The Hague- State Secretary Paul Blokhuis of Public health, Welfare and Sport has informed the Second Chamber in writing about his decision to make more money available for youth care in Saba. The information is not new, as Blokhuis in a press conference during his visit to St. Eustatius and Saba, had already mentioned his intentions to make extra money available for this goal.

“Saba has invested heavily in the social domain over the past few years and has also set up a service for this. I think this is a positive move and I like to contribute to that. It has been agreed that Saba will do more in the coming two years to prevent children and vulnerable families from getting into trouble because help is provided too late. Signaling early and finding a solution together is the device”, according to Blokhuis in his letter to Dutch Parliament.

In order to achieve this, Saba will receive $125,000 per year over the next two years – a total of $ 250,000 – to hire two extra employees to work with preventative youth care. Blokhuis also mentiones that it is his intention to continue this pilot after two years, if it goes well.

Blokhuis mentiones that Youth Care and Family Guardianship Caribbean Netherlands (JGCN) will continue to carry out the more specialized youth duties on Saba.

“With the Executive Council, we have once again underlined that the public entity and JGCN will continue to cooperate intensively to ensure that every child on Saba receives the care it deserves and that no child is left behind. This also includes that I intend to transfer the responsibility for Child Focus’s after-school activities and associated resources to the Public Entity Saba (OLS). The Public Entity and Child Focus are discussing an agreement to this extent”, according to the letter written by Blokhuis.