Social Development Minister Cherrie-Ann Crichlow-Cockburn says ministries are rallying to assist indiscipline students in schools.
She was speaking yesterday at the ministry’s Sowing Empowerment through Entrepreneurial Development (SEED) Programme at the Bureau of Standards, Macoya.
She was commenting in light of the recent planned gun attack at the Chaguanas North Secondary School last week Friday.
Crichlow-Cockburn said her ministry was willing to counsel deviant students who were manifesting behaviour of indiscipline in schools.
She added: “Violence in any form is a concern for all of us in society and when it begins manifesting itself in the schools and among children it is of greater concern.
“Our Family Service Unit provides counselling for families and we are also working very closely to treat with the children’s issues. It is a partnership.
“We will have different ministries coming up with the initiative to treat with that situation. Under family services we have counsellors, we have psychiatrists, we have trained social workers that can go out if the families can’t come to us,” she said.
Crichlow-Cockburn said the Ministry of Education also had a unit to deal with counselling for families.
“They can walk off the street and sit with a counsellor and when the problem is identified we can get a counsellor to suit their needs,” she noted.
She said the ministry was seeking to do some outreach general programmes to assist.
“What they are doing may not be in their best interest and we can let them be aware that this is in their best interest.
“They are children who need assistance. They are not monsters,” she said.