23rd April, 2018
The Lagos State Government has said that all care-givers operating in the State must be appropriately trained on how to handle children and also care for the elderly, stressing that training certification would henceforth be one of the pre-requisites to operate children or elderly caring centres in the State.
The Commissioner for Youth and Social Development, Mr. Agboola Dabiri made this known on Monday at a briefing ahead of 3-Day Foundational Training on Professional Childcare organized by the Ministry in conjunction with Nanny Centre, operated by a certified member of International Nanny Association and a registered vocational trainer.
He said that the training programme would cover Social Workers, Nannies and other relevant stakeholders involved in caring for babies and the elderly.
The Commissioner explained that participants would be trained on child development and creativity, health and safety, child nutrition, child care and house hold management, child protection and upbringing, pre-requisites for registering crèches and Day care centres in Lagos State, among others.
Agboola said that the ministry would use the opportunity of the training to collate the data of all caregivers operating in the State with a view to regularize their operations and make them comply with acceptable standards across the globe.
“What the State Government is saying is that it is unprofessional for anybody to just wake up and become a self-acclaimed care giver overnight without having the requisite knowledge of what the profession entails or without the needed training.”
“Long times before now, the job of care-givers have been under-rated unlike other professions like teaching, accounting and others and this wrong notion is responsible for the various delinquencies we see in some of our children.” Agboola reiterated.
He added that it is high time care-givers be accorded their due recognition considering the fact that, nannies, crèches and day care centres form the formative stages for child development.
According to him , in a cosmopolitan State like Lagos where the daily engagement of parents sometimes compel them to engage the services of child giver, the state government would do everything within its power to ensure that the practices of all caregivers in the State comply with what is obtainable in other developed climes.
He said that the State Government was interested in gathering relevant data about care givers to determine their suitability to take up care-giving profession considering the health and safety issues that little children are susceptible to
He urged interested stakeholders to obtain a participation form the Ministry of from the training centres at Beko Ransom Kuti, Youth Centre, Anthony and Sam Shonibare Youth Centre, Surulere.