EXCLUSIVE: Foot targeting overseas training for local PO
This he told Virgin Islands News Online in a recent exclusive interview when he highlighted a number of issues and projections. He said that the loss of Mr Richard D. Holder, now deceased, has had a tremendous effect on the staff at HMP.
“It’s historically been a difficult place and I think that there is a need for me now to look to the future and put some management development programmes in place and to empower people to have the authority to do their jobs to the best of their ability,” said Superintendent Foot, who took up the post in December 2013.
This according to Foot has resulted in him pressing hard on the challenge put to him by Minister for Education and Culture Honourable Myron V. Walwyn, that of succession planning. “I have taken a long look at the management team and it’s going to take a full six months … because I have got to make a considered opinion… but we will put full development plans in place for each of the existing management teams.”
One such move was to start setting the foundation to have local Prison Officers get professional international training; something he said is likely before the end of this year as he has already spoken with the Foreign and Commonwealth office in Miami, Florida, USA. He said they have offered monies for the putting together of an intensive development scheme for HMP.
While he would not speak to the extent of the funding Superintendent Foot was confident that they will be financing some training courses especially for junior officers. “They are some quite impressive BVIslanders in the junior ranks and in the middle ranks and we will look as fairly as we can because we have to give opportunity to everybody who works there," he said, indicating that some specific individuals will be identified to move into the middle management positions.
He said that other officers, not just BVIslanders, also stand to benefit from the targeted international professional training. “I have got a fair idea of the candidates and the staff that I am going to send but I have to do a proper interview and recruitment process to make sure that everything is fair and transparent,” Mr Foot noted.
“One of the things I know about prisons is that it will go wrong at some point, that’s the nature of prisons but what we’ve got to do is to make sure we’ve got the training, that we’ve got the knowledge and the skills and the systems in place to deal with things when they go wrong.”
Further discussion on the funding for the international training for the officers is set for June 2014 according to Foot. He said that the training will also provide the opportunity for the officers to meeting and interact with others from other Caribbean countries and further afield.
“But that would be in the next financial year that this process would start,” he said. As to how many persons would get on the programme Mr Foot said, “That depends on how much money I can get for it, but as many as I can.”
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