A DIGITAL STRATEGY

 A TECHNOLOGY PLAN

A technology plan supports and facilitates learning using instructional technology to ensure that all learners are provided access, opportunity and resources to develop into responsible users, consumers, and producers of technology. It addresses the current technology status, organizational vision/goal and equity status.

A DIGITAL STRATEGY

The main purpose of defining a digital strategy is to offer a plan of how an institution will use the technology to engage staff and students with the tools and platforms required to support this activity. A digital strategy, therefore, provides a sense of direction and stability.  It helps to create a foundation for ensuring growth and success as it   focuses on how you will achieve specific initiatives to develop your plan. It answers questions such as:

ü  What are my current capabilities, values, mission and vision?

ü  What are my goals, and what should I do to achieve them?

ü  Who does what, how and by when to get where I want to go?

(A video that exemplifies what a digital strategy does)

BRIEF HISTORY OF THE EDNA NICHOLLS CENTRE

Nestled in a hilly section of Boscobelle, St Peter, Edna Nicholls Centre (ENC), an Out-of-School Suspension Programme was established in 1998. It was one of the major reform initiatives in the White Paper (1995) published by the Government of Barbados that dealt with the question of children-at-risk. The ENC was the Ministry of Education’s commitment to provide more human resources to deal with children with learning and emotional needs since failure to respond could lead to deviant behaviour and suspension or expulsion from school. Some of the common causes or suspensions at that time were fighting, damaging school property, and assaulting or threatening teachers. Other causes included extreme violation of school rules, violent and angry outbursts, gross insubordination, and disregard for authority. Especially at the secondary level, there had been an increasing number of students whose behaviour threatened the lives of those within the institution. Various methods to curb the situation were tried, including expulsion, but the latter raised the issue of the legal requirement that all children must attend school up to sixteen years.

Designed to address unacceptable behaviour of students participating in the programme, by instilling positive values and beliefs, the staff at the ENC, through rehabilitative programmes that use individual and group counselling as the main forms of intervention, counsel students, in person, within a ten-day period (the maximum length of a suspension) away from their respective schools. Staff build on students’ strengths and provide them with the necessary life skills that would prepare them for successful reintegration into the school system.

The staff complement comprises ten persons, seven of whom form the teaching staff with the remaining three making up the ancillary staff.  The teaching staff, whose background lies in the fields of psychology, counselling, and social work, is ably assisted by a psychiatrist, a psychologist, and several agencies mainly the National Council on Substance Abuse (NCSA), Barbados Family Planning Association (BFPA), the Probation Department, the Juvenile Liaison Scheme (JLS), Drug Education & Counselling Services (DECS), and the Barbados Reference Lab. At the end of the suspension, the students return to their respective schools with the tools to continue the process of behaviour modification. Reports with recommendations are sent to the schools on students’ departure.

Referrals for students to enter the programme can come from any of the secondary schools in the island. Parental/Guardian involvement is compulsory at the time of enrolment and continues once referrals are made for the student to attend other agencies, as well as through an annual workshop that provides ongoing family support. With only two counsellors on staff, the maximum of twenty students receiving counselling at a time is determined by the ratio of ten students to a counsellor. Throughout the years enrollment at ENC ranged anywhere between 150 – 210 students. That changed drastically during the COVID 19 pandemic when schools were online. The Achilles heel was exposed as failure to use the limited technology efficiently and effectively, rendered the institution inoperable.

NEXT: CLEAR-CUT CASE FOR DIGITAL STRATEGY