development of appropriate services and resources.