Senator: Does Trinidad and Tobago have child trauma counsellors?

AMID promises of government help, it remained unclear whether specialist counselling would be provided to the four-year-old girl who witnessed the brutal killing of her father, prison officer Nigel Jones, in broad daylight in the heart of Siparia, after an urgent question in the Senate on Tuesday.

The nation was shocked at video footage posted on social media showing the shocking murder by a gunman emerging from a car that pulled up as Jones held hands with his daughter to cross the road. The shocked child was left to run up and down frantically in a blind panic near the busy road before taken in hand by a kindly passer-by.

Opposition Senator Jayanti Lutchmedial asked what interventions would be provided to assist the child in managing the resulting trauma.

Minister of Social Development and Family Services Donna Cox replied that her ministry's Family Services Division would work with the Children's Authority and the police Victim and Witness Support Unit to provide the necessary counselling to the family and the child.

"This, of course, is indeed a traumatic event in the life of any family, and the child in particular, and grief counselling is absolutely necessary."

She said she would be part of a team from the Family Services Division to visit the family on Tuesday to offer further assistance. Cox's ministry had earlier sent out a media release to that effect, but later said the visit had been postponed.

Lutchmedial, in a supplemental question, asked if the ministry had child grief counsellors or child trauma counsellors on its staff.

Cox replied, "Actually at this point anything, any information, any situation with regard to children, is now under the Ministry of Gender and Child Affairs' Children's Authority."

Lutchmedial asked if private providers has ever been used to provide counselling to traumatised children, but Senate Vice President Nigel de Freitas said time had expired for supplemental questions.